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 

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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

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