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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
