There’s a Tiger in the Garden                                                

 

Lizzy Stewart
Frances Lincoln
Age 5-7

Nora is bored. Grandma suggests she should go into the garden, she might see dragonflies, a grumpy polar bear or even a tiger there! Nora is very sceptical about this idea but goes into the garden anyway. In no time at all she finds Grandma is right, even about the tiger! But is it real?

This is an enjoyable story which shows the fun you can have if you use your imagination. It may lead to speculation about the tiger and polar bear and where they came from, or perhaps imagining what other amazing creatures might be in your own garden or nearby park.

Watch the story on CBeebies read by Tom Hardy

Share the story

Read aloud
Read the story aloud to your child pausing to talk about what is happening and enjoy the illustrations when your child wants to.

Join in
There are lots of conversations in the story and these would be great to read together when your child is familiar with the story.  You could talk about reading the words in bold print in a louder voice.

Talk about the story
◼︎Choose a favourite page/scene and talk about them together
◼︎Talk about Nora’s feelings at different points in the story
◼︎Talk about whether Nora really saw the animals in the garden or imagined them.
◼︎Nora poses an interesting question – how can she tell she is real? Have a discussion about this.

Things to make and do

Play the story
If you have a garden hide some toy animals to be discovered by your child. If you don’t have a garden you could use a space at home, imagine it’s a garden and hide toys there. Explore together finding the toy animals and have imaginary conversations with them. You could choose the same creatures as the story or different ones.

Tell a story
Make up a story together about the polar bear or tiger. You could get this going by pretending you are either the tiger or polar bear and encourage your child to ask you questions eg where do you come from, How did you get here? Then take it in turns to tell the story of your chosen animal. If your child would like to they could write and illustrate the story in a mini book.

Paint or draw a picture
Paint or draw a colourful picture of Nora’s garden, with some of the creatures she discovers there.

Make collage dragonflies
Look back at the page with the colourful dragonflies. Count how many you can see and look at their different patterns.

Collect a few glossy magazines together tear out a few colourful pages and encourage your child to cut out wing shapes to stick on card adding bodies heads and antennae to create dragonflies. If you make several together you could cut out the insects and hang them on a coat hanger.  

Find out more

See our ideas for two other stories about tigers:

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

Tiger Walk by Dianne Hofmeyr and Jesse Hodgson

Read another picture book by Lizzy Stewart:

The Way to Treasure Island

Juniper Jupiter