Main task
Discuss the ingredients that Princess Pearl needed to cure the King. Ask your child if we would be able to find these ingredients in real life? Stress the fact that these ingredients aren’t used in real medicines, and that they are made up for the story.
Display Resource Sheet 1: Interesting ingredients to your child (either onscreen or printed out). Ask them to think of ingredients that Princess Pearl could gather from each of the mythical creatures, for instance the horn of a unicorn, or hair from its mane or tail. From a dragon they might collect dragon’s breath, dragon skin, dragon scales, or dragon horn. Help your child write down these ideas, or write for them if they need further support so they have a record of their suggestions.
Look back at the story again to find where Princess Pearl makes the medicine. She grates up the horn and cheese and we see a picture of her mixing the ingredients together. Explain that your child can use Resource Sheet 2: Princess Pearl’s amazing medicine to write their own instructions to make a potion like Princess Pearl’s. Using the ideas you have written down, your child should write their list of ingredients followed by some simple instructional sentences to explain what to do with them.
Encourage your child to say each idea out loud before writing down on the sheet. Examples include:
One hair from a unicorn’s tail Three dragon scales
A wizard’s cough
An eyelash from a brown rat
One hair from a unicorn’s tail Three dragon scales
A wizard’s cough
An eyelash from a brown rat
Once your child has written their instructions for an amazing medicine, they can use Resource Sheet 3: Bottled up to showcase their creation. To complete their design, your child can write what ailment their medicine will cure on the label.
