Teaching Tips: Hattie Peck by Emma Levey

Hello Bloggers!

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I've been buying lots of books today and as it's Easter time I thought it would be pretty good to add this little book to my collection. Hattie Peck cost me £1.49 at Sainsburys! Not bad at all and the children in my Reception class loved it. 

The story is about a chicken called Hattie who loves eggs. All she wants is an egg of her own so she leaves her coop to go on an adventure to collect all the abandoned eggs in the world. It's a really nice story because at a young age children are aware that chickens lay eggs and chicks hatch out of them. As a result of this errors and misconceptions can occur, e.g. that every animal that hatches from an egg is a chick. This is not true and this book shows that when Hattie collects all the eggs and they hatch there are a lot of different animals. It's nice to show children how many animals hatch from eggs and that they can grow to be a lot larger than chickens! 

When I got to the last page I just asked the children "What has happened?" and they all sat up and stared at the picture. They were confused. "They're not chickens!" It was nice to sit and chat about the different animals Hattie had found and where she'd collected their egg from. This definitely interested the children as some of these animals were quite large and seeing them come from an egg so small confused them. 

Overall, I think this is such a lovely book to share with children. The pictures are bright and colourful and the text is in different fonts and not written in straight lines. It's nice for children to be exposed to different fonts and not the usual boring child friendly font that they're used to seeing. If you're in Sainsburys and looking for a new book to pick up on the trip definitely pick this one up from the shelf!

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan 

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram

Moody Monday's Volume 11: Easter Holidays

Hello Bloggers!

Sorry I've been absent and posts have been patchy. Placement has definitely been full on, in a good way. It's nice to get stuck into this placement even though I'm not as familiar with Reception as I am with Years 1/2, but it's reassuring to know I have some fab mentors who are really giving me the best help and support. 

We've just broken up for Easter and I am so happy to get a well deserved break! My holiday won't be spent abroad or in the sun, however I will be spending my time planning for my placement and seeing my friends. 

It's not long till my birthday and I don't think it's sunk in that I'll be 20 soon. That makes me feel so old. I mean so much has happened in a year and I definitely need to mature a little! This will obviously help me when on placement as I'm really struggling to manage the class. I need to assert myself as a strong adult that the children listen to as I feel I'm sometimes 'too nice' and trusting that they run rings around me! To be honest I see a lot of this happen in my life as well so it doesn't surprise me that children do the same thing to me!

As a teacher I've also seen an increase in the amount of money I'm spending on books! I'm slowly building up a nice little stockpile that I can use in my own classroom. It makes me so excited to graduate as well as more determined to do well on this placement. 

Organisation is key and I definitely feel I've become so much better with this lately! I'm able to juggle placement, a boyfriend, family and spending time with my friends without worrying too much which is a shock for me!

Overall, Megan is pretty happy and back to her usual self again! I'm really happy with Luke and I'm glad things are going well with him (so so so so so happy) I could sit and talk all day about how happy he makes me but that's because I am so soppy. I've also been able to see my friends Lucy and Hollie who I haven't seen in a while. It's really nice to catch up with people who you haven't spoken to recently. It's made me realise how I want to make more time to see those that I've missed and see more of my friends. With having less time it makes you realise who's still your friend and interested in you. When you have little time you don't want to waste that on people who can't make time for you!

I hope you're all well and you've had a lovely weekend! Hopefully my posts will get back on track and my blog will be more active!

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan 

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram

Friday Favourites: Daisy Nails

Hello Bloggers!

I hate having unpainted nails simply because I'm a nail biter (oops). As a result of this my obsession with nail polish started and I now have a make up box full of them.

I did these nails last week whilst I was bored. After creating this design on my fingernails I also painted this on my toes. I think it's a cute look perfect for summer. I revealed these whilst wearing my orange wedged sandals and the contrast was perfect.

What I used:
Rimmel London Lasting Finish (double decker bus)
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine (Guava)
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine (Coconut)
Models Own Hyper Gel Nail Polish Top Coat
Models Own Nail Brushes

I just played around with different styles and brushes until I became used to them. Try new things you might create something really lovely!

                             

Let me know if you try this design! Sorry for the toe pictures I swear my feet don't look this weird in real life...

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram

Moody Monday's Volume 10: Exhausted and fed up

Hello Bloggers

This weekend has been awful to say the least. It was supposed to be a relaxing few days to spend with my boyfriend and family before placement started. However, I've had severe abdominal pain since Thursday morning and I ended up in A&E on Saturday night.

I'm on antibiotics now and hopefully I'll be back to my usual happy self again soon (fingers crossed). I'm just annoyed with being ill now. Really embarrassing telling people what's wrong with me (awful). 

Sorry I haven't posted properly in a while the stress of assignments and my ever growing workload just got to me! I've finally handed all my work in and school placement starts. I'm really excited to get creative in lessons which being in Reception allows me to do. There are some boys that are interested in dinosaurs and I have some amazing dinosaur books for them. 

I'm cutting it short today. Hopefully this week will turn positive as Luke is supposed to be coming on Saturday and I don't want to have to cancel.

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend and you're looking forward to the rest of the week!

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram

Teaching Tips: Underpants Wonderpants

Hello Bloggers!

This year my placement is in Reception so I've been stocking up on books to use with my children. I've read the book 'Underpants Wonderpants' to them the other day which they loved. 

He wears underpants and solves all the problems with pants!

It's about a dog who is a superhero and rescues people with different types of underwear. 

Blurb: Is it an eagle? Is it a plane? No – it’s Underpants Wonderpants to the rescue again! Whenever you need him in sun, snow or shower, he’ll sort out your problems with underpants power! He sorts out a pantachute for a queen in distress, puts out a fire with his super-pant-scoop… But that’s not the end of his super-pants day. The aliens are heading towards Earth! Can Wonderpants’ underpants power save the world in this laugh-out-loud rhyme to share?

There is lots you could do with this book. I'd firstly have gotten my children to make a pair of underpants to hang on a big washing line in the classroom. I would leave it open to choice allowing them to choose different ways of making these underpants. They could be 3D, 2D, painted, coloured using crayons and pencils, maybe using different materials e.g. paper, newspaper, cloth, fabric, felt. This would act as a display for our class and a starting point. This shows the diversity of things as not every pair of pants were the same in the book! Get the children thinking creatively and starting to make their own decisions. You might be surprised about what they choose to do. 

This book is aimed at 3-4 year olds and after having read it the children knew most of the words except for 'mirth'. It isn't a word they would be familiar with so it may cause a few issues, however after thinking about it as practitioners isn't it our duty to widen children's vocabulary and allow them to learn new words? This is a funny book that should provoke enjoyment of reading so shying away from it because it uses a word we don't necessarily use would be such a shame. 

Mirth: amusement, especially as expressed in laughter

Having a Superhero themed day would be a lot of fun as well. The children can make their own Superhero costumes which allows them to create their own characters. Record them on the iPad describing their character and what they can do. Some children may not feel confident writing so this would enable them to record their understanding. If a child is a confident writer we could get them to make a mini fact file of their character which could be added to a Superhero display.

In Literacy we could split into small groups and focus on description of different Superheroes. See what children come up with and practice their writing. Can they use these adjectives in a sentence to describe the character? 

Example:

If I used Underpants Wonderpants I could say "He is a brown dog and has a white patch on his eye". 

Children can self assess their sentence before bringing it to you for marking. After spending time in my Reception class I've seen them use '5 finger sentences'. The children have to check they've included everything before bringing it to the teacher. This helps them realise what they could improve on and start recognising mistakes/self correcting. 

Five finger writing: capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, correct letter formation, writing on the line.

There are many curriculum subjects I could use this book for, I just decided to focus on Literacy. 

If you've used this book and want to share your ideas or you have an idea then please leave a comment below I would love to read them.

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram

Favourite Friday: Brownies

Hello Bloggers

A few weeks ago I used my Great British Bake Off Book to create these amazing Brownies. I have been wanting to make Brownies again, however I needed to find a new recipe because the previous one was a really expensive way to make them. This recipe was much better (and easier) to use. I would definitely try it again! 

Even melting the chocolate looked good!

This wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing stage!

All of the ingredients I had in my kitchen cupboard at home, however I needed to go and buy chocolate for the chunks. I ended up putting white chocolate, milk chocolate chips and minstrels in mine. Unfortunately I didn't get to try one as everyone had eaten them all!

I used minstrels, chocolate drops and white chocolate chunks. You could add whatever you want in. I've used M&M's before which were really cool as the colours ran.

In total I think they made about 16 brownies! Definitely enough for a small party, gathering, family and friends.

This is when the mixture is really stodgy and sticky. Really difficult to coax it all out of the mixing bowl without wasting anything!

I have my eye on a few other recipes from this book so hopefully I will be able to show you how they all turn out. 

The finished product- mmm. Warm brownies smell heavenly!

Did you get any cookbooks and if so have you practiced any new recipes?

The image from the Great British Bake Off Book.

The recipe I used.

"The rest is still unwritten"

Megan

Social Media Links

Twitter 

Bloglovin

Pinterest 

Instagram