Funnybones: Give the Dog a Bone

Product Information

A BBC video, entitled, Funnybones – Bumps in the Night (Cat. No. BBCV 4871), which contained all twelve episodes, was released soon after the series ended, but this is now out of print. The VHS tape was also released in Bulgaria and Australia, respectively by the companies Proxima Entertainment and ABC Video (but in the former case, it was dubbed into Bulgarian).

It is a particularly dark, dark night tonight, and Big and Little keep bumping into each other, making them fall to pieces, and there is only one thing to do: send in Dr. Bones, who does a great job of patching them up to stop them from bumping in the night. Little: The smaller skeleton brother (who was without a hat), but came up with many ideas for the crew to do in every episode. There are lots of examples of onomatopoeia in the story (e.g. woof, miaow, boo). Can you think of any more? Children and parents will love joining in with our collection of Funnybones-themed songs and rhymes. Funnybones, written by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, is a children's story about the adventures of a skeleton who loves to dance. The skeleton, named Funnybones, is determined to share his love of dancing with the world, but all of the other animals and people are too scared of him. In the end, Funnybones manages to show them all that it's okay to be different and that everyone can enjoy the same things, no matter what they look like. Funnybones Activity Ideas

Little gets bored with the quiet life on the dark, dark hill. So he decides to go to the city before he gets worried about Big and Dog getting lost. "There are too many skeletons" says the Big Skeleton in the city and even the underground has them. And with this atmosphere, any five year old will be completely enthralled by now. It even carries on in a way which reflects story books of old: The use of repetitive language and songs further add to the stories features and add a great amount of fun and laughter when the story is read aloud. Both the adults reading the text and children can join in with this. I feel that it cannot only be used as a literacy focus, but the story itself has scientific features. Children are able to extend their biological knowledge of the structure of the human skeleton. This will assist in enlarging their language vocabulary.

In the first ever Funnybones book, we are introduced to the wonderful humour and fun of the much-loved series. They live in a dark, dark cellar of a dark, dark house on a dark, dark hill and so the word repetition continues through this lighthearted story for early readers. The skeletons venture out of their cellar one night to find someone to scare, but everyone is in bed, so they amuse themselves by scaring each other and playing with the skeleton animals that live in the zoo. Teaching Ideas and Resources: English A special edition of this classic picture book to celebrate its 40th anniversary - with a glow-in-the-dark cover!Funny bones by Janet and Allan Ahlberg is one of my most favorite childhood books!! The book is about…”a big skeleton…a little skeleton…and a dog skeleton…” one night all three were bored in bed and decided to go outside to “scare somebody”. The story goes on, the skeletons walk past the houses on the street, and the shops, and past the zoo, and past the police station and finally go to the park where they look for someone to scare! This book also has many potential curriculum links to Science because of the theme of skeletons and bones. In the classroom, teachers could discuss the importance of skeletons and the names of important bones. Also, the reference to ‘dark’ and ‘night’ could prompt discussions and activities about light and dark sources. Similarly, how and why we get day and night could be explored in the classroom. With reference to Art, pupils could draw and label human/animal skeletons for a class display. Watch the animated series and explain which you prefer. There are lots of episodes available online. Here is one of them: