Blog Archives

Animal antics for bed time reading:

7/9/2013

After rescuing a pigeon flapping about in our dining room this afternoon, cutting the guinea pig's hair so he looks a bit less like Dougal and reviving a stunned but still breathing mouse in the house last week I thought animal antics might be a good book finding topic:

"Bringing down the moon" by Jonathan Emmett was a firm favourite at bed time and instilled a love of the moon too.
"Opera House Mouse"reminds us of our lovely friends in Sydney who always choose great Aussie books to put into the post. This is about a very determined mouse who lives underneath the opera house and ventures out into the big wide world above his bedroom.
"Farmer Duck" is part of a series and I know is very popular in Early years settings across the land but, nonetheless, we always felt so sorry for poor old Mr. Duck and loved the lazy farmer getting his comeuppance that we think Mr. Duck's hard work deserves a mention!
Well there's just so many animals in "Mr. Gumpy's Outing" and Mr. Gumpy is so accommodating. Lovely sketchy pictures and more lines small people (and big people) can repeat and add to so you can read together.
"Dooby, Dooby Moo" makes us laugh....a lot. In fact I was reading it to Years 5 and 6 only the other day. It arrived from the US of A (again from the lovely Bridget) and is the story of some very determined animals. In fact, a duck crops up again as the persistent character who would love to win a trampoline. He organises the animals into competing at a local talent show. All sorts of shenanigans in the barn with the Farmer being oblivious to it all. You do have to do a bit of singing as a cos,

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'Go on Murray' from a story boat builder today at Waldringfield FOSS day

7/5/2013

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Keep a close eye on your strawberries...you never know who or what might be round the corner!

7/4/2013

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Here's one for the strawberry summer. I was out picking tonight and found one with a tiny bite taken out of it in our strawberry patch. I wondered who or what had made it and had this book in my mind as I was pondering. Desperate to eat the strawberry, the little mouse tries everything to make sure it is HIS not the bears'. As you can see he goes to quite drastic lengths to hide his edible treasure.

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'I must go down to the sea again....' and make a story boat

7/3/2013

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Story boats...or the shell of story boats for making on Friday at the Federation of small schools day with the lovely Waldringfield, Nacton, Bucklesham and Bealings.
We're going to fill them with ideas, our own story journey and maybe where we'd like to go later. I don't think they'll be nearly as boring as these ones once the children have started.

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So many favourites but here's 3 to start the week...

7/1/2013

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When we had a school book week our lovely literacy leader set up an ongoing display where she asked members of staff what their favourite book had been when they were little. Children loved matching the books to the pictures of us when we were children BUT I also remembered it being very tricky to choose-it was easier to find a picture actually. However, PLOP is still a favourite because I can clearly remember the titles....DARK IS KIND, DARK IS EXCITING etc and laughing so much when mum read it to me. Even now I will publicly admit to declaring 'dark is exciting' every November 5th!
'Mr Cram's magic bubbles'-I wonder if he was my inspiration to become a teacher. I think maybe not as there's a bit at the beginning where lots of his children where a dunce's cap and sit in the corner because Mr Cram feels they're hopeless at Maths. However, he mixes up an amazing bubble mixture and they love maths and number for ever afterwards. I love the drawing in this book and it always makes me smile...especially because one of my favourite 'things' appears at the end but I won't spoil it for you! It will appear in Story shack if you'd like a read.
'The Iron Man' was one of the first books I read to my first class of Year 4s in Ilford who are all probably very grown up now. Just the thought makes me feel old-that's why I had to move to Suffolk so I don't bump into them! We used to sit on the carpet every afternoon for the story. Shortly after we'd begun it the school had a book fayre. ..the next time all these copies of the book appeared before home time, eyes down eagerly awaiting the next instalment. So reading to your class really does make a difference to their reading range and maybe leads into books children wouldn't necessarily have chosen for themselves AND they have to wait a bit for the next bit too.

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