“Father Christmas Needs a Wee!” is a seasonal picture book that will definitely appeal to younger pupils. It tells the story of how Father Christmas has been indulging in drinks and treats at all of the houses that he has visited. Unfortunately, then nature calls and he needs a wee! What is he to do?

This picture book has many applications in the classroom. Firstly, the story is mostly told in rhyming couplets so you could do some work on rhyming words based on some of the rhyming words in the book.

There’s also a great opportunity to integrate some numeracy work with this book as it focuses on a street of houses numbered 1 – 10. You could get pupils to match numbers to what Father Christmas ate in each house. Pupils could also be asked to put the houses in numerical order. There are lots of opportunities to get pupils to count items on many of the pages.

There’s lots of opportunities with this book too to engage in a range of oral language talk and discussion about topics such as food and drink, prediction about what will happen next and how children felt when they saw what Santa had left for them.

This seasonal picture book would be a great addition to any junior classroom where pupils would appreciate Father Christmas’s dilemma!

“Father Christmas Needs a Wee!” written and illustrated by Nicholas Allan, is published by Red Fox, an Imprint of Random House Publishers.