Chick Week

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!

Thanks for reading!

Kelly Dotty

My Bookish Week- 3rd June 2013

Hello and happy Monday! Once a week I plan to share the previous weeks book related bits both in and out of the classroom.

Book Links

This past week was half term and so I managed to get some great reading and internet playing research done.

Firstly the fantastic Bill Lord (Joga5 on Twitter) shared a link to a google map called ‘World of Books.’ On it people have recorded pins of locations to be found in children’s books. It is a fantastic resource and one I will use regularly and aim to add to as much as I can.

I also loved this video shared by Mr Schu from Mr Schu reads about the power of reading. One I will definitely be sharing with my class, especially to ‘B’ who loves Captain Underpants!

Zoe Toft from Playing by the Book also reminded me of the Picture Book Plays website. Also if you love children’s books and haven’t seen Zoe’s website yet go and check it out!

I also enjoyed this article detailing Michael Morpurgo’s thoughts on not patronising young readers.

In his last blog post as the Booktrust writer in residence Matt Haig discusses how to make books more popular.

Books Read

I also managed to read some books! Just lately I have been terrible at reading about 5 books at once which means I am not finishing ANYTHING! However half term perseverance (and some picture books) has meant I have some books on my ‘read’ pile.

Three of the books are picture books for a Chicks project we are doing the first week back. Come back later in the week for a blog post detailing what we did. I am so excited!

‘Chicken Dance’ by Tammi Sauer and illustrated by Dan Santat.

‘Interrupting Chicken’ by David Ezra Stein.

‘Where do Chicks come from?’ by Amy E. Sklansky and illustrated by Pam Paparone.

I also read ‘Madame Pamplemousse and her Incredible Edibles’ by Rupert Kingfisher. This I picked up during the week after some vouchers were burning a hole in my purse. I hadn’t heard of it before and I chose it as I liked the idea of a book set in Paris and it being about food. At 138 pages it was a nice quick read.

From the blurb- When Madeline is sent on an errand by her horrid uncle, she discovers, by chance, a shop owned by Madame Pamplemousse. It sells the strangest, the rarest, the most delicious, the most extraordinary and the most incredible edibles in the whole world. And when Madeline’s uncle wishes to steal the most incredible edible of all. Madeline, Madame Pamplemousse and Camembert the cat have a good reason to join forces and create some truly remarkable magic.

I would say the story would appeal to KS2 readers, especially with its touches of magic and sweet illustrations. It would promote good book talk on the themes of greed and doing the right thing. I also love some of the ingredient descriptions, Salt-Cured Raptor Tails anyone?

I also finally read ‘Krindlekrax’ by Philip Ridley. This had been on my to read list for ages. I have to be honest that after the first few chapters I was not really enjoying it but then suddenly that all changed and I couldn’t put it down!

Books Reading

I am currently reading ‘The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making’ by Catherynne M. Valente. This had been on my wishlist for a while and I am excited to finally be reading it. Have you read it? What are your thoughts?

Books that have entered the house

I visited the library and came home with this lovely stack of books to read.

What have you read lately? Feel free to leave a comment to share your recent reads!

Cambridgeshire Libraries Picture Book Awards- Read it Again!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!