“Flyaway Katie is about the ability we all have to change our mood and make ourselves feel happier. All you need is a bit of creativity and a lick of Paint!”
Author and Illustrator, Polly Dunbar
To check out the book, or purchase a copy, click on the image above
This gem of a book with its gorgeous illustrations is a fantastic resource for exploring feelings and how to manage them. It links colour beautifully with emotions as Katie transforms from feeling grey and all alone to flittery, fluttery, flighty and fizzling when she puts on her favourite clothes and paints herself in bright colours.
Let the magic begin … 
Ideas
Flyaway Follow – Along
Children love listening to the story while looking at the pictures. To really engage them, develop their listening skills and involve them with the storytelling try using story element cards. TTT has created cards with the colours, body parts and clothes from the story. Children can hold up their card when they hear it mentioned in the story. This is a great way to introduce unfamiliar vocabulary and the cards can be used as a classroom resource or part of a display afterwards. Colouring an outline of Katie after the story or during a reread reinforces the vocabulary. You can get this resource here https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/flyaway-katie-follow-along-12168466
Flyaway Feelings
Feelings can be overwhelming for young children. If you ask them to identify feelings they generally respond with happy and sad. This book can help them to identify and describe a wider range of emotions, for example, Katie is feeling bored and lonely at the start of the story. The way it visually links feelings to colours and through the fizzing patterns is also helpful. The story leads to discussion on how we can change our moods, supporting children with learning to manage their emotions. Through sharing the colours and clothes that make them happy in circle time activities children can learn that we like different things and get to know each other better. A great way to explore this further is to create a self portrait in the style of Flyaway Katie. Resources for these activities can be found here https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/flyaway-feelings-self-portraits-12168474
Flyaway Creations
The colourful bird picture inspires Katie to have her magical adventure to change her mood. It is also fantastic inspiration for children to create their own art work. They could decorate birds to recreate the picture using colouring pencils, markers, paint, or collage, (see the butterfly below for detailed pattern work idea). Polly Dunbar created a beautiful bird mural with students in Singapore. http://www.pollydunbar.com/flyaway-katie.html
The fizzling patterns from the story can be recreated using a variety of brushes and texture stampers, stencils and cut out shapes. While some children will enjoy creating detailed patterns on birds, others will love the more messy approach of going outside, putting on a rain poncho and splattering the colours! A pattern like this on a large sheet/roll of paper would make a great background to display self portraits or birds. Ideas and templates for these creations are available at https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/flyaway-creations-12168480 Or, save and get all three Flyaway resources as bundle: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/flyaway-bundle-12171903
Links
You can create fizzling patterns with found objects around the home or class, but there can be great deals online. For example, at the the time of writing, the 42 piece set above is only £7.49.
Other Flyaway Ideas
http://cath-beautiful-life.blogspot.com/2011/10/flyaway-katie-unit.html
Children having fun painting themselves and lovely idea for creating birds and using pegs to display them.
I’d love to hear your Flyaway Katie ideas, please share in the comments or email me fiona@teacherstellingtales.com