Check out the guest blog today from Catherine Cawthorne about using Oh No, Flo and some other funny picture books with young readers!
Can you remember….? Using Oh No, Flo! and other picture books for following and recalling instructions
At one point, I had three children under 5 years old. Trying to get them all ready to leave the house was an absolute nightmare! (And the baby always did a poo just as we were finally ready to go.) How many times could you possibly need to ask someone to put on their coat? Or make sure they’d had a wee? It seems that following instructions, particularly under pressure, isn’t something many young children naturally take to. Especially if there’s an interesting piece of fluff or a long-dead spider or something equally fascinating to distract them from the task at hand.
It’s even worse if you’re trying to get a task done quickly and then a young child offers to “help” you. You feel you have to accept the help, because you should be positively reinforcing their kindness, but on the other hand you know it will (a) take about 5 hours longer and (b) you’ll probably have to redo it all afterwards! I remember my 2 year-old daughter once offering to “write” the shopping list for me. In my sleep-deprived state, I accepted!!! I then ended up wandering around Sainsbury’s with a piece of paper with scribbles all over it, pretending that I was reading it, and frantically trying to remember what we actually needed!
Oh No, Flo! is about a very well-meaning sheepdog who has decided she will “help” Farmer whilst she is ill by doing all the jobs on the farm. What could possibly go wrong?! But Flo doesn’t know what jobs to do, so the other animals give her a list of instructions:
Moo! Milk the cow!
Oink! Feed the pig!
Honk! Sow the corn!
Neigh! Brush the horse!
Slither! Water the cabbages!
Boing! Pull up the carrots!
Baa! Shear the sheep!
Cluck cluck! Collect the eggs!
Miaow! Stroke the cat!
But, inevitably, poor Flo doesn’t remember the instructions very well and muddles them up. She sows the sheep. She milks the pig. She shears the poor cat. She creates absolute carnage. And she is oblivious to it all.
I love reading this book aloud. Each time Flo muddles up a task, there is an opportunity to try to remember what it should have been. When Flo tries to collect the geese, can anyone remember who or what should she be collecting? Each instruction the animals give her is an action + noun. Can children match the action words to the nouns?
Here are some other classic picture books with instructions or with a set of actions to remember. These could be used in a similar way, either to think about instructions or to listen to and then recall a list in the correct order:
1. How to Wash A Woolly Mammoth by Michelle Robinson and Kate Hindley – This includes a funny list of chronological, step-by-step instructions of how to wash your pet woolly mammoth in the bath. Just what you’ve always needed!
2. If You Give A Moose A Muffin by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond – I remember laughing at this book when I was a child. It’s a funny, circular book that starts and ends with giving a moose a muffin! There are a set of steps that happen and take us full circle back to the beginning, ready to start all over again.
3. We’re Going On A Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury – As we go through this classic book we build up a list of nouns plus noise (grass – swishy swashy, river– splish splash) and then have to remember them all backwards as the family run home away from the bear. Can you remember it all in the right order?
Oh No, Flo! by Catherine Cawthorne, illustrated by Mike Byrne, published 27th March 2025 by Templar Books, paperback
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.
