It is that time of year again where Cambridgeshire is full of excitement for this years 'Read It Again' book awards! Myself and the kids are particularly excited because we are going to the award ceremony! So what is it all about?
The Awards
"How it works
It is a unique award for a first-time picture book where the words and pictures are the work of one individual.
Thousands of Cambridgeshire children in local schools read, discuss and then vote for their favourite book from a shortlist of eight titles, all by first-time author/illustrators.
The award encourages children to discuss books with their classmates and think about what makes a good book.
Library staff visit schools promoting the award to children."
A month or so ago a selection of wonderful picture arrived in our post bags and I delivered each key stage a set to read in the week we had the books. Staff and children were wonderful in getting the books read in such a short time and votes were duly cast. I then emailed off our school results to the organiser.
The Books
'Bob and Rob' by Sue Pickford
'Weasels' by Elys Dolan
'Pi - Rat' by Maxine Lee
'The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water' by Gemma Merino
'Hugh Shampoo' by Karen George
'Sidney, Stella and the Moon' by Emma Yarlett
'Penguin in Peril' by Helen Hancocks
'Ready Teddy Go' by Michael Davidson
It was fascinating seeing the favourites that emerged in each class and key stage. ‘Ready, Teddy, Go’ was loved by Reception and Key Stage 1 and the other classes had a wide spread that covered the rest of the books. My particular favourite? I think I have to say I loved ‘Weasels’ which had the kind of illustrations you could look at for ages and ‘Sidney, Stella and the Moon’ because it was a lovely story!
Very soon I will be taking some children from each class from Year 1 to Year 6 to the awards ceremony where the winner will be announced. Apparently we will get a chance to meet the authors and I think I may be a teeny bit excited! The response from the children was amazing and I had nearly everyone in each class wanting to come with me.
Check back soon for some more in depth reviews of the books and hopefully some pictures of the awards ceremony itself.
I was very excited when I read about the Picture Book 10 for 10 event on August 10th. I absolutely love picture books and this is a great way to share my top 10 choices (difficult decision!) and also find some new books to read and share with my class! If you would like more details head over to Reflect and Refine or Enjoy and Embrace Learning to find out more details about how to join in. Also if you are on Twitter follow the hashtag #pb10for10! I can't wait to join in for the first time!
Are you joining in? What are your favourite picture books?
I have seen this on a variety of posts and thought this would be a feature I would quite like to join in with! Check out Teach Mentor Texts for more details about What Are You Reading?
The summer holidays started last week for teachers in the UK and after a few days in the classroom and celebrating Mr Dotty's doctorate graduation I am finally starting to get relaxed. And part of that is planning my summer reading! Last Week
Last week the final book I shared with my class was FArTHER by Graham Baker-Smith. It was a lovely text to share as the final book of the year with class, if tinged with a little sadness. However I highly recommend this picture book and it's stunning illustrations. I also read a Michael Morpurgo book, Alien Invasion! which details life on a farm. Children will like the story and the funny illustrations that go with it. I also had a few re-reads of Into the Forest by Anthony Browne which we are going to be using for our first topic in the Autumn. I cannot wait and spent a few hours doing some mind mapping for it today.
I also read some good adult books!
Coming Up
I picked up Robot Dog by Mark Oliver and The Bear in the Cave by Michael Rosen over the weekend so I have those to read. Some longer novels to read are Room 13 by Robert Swindells, Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson and I have The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula Le Guin. However my mood my change!
When I first started at my school a few years ago I was lucky enough to make the acquaintance of some ageing chickens that the school had hatched from eggs and seen through to old age. Sadly they went to chicken heaven throughout that first year I was at the school. In that year I saw the children take responsibility for looking after the chickens, feeding them, collecting the eggs, going immediately to our HT when they spotted any issues and cleaning out their coop. The children were super at telling the difference between them and patiently told me over and over which was which! So it was with great excitement my Head told us a few months ago that we would be getting a new batch of eggs for hatching which would be delivered after the summer half term. The staff decided that the first week back would be a week devoted to the chicks! Myself and the Year 3 teacher had a lovely time planning for our thematic week and I thought I would share a selection of our learning from the week.
Designing a Chicken Coop
Chickens need a safe place to live and roam and so we started off looking at our existing home for the chickens, discussing the design and the materials used. We then used some images I had found on Pinterest to look at other, more creative, examples of chicken coops. The children did really well discussing the practicalities of the different coops. We then designed our coops and I let the children have a little freedom in their designs. What resulted was a mixture of 'normal' coops and some a little more original (and slightly less realistic!)
We then completed some descriptions about our coops, thinking about vocabulary to describe the features and also used it as an opportunity to work on our VCOP. I was so pleased with what they produced that we decided to put up a display!
Books
I will use any learning opportunity to read and share new books and I found two super picture books we used throughout the week. Firstly 'Chicken Dance' by Tammi Sauer and Dan Santat. This was a super book about two chicken sharing their talents along with a range of other farmyard superstars. A visit by Elvis Poultry completes this enjoyable tale and as much as I tried to get the children doing their own chicken dance they were very reluctant! Instead we created some music to accompany the different talent acts and watched this super video from the publishers!
The second picture book we looked at was 'Interrupting Chicken' by David Ezra Stein. Poor Papa is desperate to tell his daughter a bedtime story but she won't stop interrupting! This video featuring the author and illustrator, David Ezra Stein, in a interesting insight into illustrating a picture book.
We used this book to create our own writing. The children enjoyed writing their own story and just as they were writing the resolution to the story their partner took over and finished the story! We have put this into a class book.
I would recommend both of these picture books, even if you are not having a theme week! I would suggest KS1 and lower KS2 for both but I think Year 5 and 6 would enjoy them too. 'Interrupting Chicken' is a good text to use to look at traditional tales as well. The third book we used was a non-fiction text that I used to launch our science work on eggs and the life cycle of chicks. 'Where do Chicks Come From?' was geared slightly more to KS1 but was actually a good explanation for lower KS2 as well and was a good opportunity to look at technical vocabulary.
Storytelling Eggs
I couldn't resist ordering these plastic eggs and realised they would be perfect for some storytelling work I wanted to do. This year I have spent a lot of time looking at creating stories with my class to move them away from the 'two friends went to the park, had fun and went home' type of story. We have spent time this year thinking about stories in different settings so I decided to focus on a farm. The children had to draw little pictures of settings, characters, objects etc that would be found on the farm that they could pick out of the egg and use to form a story. We had done similar before so it was a lovely recap. Once the children had made their picture prompts we went outside into the gorgeous sunshine and in pairs they told each other stories. It was a lovely end to the session! They then took them home to create stories with parents.
This is a little snapshot of our 'Chick Week'. The most important thing though was the excitement that spread through the school with news spreading like wildfire that a crack had appeared, a chick had hatched and that feathers were appearing. Even as a fully grown adult I was excited by the chicks arrival and will forever remember being present for our final chick hatching. Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Instagram knows how much I loved it! And anyone passing through our KS2 library (their temporary home) and seeing a row of Year 5 boys sat transfixed, will know the power those little balls of fluff have over the children. We are keeping the four girls that hatched and I promise to share regular updates!
Over the last few weeks of term our school was lucky enough to become involved in Cambridgeshire Libraries children’s picture book awards, Read it Again!. We were left a copy of the shortlisted books with the aim of reading them with our classes, the children then voting on their top choices. Sadly as an adult I was not allowed to vote but I did have the lovely job of sharing them with the children!
Here are the full details from Cambridgeshire Libraries
“How it works
It is a unique award for a first-time picture book where the words and pictures are the work of one individual.
Thousands of Cambridgeshire children in local schools read, discuss and then vote for their favourite book from a shortlist of eight titles, all by first-time author/illustrators.
The award encourages children to discuss books with their classmates and think about what makes a good book.
Library staff visit schools promoting the award to children.”
I teach Year 4 and we regularly share picture books in class but it was great to get a chance to read some first time authors that we might not have known about otherwise.
There was a shortlist of 8 books and we managed to devour them all in just a few days.
- ‘The Monster Machine’ by Nicola L Robinson
- ‘Red Cat, Blue Cat’ by Jenni Desmond
- ‘Gnarbunga’ by Matthew Bromley
- ’Small Bunny’s Blue Blanket’ by Tatyana Feeney
- ‘Jack and the Baked Beanstalk’ by Colin Stimpson
- ‘Rabbityness’ by Jo Empson
- ‘The Journey Home’ by Frann Preston Gannon
- ’Churchill’s Tale of Tails’ by Anca Sandu.
The books in italics were the children’s clear favourites and provoked the most discussion although they enjoyed all of them.
The Monster Machine- a lovely tale of inventions and monster madness. The children (and I!) loved the bright illustrations and fun story. They surprised me by linking it back to a story we had read earlier in the year called The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward. Visit the author’s website here!
Gnarbunga- With a front cover like this the children couldn’t help but want to read it! Gnarbunga is made from icky, sticky, sludge and after emerging one day from a hole in the ground he causes a bit of chaos. The children love his mess but the adults not so much! Gnarbunga looks for something he can do and after several suggestions he has a go at skateboarding. The story drew my children in and I think they just really liked the idea of being messy! My class picked out the impact of the simple use of colour and the use of repetition through the story.
Jack and the Baked Beanstalk- I think this was definitely my favourite, a modern day twist on the classic tale. The illustrations were beautiful and the story was very engaging. Have a look at this blog post by Colin Stimpson to get an idea of the charm of the illustrations. The class really enjoyed this one too and clamoured to look at the pictures.
The Journey Home- This summary from www.lovereading4kids.co.uk says it all. “A thought-provoking story with a powerful message about conservation from an award-winning, rising illustrator and literary star. It is the first book by the first-ever UK recipient of the amazing 'Sendak Fellowship' and created with input from the great Maurice Sendak himself. It's the story of a polar bear who heads off in a boat looking for somewhere new to live and on the way he picks up other endangered friends including an orangutan, an elephant and a panda to name just three.” A great story to use when talking about conservation and ecology.
Churchill’s Tail of Tales- The class were really amused by this story of a pig who loses his tail. The story follows him as he tries on a variety of his friends tails and begins to enjoy himself so much he begins to neglect his friends. The story provokes a good discussion on friendship and being happy with who you are. This is another one the children loved for the illustration and they enjoyed the humour as well.
I want to thank Cambridgeshire Libraries for letting our school be involved and I know we will be eagerly awaiting the results!
