You Choose!

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Counting - make sets of things from the book (vehicles/clothes/animals) and play some counting games. Make a book - You Choose begins with 'Imagine you could have anything you wanted!' Collect the children's ideas about what they would choose if they could have anything they wanted and put their ideas in a book with photos and pictures. Homes - the book has pictures of different kinds of homes - talk with the children about the kind of home they live in. Look at the similarities and differences. Odd one out - Invite the children to make an interactive 'odd one out' display, using all sorts of groups of animals, with an odd one out. Use hoops, boxes and baskets to display the groups in. The children could have fun mixing up the groups and changing the odd one out.

Disco dancing - in the section on what you would choose to put in your house there is a glitter ball and a lava lamp. Try to get hold of these, put on some music and have a dance! Rhyming words and alliteration - have fun thinking of words that rhyme with choose (lose, snooze - include nonsense words). Try and think of words that begin with the same sound as something in the book - e.g. 'bed' - bus, banana, bear, bangle- are any of these things in the pictures in the book? There's also a recent addition, More Would You Rather, in which John imagined even more squeamish and delightful choices! If your child enjoys flip books...As always, we asked you to recommend your own favourites, or books you think fit the bill after You Choose- and boy, did you deliver! Here are just some of the ideas you came up with: Blowing bubbles - ask the children to help make big bubble wands out of wire and fill up some washing up bowls with bubble mixture and blow big bubbles outside. In most cases, you have the legal right to choose the hospital or service you'd like to go to. This includes private hospitals, as long as they provide NHS services.

You Choose" offers lots of starting points for learning and is the perfect book for following the children's lead in the activities you do. "You Choose" is the sort of book you could focus on for a week or two, followed by another couple of weeks on just one aspect of the book that the children really showed an interest in, like animals or transport. There is something in here for everyone -so go ahead and let them choose! Personal, Social and Emotional Development Which outfit? - there are lots of games available that involve putting together a head, body and legs in different ways to make up different outfits. I would wear... - get out the dressing up clothes and invite the children to choose what they would wear to a party. Take a photo of each child and make a book of them all dressed up, with captions: 'Jordan would wear a bear suit'. Why not try Dorothee de Monfriend's A Day With Dogs, Natasha Durley's Creature Features, Susan Steggall's The Life of a Caror Katie Abey's We Wear Pants?

The Illustrated Mum

Choosing a book - let the children experience choosing by giving them a choice of books at story time. Can they say why they want that book?

You may have more than one hospital or clinic to choose from. But the options will be the same if you book online or over the phone. In their different ways, all four books enable the reader to learn and spot a variety of types of thing, from daily activities to types of clothes and different kinds of vehicles. For older primary children... Make some hats - make simple cone shaped hats and let the children decorate them however they like, or give them the choice of transforming it into a clown's hat or a princess's.

The Suitcase Kid

And finally, if you just can't quitemove on from You Choose, how about just experiencing it differently? 'Just took my little one to see the Nonsense Room Productions stage show of this,' Nicola on Facebooksaid. 'She loved it - they really bring books to life. It's fab. Helps them want to read, too!' Sounds pretty good to us...

Choices - this book is all about choosing between things. Sometimes it can be quite hard to make up your mind. Do some circle times on choosing things. For example, have two toys that the children have to choose between and say why they chose the one they did. Follow the children's interests - there may be a part of the book the children show a particular interest in, such as animals or hats. The children could make some animal tails (fluffy bunny/stripy zebra/swishy horse/curly pig etc) for a 'guess whose tail this is?' display. Or they could decorate hats for a hanging display.

Looking for something different

Now accompanied by You Choose Your Dreams and You Choose in Space, there are even more amazing choices for preschool children. But if you feel like moving on, here are some suggestions - and we'd love to hear yours! If you feel like moving on to picture books... Emphasise choice in everyday situations - e.g. which colour apron would you like/would you like milk or water to drink/shall we read this book or this one? If you were hungry, which of the delicious-looking foods would you eat? Which of the jazzy clothing options will you choose? Where will you choose to live - a fairy castle, a windmill, the Taj Mahal? For me it’s a rollercoaster of emotions that I’m trying to manipulate the reader into’ - Alex Wheatle on fictional world building, creating new language and seeing yourself in a book