The Girl with the Parrot on Her Head by Daisy Hirst (Walker) a Picture Book About Friendship and Fears That Demonstrates Subtle Psychological Awareness

The Girl with the Parrot on her Head by Daisy Hirst (Walker) A picture book about friendship and fears that demonstrates subtle psychological awareness. Left bereft when her friend moves away, Isabel organises her life in boxes. ‘She had a system.’ However, not everything will fit in its box so she seeks a bigger one. The discovery of such a box and its contents brings the story full circle and gives it a satisfying shape. Throughout the book the red parrot that usually perches on Isabel’s head provides a stable and comforting component in her life. Splashes of red and shades of blue and brown are the strongest elements in Daisy Hirst's colour palette which, combined with creative use of whitespace and a deceptively child-like drawing style, give the illustrations a very distinctive feel.

Overall learning aims of this teaching sequence:

. To think and talk confidently about their response to the book, using prediction, asking questions, making connections with their own experience . To think about the story meanings conveyed in the illustrations . To enjoy listening to, responding to and using spoken and written language in play and learning . To explore the story through collaborative play, critical thinking, role-play and storytelling . To use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences . To deepen understanding of the world through a fictional text . To develop sustained story making and storytelling . To write for meaning and purpose in a variety of narrative and non-narrative forms

This teaching sequence is designed for a Nursery or Reception Class and was written specifically for CLPE’s Planning Creatively Around a Text in the Early Years course. Overview of this teaching sequence

This teaching sequence is approximately 3 weeks long spread over 15 sessions. The children will have the opportunity to explore a wide range of reading and writing opportunities; making links with other known and familiar stories as well as reading and writing across fiction and non-fiction, including the use of film texts. The children have opportunity to respond imaginatively through the creative arts; drama, dance, music and art as well as drawing on the story’s rich use of language and vocabulary that will challenge thinking, enrich children’s own language and inspire the children’s own storymaking. The children can be encouraged to develop empathy for a character, discussing their own emotions, adventures and fears in relation to those of the main character. This sequence culminates in the children retelling their own version of the story, publishing this in their own picture book that can be shared with others.

Teaching Approaches: Writing Outcomes:

. Storytelling . Response to illustration . Response to Illustration . Thought bubbles

©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education. You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes without the express permission of CLPE.

. Role on the Wall . Advisory note or letter . Reading Aloud . Signs and captions . Role Play . Descriptive annotations . Freeze Frame . Information booklet . Revisiting and Re-reading . Collaborative free verse poetry . Book Talk . Poster for a friend . Shared Writing . Instructions . Looking at Language . A narrative text . Writing in Role . Storymapping

Links to Supporting Books

Books about sharing and friendship: . On Sudden Hill by Linda and Benji Davies (Simon and Schuster) . Melrose and Croc Friends for Life by Emma Chichester Clark (HarperCollins) . Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner (Little Tiger Press) . Croc and Bird by Alexis Deacon (Red Fox) . Under the Same Sky by Britta Teckentrup (Little Tiger Press)

Books about special toys: . That Rabbit belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton (Hodder) . Dogger by Shirley Hughes (Red Fox) . Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems (Walker) . I Love You, Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark (HarperCollins)

Books dealing with emotions: . Feelings by Aliki (Perfection Learning) . Feelings Inside my Heart and in my Head by Libby Walden (Caterpillar Books) . Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins) . Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett (Macmillan) . Grumpy Frog by Ed Vere (Puffin) . Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley (Little, Brown) . Pom Pom Gets the Grumps by Sophy Henn (Puffin) . A Great Big Cuddle by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Chris Riddell (Walker)

Information books about local wildlife: . A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies and Mark Hearld (Walker) . Nature’s Day by Kay Maguire and Danielle Kroll (Wide Eyed Editions) . Growing Frogs by Vivian French and Alison Bartlett (Walker) . Yucky Worms by Vivian French and Jessica Ahlberg (Walker)

. Blackbird, Blackbird, What Do You Do? by Kate McLelland (Hodder) . The Beeman by Laurie Krebs and Valeria Cis (Barefoot Books)

Storybook Wolves: . Wolves by Emily Gravett,(Macmillan) . Beware of the Storybook Wolves by Lauren Child (Orchard) . The Wolf, The Duck and The Mouse by Marc Barnett and Jon Klassen (Walker) . And, of course, the plethora of Little Red Riding Hood stories, for which a CLPE booklist can be downloaded at: https://www.clpe.org.uk/clpe/library/booklists/rash-red-riding-hoods

Imaginary Characters: . Lola’s Soren Lorenson in Lauren Child’s ‘Charlie and Lola’ series (Orchard and Puffin) . Imaginary Fred by Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins) . Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (Red Fox)

Books by Daisy Hirst: . Alphonse, That is Not OK to Do! (Walker) . Hilda and the Runaway Baby (Walker) . I Do Not Like Books Anymore (Walker)

Websites:

Storymaking: . Information about the work of Vivian Gussin Paley and ‘helicopter stories’ can be found here: http://www.makebelievearts.co.uk/helicopterstorieslettingimaginationfly/

Bookmaking: . Instructions for a log book: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/makes/mr-blooms-log-book-make . How to make a simple origami book (see: https://www.clpe.org.uk/powerofpictures/creative- approaches/bookmaking).

Newts: . Newts on BBC Springwatch 2017 (from 2:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJPEKhuPOOE . Bill Oddie Goes Wild(BBC): http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Great_Crested_Newt#p0081d0v . The Minibeast that Lives Underwater (BBC): https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/mini-beast- adventure-with-jess-water-boatman-adventure . How to look after amphibians and reptiles in your garden pond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc98gSAaM6A

Intertextual Links:

. ‘I am angry’ by Michael Rosen featured on CLPE’s Poetryline: https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/resources/teaching-sequences/great-big-cuddle . Little Red Riding Hood stories, for which a CLPE booklist can be downloaded at: https://www.clpe.org.uk/clpe/library/booklists/rash-red-riding-hoods

Ideas for Continuous and Enhanced Provision

Role Play and Re-enactment . Give the children plenty of opportunity to re-enact and engage in the range of play experiences that Simon and Isabel experience. . Make sure provision is linked to the children’s expressed preferences and interests and enables imaginative, collaborative and creative play to take place in an environment rich with deliberately ambiguous resources and loose parts. . Ensure children are equally supported and challenged to learn through play activities even in the absence of an adult by linking continuous provision to observations, for example, carefully considering the tools available that will not only consolidate but develop motor skills in independent play. . Help structure play experiences with enhancements linked to the themes of the book or play being observed, for instance exploring drawbridges or making traps that might take a chasing game into a more sustained quest narrative. . Engage in play as adults and allow children to talk about their play at the end of sessions, helping them develop and sustain it into the next day by maintaining some elements of set-up resources that they may return the next day ready to continue and develop ideas. . Provide small world resources and large-scale mark making materials and paper so that the children can create their own story worlds and storymaps akin to Isabel’s and Simon’s. Encourage children to work collaboratively, engaging in talk and negotiation around settings and events that might take place. Like their ‘helicopter stories’ they could invite other children to dramatise their adventures for them, lifting them from small world scene or map to stage.

PSED: . Focus on friendship and how to make others feel better. You could create a friendship board where children draw, paint or photograph their siblings or friends and record why these people are important to them. You could also collect children’s ideas for a ‘feeling sad’ board with ideas for how to cheer themselves up or someone else who is sad. . Have a basket of special friend cuddly toys that children can access and take on adventures in the setting.

Reading Area: . Work with the children to create a reading area like Isabel’s bedroom, perhaps with books kept in cardboard boxes, categorised and labelled by the children. There might be a cuddly newt or parrot who suggests a book for the children to read each day. . Stock a wide range of books about feelings, friendship, change and information books about newts, parrots ad wolves as well as stories and songs shared at home. Children could recommend books or sing songs to each other because they make them feel better when they feel cross or sad.

. You might record some or all of these and make the text available alongside the audio recording to support children to tune into print. You might also include photographs of parents coming in to share their favourites or pictures of the children singing with their families or friends.

Mark making/ writing: . Children could make storymaps as well as actual geographical maps of wolf habitats or the journey that Simon might have taken in travelling to his new home. They could even create the parrot’s bird’s eye view of key scenes, such as the street when Simon left. . Create a message centre with old litre water bottles cut off with a photo of each child on the front for children to write and post messages of friendship to each other. . Ensure that children have plenty of opportunity to engage in different forms of writing, such as information texts, logs of their nature observations, posters, notes and stories. . Elicit the children’s support in helping to create the working wall backdrop.

Physical Development: . Children could be encouraged to describe and imitate the newts’ movement in the outdoor area or hall where they have space to lope, slide and tumble. Enhance the provision to allow for children to develop a variety of gross motor skills that support their literacy development, such as: o Core strength activity like climbing, pulling and clambering to build endurance for sitting upright o Pushing and crawling to develop shoulder strength for using scissors, drawing and pencil grip o Manipulating play dough ‘snow’ or beating drums to create drama for the role play to develop bilateral co-ordination (symmetrical, reciprocal and leading/supporting hand movements) o Side-passing, throwing and rubbing out mounds of play snow or sand, or lazy eight movement with white streamers to support crossing the midline, directionality, spatial perception and planning skills for spacing writing

Expressive Arts and Design: . Provide bookmaking resources to entice the children to record their own imagined stories in self- made books, on storymaps or as graphic texts. . Explore printmaking techniques to emulate the style of illustration used by Daisy Hirst. Children could investigate creating pictures with a limited palette of colour as well as collecting simple resources with which to block and mono print, like sponges, cork, cardboard, vegetables and a range of found items. Give the children time to explore the work of artists, designers and illustrators, including Hirst, that create art and illustration using print and collage: . The making of The Girl with a Parrot on her Head: http://www.picturebookparty.co.uk/2015/02/the-girl-with-parrot-on-her-head- by.html#.WpKCFGrFLIU . Chris Haughton: https://www.clpe.org.uk/powerofpictures/haughton-chris

. Coralie Bickford-Smith: http://cb-smith.com/the-fox-and-the-star/ . Daisy uses limited palette and employs mere black outline for those characters or objects that are meant to be insignificant at that moment or – in the case of the wolves – be lurking in the background. Children could create their illustrations, signifying the main characters and events with full colour and others in outline.

Understanding of the World: . Create areas in which children can quietly explore nature outside, using appropriate and variously challenging scientific equipment to observe and record what they find out.

Teaching Sessions

Before Beginning the Sequence:

. You may need to be sensitive to the children in your class, depending on their experiences of friendship and the class dynamics. You will need to be aware of any children who may be struggling with friendship issues or are experiencing loss, have specific fears or who may have had negative experiences of moving. This book might relate to uncomfortable feelings they may have had in their personal lives, but could also provide a safe space to explore and reassure feelings through a story character. Children may rely on you for support in responding to the themes in the book and in enabling them to explore difficult feelings of their own through the characters’ feelings and experiences. Children could be invited to share how they feel each day with their key person and or a small group of friends. . In preparation for starting work on the text, you will need to gather together a good selection of loose parts - including cardboard boxes - and open-ended, ambiguous role play resources, in order for the children to re-enact and role play. An excellent list of suitable resources, and the theory behind the Loose Parts approach can be found as part of the Inspiring Scotland Loose Parts Toolkit at: http://www.inspiringscotland.org.uk/media/58451/Loose-Parts-Play-web.pdf . Create story props and puppets of characters and key places in the story with which children can re-enact elements of the story or even to create new stories featuring the children. Children could also read to special toys around the setting. . Prepare a working wall display space and/or class journal where you can keep records of class discussions, art work, photographs and writing that are produced as you work through the book. You might want to make explicit the four seasons through which the story takes place as they add meaning to the way in which we and Isabel react to events as they unfold as well as being a clear marker for the timeline of the story. . Collect some cardboard boxes and mark making materials with which the children can create systems and categorise their resources accordingly.

. Collect resources necessary for the children to make worry dolls with whom they can share worries, such as wooden dolly pegs, wool and pipe cleaners. You might also find a special puppet, such as a monster, that can be fed children’s worries as they illustrate them or write them down.

Storytelling and Creative Writing

‘Vivian Gussin Paley’s ‘storytelling curriculum’ consists of two interdependent activities, dictation and dramatization. It has long been recognized for its impact on young children’s psychosocial, language, and narrative development.’ Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, December 2005 Vol.5 No.3 229-251

. Provide the children with a laminated set of the images from the first red end paper. Reveal them, one at a time, starting with the girl with the parrot on her head. As each of the images are revealed ask the children to think quietly about the story they are seeing in their own imagination. It might help to ask them to consider the following prompts: o Who are the characters in your story? What do they like to do? o Where does your story take place? What do you see in your imagination? o Does the story stay in the same place or do the children go somewhere? How do they get there? o Does anything remind you of stories you know or things that you know about in real life? o Which images do you like best? Why? How do they make you feel? . Leave sets of the images – hand-held size as well as enlarged – around the setting for children to explore and talk about with their friends and supportive adults. Provide the children with mark making materials, rolls of paper, linked and ambiguous loose parts and small world resources so that they can draw, write or map out their story any way they like ready to tell it orally to a partner. They might prefer to create a story with a partner or small group or shape it individually. . Invite the children to use their storymap to share their story with a partner, supporting them with story language needed to maintain pace and interest it unfolds. . Encourage each of them to talk about which images sparked their ideas and why. Discuss the similarities and differences in each of the stories and note the children’s starting points in terms of their knowledge of the world and personal experience. What the children are able to bring to this work will shape your provision planning throughout the sequence, particularly in terms of developing imaginative play, creativity, storymaking, language, literacy and social skills within a rich reading curriculum. . Children could create handmade zig-zag books within which to record their story, using words and illustration, which can then be displayed, read and revisited in the reading area, even being sent home overnight to be shared with parents. You might want to make a class story book within which children’s creative stories are told and scribed and read aloud regularly. Children can then invite others to dramatise their story under their direction, enabling them to see their story being lifted from the page and deepen their understanding, particularly that involving empathy. More

information about the work of Vivian Gussin Paley and ‘helicopter stories’ can be found here: http://www.makebelievearts.co.uk/helicopterstorieslettingimaginationfly/

Responding to Illustration and Book Talk

The children's books featured on Core Books Online have been chosen because of the quality of the illustrations they contain and the ways in which the illustrations work with the text to create meaning for the reader. Children will need time and opportunities to enjoy and respond to the pictures, and talk together about what the illustrations contribute to their understanding of the text.

The openness of the Book Talk format encourages every child to feel that they have something to say. It allows everyone to take part in arriving at a shared view without the fear of the 'wrong' answer. You can then move on to questions which direct children's attention more closely to themes or ideas that are particularly important to an understanding of the story but which might otherwise be overlooked.

. Share the front cover of the text with the children, concealing the title. Allow time for them to respond to what they notice, listing their initial responses around a large scale copy of the illustration in the shared journal or on the working wall. This will give you a good opportunity to analyse their base vocabulary around the character and their knowledge of story from the connections they make. . Engage the children in book talk, using Aidan Chambers’ basic ‘Tell Me’ prompts from his Tell Me, Children, Reading and Talk with the Reading Environment (Thimble Press, 2011) which create a sense of conversation in which all opinions are equally valued and built upon, as opposed to more interrogative questioning: Tell Me: o Who is this? Have you seen her before? What do you think you know about her? o What does she like? What does she dislike? What makes you think that? o Does this remind you of anything you have seen before in stories or real life? How? o Does anything puzzle you? Do you have any questions? . Alongside the front cover, revisit the endpaper images explored previously, giving the children ample time to explore all the images together and asking them to imagine the kind of story this might be. Invite the children to choose a title for the book, based on what they have seen already. They might write this down or share it orally. o How you think the girl is feeling? How do you know? What tells you this? o Have you ever felt like this? Why? o What might have happened just beforehand? o What might happen next? What could the story be about? o Does it remind you of stories you already know? . Prompt the children to consider what tells them how the girl is feeling by drawing attention to her body position, gaze and facial expression. How do they know she is ‘happy’? Children could role play the scene and then freeze in position as the girl at this moment so that that they can explore

a wider range of vocabulary – perhaps ‘satisfied’ or ‘pleased’ – that articulates the physical manifestation of such emotions. . They could record their ideas through drawing or in writing and be encouraged to try them out through role play, perhaps reading aloud or providing oral direction whilst their friends act out their imagined scenarios. . Provide children with a range of mark making resources and digital equipment cameras in order that they can record and revisit their re-enactments with their peers.

Reading Aloud, Responding to Illustration and Role on the Wall

Role on the wall is a technique that uses a displayed outline of the character to record feelings (inside the outline) and outward appearances (outside the outline) at various stopping points across the story. Using a different colour at each of the stopping points allows you to track changes in the character’s emotional journey. You can include known facts such as physical appearance, age, gender, location and occupation, as well as subjective ideas such as likes/dislikes, friends/enemies, attitudes, motivations, secrets and dreams.

. Reveal the title of the book and allow children to respond. Is this what they expected? How does it compare to their own title suggestions? . Open the book, revealing the endpaper and the spread with the title page and publishing details, inviting children to respond to the illustrations with more comments and questions. . Read aloud the first page, introducing the girl, ‘Once there was a girl with a parrot on her head.’ Elicit children’s initial ideas around why she has a parrot on her head. Do any of the children have special pets, comforters or favourite objects that they like to keep with them? Why? How do they make the children feel? . Read aloud from the beginning until the spread, ‘…he was very good with newts.’ Give the children ample time to explore the new illustrations, encouraging them to make connections with previous images they have seen involving the two children, their toys and their play. What else do we know about the two children from the pictures? Scribe or have the children annotate their responses around a copy of the image, displaying it on the working wall. . In order to explore children’s ideas about Isabel more deeply, create a large scale outline - or ‘Role on the Wall’ - of her, as she looks on the first page. Ask the children to discuss what they know about her for certain, such as her appearance and record their ideas around the outside of the outline. On the inside, record their suggestions about what they think they might know about her personality or what she might think or feel. As you record ideas, make explicit the link between the children’s inferences and evidence in the book (referencing the words and illustrations) as well as drawing on their own experience of life to make connections. If they ascribe an emotion to Isabel, link this explicitly with her facial expression, body position or gaze which can then be recorded as an observation on the outside of her outline.

. Take the opportunity to clarify incomplete utterances and enrich descriptive language through recasting; expanding nouns with adjectives, adverbs and verbs to add precision and lend meaning where appropriate. . Display the Role on the Wall on the working wall so that it can be referenced and revisited as the sequence unfolds. Each time you add ideas about Isabel, record them in a different colour pen to provide a sense of her emotional journey as she deals with the changes in and around her. . Make provision for children to create their own Role on the Wall figures of either Isabel or Simon.

Making Connections with Personal Experience and Stories – Special Things and Shrine Boxes

A Shrine Box can be immensely supportive for a child to talk about themselves, their family – past and present - and their lives. It might include: family photographs, notes and cards, a favourite poem or book, travel memorabilia or tickets, special items of clothing from babyhood, and a special toy. It provides opportunity for rich talk amongst family members whilst collecting and decorating the box.

. Return to the Role on the Wall and the previous illustrations, reading aloud from the beginning until ‘…good with newts.’ . Revisit the idea that Isabel always has the parrot on her head and explore why this might be. Simon is also depicted with a newt on his head in one of the endpaper images and a newt is laid on the table in the first spread in which they are map-making. Do the children think these are real newts? Why? Why not? How about the ones he is holding at the pond? Draw attention to the way in which Hirst uses colour in the first spread. Why are the duck and the bear drawn as outlines but the newt and the parrot are coloured in? . Returning to children’s personal connections and experience of special toys, pets or comforter. Encourage the children to talk about a special toy they had when they were babies or still have now. Perhaps they have brothers or sisters who have a special toy? Did you always take it with you? Where is it now? How do you keep it safe? How would you feel if you lost it? . You could ask the children to bring in a ‘special toy’, comforter or belonging (which could be something like a piece of blanket!) to leave for the day in a secure place and take home at the end of the day. Maybe this reveals that children already do bring their comforter in and keep it in their bag to support them with transition from home to setting. . Children might have photographs of themselves with their comforter or members of their family may have a story about the toy which they could write down or even visit and talk to the children about. . Talk about what is most important to the children themselves. What they like to do most? What is their favourite toy or game? Who do they like to be with most? Who is their best friend? Why? Why does Isabel like being with Simon? Is he just good with newts or is he good at other things too? . You could read the children stories in which characters share a special relationship with a friend, toy or pet with whom they play and connect, for example: o That Rabbit belongs to Emily Brown by Cressida Cowell and Neal Layton

o Dogger by Shirley Hughes o Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems o I Love You, Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark . Following exploration of the story characters and lots of conversation about themselves, invite children to draw a picture of themselves engaging in their favourite activities with their best friends, pets or special toy or comforter. . This could be extended to a family learning project in which they create a shrine box that they decorate and fill with photographs, drawings and objects that help them talk about their own lives and what is special to them.

Understanding the World

Narrative texts often give excellent opportunities to work across genres, providing purpose, audience and context for such writing. As part of non-fiction writing, children will need to hear and see lots of high quality examples of non-fiction writing as an example of what they will be writing to pick up on the differing structure, organisation and use of language, before writing in the style themselves.

. Simon is ‘very good with newts’ but what does this mean? Ask the children to share what they think they know about newts, prompting their discussion: o What is a newt? Have you ever seen a newt before? What are they like? o How does this illustration of the newts compare to what we know about newts in the wild? . Show a variety of wildlife photographs of newts in their natural habitat, prompting further thinking: o What do you notice? How are they similar to the illustrations of newts in the story book? o What have you found out about newts? What would you like to know about newts? . Display a grid, either on large paper or on the IWB with 3 columns labelled ‘What we know or think we know about newts’. Scribe children’s ideas into the first column, recasting them into in complete sentences and modelling how to record ideas through writing. Then support them in structuring questions for the second column and write these out as well. Keep the grid somewhere that it can be revisited by you, the children and their families; either in your class journal or on a working wall. Leave sentence strips in a wallet close by alongside an attractive display of texts that will support the children’s research and recording:

What we know or think we know about What we want to find out about What we learnt about newts newts newts

. Of course you might decide with the children that they would rather research parrots, given that is Isabel’s animal and features in the title itself. You might decide, when they begin to feature in the story, that you would like to research wolves in order to support ideas about how you might get rid of them. . You may choose, however, to keep the headings general to wildlife that the children can actually observe and look after themselves in their outdoor area or local nature preserve. If pond-dipping is not an accessible activity, choose an area that is, such as soil, grass or a log-pile and allow groups of children be responsible for the enquiry grid developing around their chosen, more common animal, such as the garden worm, the great tit, the cabbage white butterfly, the bumble bee. . Encourage children’s interest in nurturing wildlife in the outdoor area of the setting by helping them make log books in which to record their observations and share their findings; instructions for which can be found and followed here by the children: https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/makes/mr-blooms-log-book-make

Non-Fiction Writing

. Revisit the children’s thoughts and questions about newts from the previous session.

. Show the children the images from the newt gallery (see resources) and ask the children what they think they can find out about newts from these images. Scribe children’s ideas onto sentence strips to display with copies of the images. . You may also use this opportunity to give children the real-life experience of pond-dipping, if you are able to do this in your locality. This will spark the children’s curiosity to find out more about any creatures they may discover. . To support the children’s understanding of the newts or other wildlife they might find in a local garden or a pond, show them suitable films which will inspire dialogue and discussion from what the children observe, such as: o Newts on BBC Springwatch 2017 (from 2:30): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJPEKhuPOOE o Bill Oddie Goes Wild(BBC): http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Great_Crested_Newt#p0081d0v o The Minibeast that Lives Underwater (BBC): https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/minibeast-adventure-with-jess-water-boatman-adventure . As children watch the film, they could draw and talk about what they notice or anything that particularly interests them. After the first watch, check the children’s understanding of the complex technical vocabulary linking this back to the images they have seen in the image gallery. . Watch the film again, then ask the children what else they think they have learnt and scribe this in the third column. Now, model how to write information sentences about newts on sentence strips, based on the children’s ideas. Draw on the language structures of explanatory texts with which the children will be familiar if they have heard a range of authentic information books read aloud to them. . You might use shared writing to compose a caption for a favourite moment from the film, a photo or illustration of newts or other pond life in their natural habitat. . Children can focus on what Simon might have known about looking after newts, learning more about it through books, websites and films, such as: o How to look after amphibians and reptiles in your garden pond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc98gSAaM6A . Pre-make or show the children in focus groups how to make a simple origami book (see: https://www.clpe.org.uk/powerofpictures/creative-approaches/bookmaking). Provide opportunities in focus groups or as part of the continuous provision for the children to use photographs and the knowledge they have gained from looking at the photographs and watching the films to make a mini information book about newts.

Reading Aloud and Responding to Illustration and Role Play

When children have explored a fictional situation through talk or role play, they may be ready to write in role as a character in the story. Taking the role of a particular character enables young writers to see

events from a different viewpoint and involves them writing in a different voice. In role, children can often access feelings and language that are not available to them when they write as themselves.

. Re-read the story from the beginning until the next spread, ‘…and he never came back.’ Have the children voice their initial responses. Is this what they expected to happen? Why? Has anything like this ever happened to you or in other stories? . Allow ample time for children to explore this illustration and talk about what they notice in the scene. You might need to prompt children to notice a range of changes that are taking place in addition to Simon leaving, such as the seasonal shift from Summertime playing in the garden to this blustery Autumnal day and the parrot flying away from Isabel’s head as well as the miserable faces of the cats and lack of colour on the street. . Elicit the children deeper, emotional responses, scribing them around a copy of the accompanying illustration: o How does it make you feel? Why? o How is Daisy feeling? How about Simon? How do you know? o What is happening? Why does Simon go away in a truck? o Has this ever happened to you? Does it remind you of anything you have seen before, perhaps in other stories, in books, on television or in films? o Is there anything you would like to say to Daisy or Simon? Do you have any questions? . Children can role play the moments, days or even weeks leading up to this scene; each one in role as either Isabel or Simon or even the parents or removal people. Take photographs of the children in role encouraging children to talk about their personal experiences as well as those imagined for the story characters. . You might want to support this role play and the emotions associated with losing a friend or moving away by reading books on this theme: o My New Home by Marta Altés (Macmillan) o Moving Molly by Shirley Hughes (Red Fox) o Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins) . Create a display of books that deal with the emotional theme of change and friendship and give children ample time to hear them read aloud, share them with peers and respond.

Freeze Frame, Thought-tracking and Writing in role

Freeze frames are still images or tableaux. They can be used to enable groups of children to examine a key event or situation from a story and decide in detail how it could be represented. When presenting the freeze frame, one of the group could act as a commentator to talk through what is happening in their version of the scene, or individual characters can be asked to speak their thoughts out loud (thought tracking).

. In pairs, ask them to create a silent tableau by freezing in position to replicate the moment depicted in this illustration when Simon is leaning out of the removal van. Encourage children to think carefully about each of their body position, gaze and facial expression and how they might

be feeling at this moment. Isabel is facing away from us as the reader, so the children will have to imagine her facial expression and gaze from her body position and their experience of such situations. Take photographs of the children in role to be revisited later. . Ask children to think about what each of the characters might be saying to each other at this moment. Encourage them to extend incomplete utterances by clarifying and with gentle prompting. Use the opportunity to enrich vocabulary choices by recasting and engage them in dialogue as far as they are able to maintain their role play. . Provide children with speech bubbles in which they can record what they think their assigned character is saying to their friend or even the parrot. . Now ask children to voice their thoughts and feelings in role as their assigned character. Language to articulate emotional response may be particularly challenging for young children so model nuances of vocabulary like ‘angry’ or ‘sad’ with that such as: ‘furious’, ‘upset’, ‘worried’, ‘hopeful’. Once introduced, continue to use such language choices throughout direct teaching and provide opportunity for children to use it in a range of play contexts until they come to possess it themselves. . Ask children to record their thoughts in role on thought bubble templates provided. . Both imagined dialogue and voiced thoughts can be displayed around a copy of this illustration or the photograph of their freeze frame dramatisation. . If children are able to sustain viewpoint, they might be supported to write about the day in role as either Isabel or Simon, perhaps as a letter to the other by way of staying in touch. Model appropriate voice, viewpoint and friendly tone during shared writing as well as encouraging children to engage in writing by modelling the writing process alongside them. . Provide a range of interesting and attractive stationery which the children can use to write their letters then post them in the class postbox to await a reply. You might motivate further letter writing by having Simon or Isabel respond to children’s individual letters or those written as a group. This kind of genuine reader response to children’s writing will enable children to see what writing is for and how it can impact on audience, even at this young age.

Responding to Illustration, Role on the Wall and Looking at Language

. Reread the whole book until the scene in which Simon leaves. Revisit the children’s expressions of Isabel’s viewpoint, in particular, following their drama work and encourage the children to make predictions. Read on until ‘The parrot went to sit on top of the wardrobe.’ . Give the children ample time to explore the illustrations on this spread and ask the children to talk about what they notice, inviting them to make connections with their personal experience and encouraging their empathy. What is Isabel doing? Why is she doing this? What is she thinking? Have you ever felt like this? What happened? . To support the children’s inferences, revisit Isabel’s Role on the Wall in a contrasting colour and record the children’s ideas about her in this moment. Make explicit the links between descriptions of her outward behaviour and her inner feelings that they infer from their experience of human behaviour.

. Children may have limited vocabulary to describe Isabel’s emotions beyond ‘sad’ or ‘angry’ so take the opportunity to model a range of words and phrases in your dialogue around the illustration and when recording ideas. . If you feel the children are confident with a repertoire of such vocabulary and experienced enough to compare nuances in emotion, you might also create a large scale of intensity for the working wall in which you place words that describe increasing degrees of anger on a thermometer template, for instance:

furious

angry

cross

. Invite the children to talk about times when they have felt either ‘cross’ or ‘angry’ or ‘furious’ and the difference in their feelings. Look at the final illustration in this sequence in which Isabel lays face down in her bed. What is she doing there? How is she feeling? Invite children to role play these scenes, ending with this moment in order that they get ‘under the skin’ of the character and inhabit her emotional turmoil.

Writing in Role - Poetry

. To support the children further with their understanding, read aloud or watch Michael Rosen read his poem, ‘I am angry’ from his collection illustrated by Chris Riddell, A Great Big Cuddle - Poems for the Very Young. The teaching sequence - which involves re-enacting and performance reading this poem - and associated resources can be found on CLPE’s Poetryline: https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/resources/teaching-sequences/great-big-cuddle . Once the whole of Isabel’s story has been told, children will have the opportunity to map her emotional journey. Give them plenty of opportunity to express and describe emotions and feelings, linking it to behaviour and responses to everyday events as well as more significant ones in their own lives. . Small groups of children could be supported to take their responses to the bedroom illustration as well as Rosen’s poem to write a line each describing Isabel’s behaviour or feelings. They could then put them together to create a collaborative free verse poem, for instance:

Flinging books Scrawling on the walls Roaring like a monster Knocking down towers Punching a pillow

. Once they have decided on the order of their lines, they could read it as a group, enhancing their performance with vocal intonation and effects, sound effects, actions and body percussion, enactment with props and dynamics. Once performed to the rest of the class, the audience could comment on effective and enjoyable moments.

Responding to Illustration and Shared Writing

Shared writing is one of the most important ways a teacher can show children how writing works and what it’s like to be a writer. Acting as scribe, the teacher works with a small or large group of children to create a text together, enabling them to concentrate on their ideas and composition.

. Revisit the spread in which Isabel has trashed her bedroom and re-read the sentence, ‘For a while Isabel hated everything?’ Consider the time line for Isabel’s destructive behaviour. How long is a ‘while’? For how long did Isabel hate everything? Did it happen all at once in a few minutes? Over the course of a day? A few weeks? What makes you think that? . Again, draw on the children’s own experiences and that from the wider world of other stories or children’s response to adult-led decisions or events they have seen televised or in films, such as Riley’s anger at having to move house in the Disney animation Inside Out or Merida’s frustration at being made to conform to be a Princess in Disney’s Brave. . Now consider other viewpoints:

o What is the Parrot thinking throughout these moments? Why did it sit on the wardrobe? How long did this go on for? o How do you think Isabel’s mum or dad will react when they see what she has done? What might they say? What would you want them to say to her? Why? . Elicit the children’s views of her behaviour and what they think Isabel should do now. How could they help her to feel better? What would they like to say to her to show that they understand? What advice would they give her? Elicit the children’s ideas and note them down on the flip chart or around the illustration on the working wall or class journal. . Establish that we can write to them Isabel with our suggestions. Have the children help you write a letter reassuring her that they understand how she feels; that she might want to talk to her parents or somebody about how she is feeling; that perhaps she might ask for help tidying away; that she could invite a different friend to come to play and she might have some fun; maybe she could write to Simon or phone him and ask him how he is doing? They might even suggest some activities that she could enjoy on her own as well as being with a friend. . Demonstrate writing whole sentences from the children’s initial, incomplete thoughts by thinking aloud as well as modelling an advisory yet friendly tone. . Once the letter is complete, have the children place it in an envelope addressed to Isabel, post it and await a reply. . Provide a range of correspondence stationery on which the children can write their own letters of advice to either Isabel or Simon. Ensure they are supported through seeing adults model writing their own letters alongside them as well as having the ideas bank and shared letter generated in this session clearly accessible. . You could leave prompts or talk to the children about scenarios in which there is potential for feeling lonely or left out in the setting, for example there being fewer roles than children in a game, the role play area being too small for all the children in a group or simply not knowing what or who to play with. How do the children think they could respond to such scenarios? What kinds of strategies could they adopt? Children could be encouraged to consider solutions and write signage to support everyone in making friends or talking about their feelings, such as creating a worry box or a buddy bench.

Re-reading, Reading Aloud and Responding to Illustration

. Re-read the whole story and continue until ‘…and decided to like being on her own.’ on the next spread. At this stage, don’t spend too long exploring this illustration as it will be revisited. However, some children may spot the wolf behind the tree in which case, “I wonder what that’s doing there?” will suffice at this stage. . Focus on what Isabel is doing in this moment, what she has been doing and how she is feeling. She appears calm and content having made her snow elephant. What does it say about Isabel that she has ‘decided to like being on her own.’? Support the children to draw on personal experiences and to hear the vocabulary that helps us to express feelings of resignation or acceptance.

. Ask the children to consider what else she might have learned to do on her own that helps her to feel content. Invite the children to discuss together what they think she could do to entertain herself at home or out and about. What do they do when they are on their own or bored? Scribe the children’s ideas and ask them to show each other their favourite pastimes or teach each other how to do things or play games for one. You might need to make enhancements to the provision to enable these activities to take place within the setting. Children could draw pictures of how they could amuse themselves using the loose parts construction resources or in the digging area, for instance, and pin them up to inspire others if they find themselves on their own. . Reveal the next spread which illustrates Isabel amusing herself in a variety of pursuits, without revealing the text at this stage. How does this compare to the activities the children’s own ideas? What is Isabel gaining from each of them? Draw attention to her varying facial expressions which portray her concentration, her sense of satisfaction, her contentment, her triumph, her anxiety and her joy. . Annotate an enlarged copy of the images with the children’s responses and add to it with photographs of the children experiencing similar emotions when engaging in their own play. Make further enhancements to the continuous provision that they might engage in similar pursuits as Isabel, such as junk modelling, reading in quiet or cosy areas across the setting, splashing in puddles, hula hooping or taking risks climbing trees or apparatus.

Re-reading and revisiting and Responding to Illustration

. Read aloud the whole book, including and stopping at the sentence, ‘The girl with the parrot on her head did not need friends.’ . Revisit the annotated illustrations of Isabel and the children at play and engage in her Role on the Wall with a new colour pen so that the children can keep track of her shifting emotions and their perceptions of her characteristics. Maybe now they think she is brave and resilient because she is helping herself and coping with the change positively; with being alone now. Why is the parrot back? How does Isabel feel about that? Is she really alone? . Re-read the sentence, ‘The girl with the parrot on her head did not need friends.’ How do the children feel about the idea that she doesn’t ‘need friends’? Is Isabel really happy without a friend to play with? Will she want to carry on playing alone forever? . Consider what else she might be thinking or feeling about this, exploring this spread and the previous illustration in the snow. Who is the wolf? Why is he there? Is he real? Are wolves friendly in real life or picture books? You could collect and share storybooks featuring wolves to enable the children to fully appreciate why Hirst chose a wolf to suddenly appear in Isabel’s life once she had to manage without a friend, such as: o Wolves by Emily Gravett, o Beware of the Storybook Wolves by Lauren Child o The Wolf, The Duck and The Mouse by Marc Barnett and Jon Klassen

o And, of course, the plethora of Little Red Riding Hood stories, for which a CLPE booklist can be downloaded at: https://www.clpe.org.uk/clpe/library/booklists/rash- red-riding-hoods . Suggest to the children that it might be there to show that she is worried. It isn’t coloured in so perhaps not immediately noticeable but maybe it is in the back of her mind; when she is quiet and even when she is having fun. You might also display and read aloud other books in which a character has an invisible friend and look at how they are portrayed, such as: o Lola’s Soren Lorenson in Lauren Child’s ‘Charlie and Lola’ series o Imaginary Fred by Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers o the monsters in Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.

Re-reading and Reading Aloud and Making Connections and Shared Writing - instructions

. Re-read and read aloud the whole book until ‘But secretly she was worried too – she thought that one of the wolves might be too big for the system.’ Is this what the children expected to find out about Isabel’s feelings? . Give the children time to explore the illustrations; particularly that in which she is hiding under her covers and the wolf appears to be escaping from its box. . Revisit the illustration of the system of boxes Isabel has created, paying attention to the labels and their contents. Elicit from the children that the boxes don’t just hold her toys or even broken things but also things like wolves and monsters, even the dark. Ask the children to talk about what they might want to hide away. What are they most afraid of or worried about? . Share the saying ‘A worry shared is a worry halved’ and invite the children to share their worries with a trusted friend, Key Person or group. Discuss when they think about them most often. It may be at bedtime and stop them sleeping, it may be other times. How do they get to sleep in the end? What helps them to forget their worries? They might have a comforting toy, piece of music or light that helps them. Maybe they rely on a sibling or parent to hold their hand. . You might ask children to draw and write about their worry and publish them in a class book of worries, if the children are happy to share them. . Children could read Silly Billy by Anthony Browne (Walker) then create something in which to place or share their own worries, such as a worry monster which eats the worry once written down, told and shared or they could explore the idea of Guatemalan worry dolls then create their own from wooden pegs, wool, thread or pipe cleaners. . Children could write to Isabel to let her know that they have found ways to feel better about bedtime or with their worries, even providing instructions with how she can make her own worry dolls. You could model how to write these instructions to support them with the language structures of imperative and advisory sentences. . Revisit the ‘system’ of sorting things into boxes that Isabel has. In order to appreciate what a ‘system’ means, engage the children in a variety of helpful sorting and tidying activities around the setting which will help them to take ownership over the way the continuous provision resources

are accessed, managed and maintained. They might take one area of provision and decide how resources could be categorised, refining their choices with use. . Start to collect and categorise broken toys, everyday objects and junk modelling ready to use for a large scale collaborative construction and role play project once the book has been read all the way to the end.

Shared Writing – A Poster for a Friend

. Talk to the children about what else would cheer Isabel up. Maybe she could find a new friend to play with. Discuss the kind of friend she would like as well as what they think is special about Isabel. Revisit her Role on the Wall to establish her characteristics and what she likes to do. . Revisit the play she enjoyed with Simon as well as that she engaged in on her own. What kind of friend would she like? Why did she like Simon? What did they like to do together? What makes Isabel a good friend? . Model through shared writing how you might create a poster asking for children to make friends with Isabel, taking the children’s ideas and demonstrating persuasive language as well as bold layout and illustration that will capture the interest of the reader. o What kinds of things does she like doing? o What is she good at? o Why would she make a good friend? . Make provision for the creative resources so that children can create their own posters. They could then display them around the school so that other children can read them and register their interest in a special post box. Engage the school community in writing to the class telling them about why they think they should be Isabel’s friend, what they like to do and how they could cheer Isabel up. . In circle or golden time with the Key Person, children could talk about what makes their friend special or why they enjoy spending time with each other. You might set up nurture groups for those children that still struggle to settle or demonstrate involvement socially.

Reading Aloud and Book Talk

. Read aloud until ‘…where a wolf could run and stop to howl and run again all day and night.’ Pause to discuss how Isabel and Chester might feel about meeting each other. Children could strengthen their understanding and developing empathy through role play, engaging once more in the freeze frame and thought tracking activity. . You could engage the children in an involved study of wolves in the wild so that they are able to help Isabel and Chester persuade the wolf by creating persuasive texts on the benefits of living in its natural habitat, such as posters, wildlife booklets or short films showing the wolf appreciating life as a wild wolf should. If you do decide to show the children wildlife documentary films about wolves, ensure you have vetted it for suitability for your children given the hunt sequences that often feature.

. Read aloud to the end of the book and, when you get to the end, have a single letter fall out of the book from both Isabel thanking the children for their advice and friendship. Have her ask the children to talk about which were their favourite parts of the story and whether they would recommend it to other children. . Engage the children in book talk: Tell me… o What did you like about the book? What did you dislike? Why? o Did it remind you of anything in real life or other stories? o Does anything puzzle you? Do you have any questions? o What would you tell your friends about the book? . Children could write book recommendations for other children to read and be encouraged to pick up The Girl with a Parrot on her Head.

Imaginative and Creative Play – Loose Parts

‘Loose parts’ in settings was first proposed back in the 1970's by architect Simon Nicholson, who believed that it is the loose parts in our environment that empower our creativity. In a preschool, loose parts are ambiguous materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. They are materials with no specific set of directions that can be used alone or combined with other materials.

. Revisit the end of the story in which Isabel and Chester share ideas about what the large box could be followed by their creation of the space station. . Ask the children which of Chester’s ideas they liked best and if they could think of any more of their own. Read aloud a range of books that support the children to engage imaginatively in box play and loose parts, such as: o On Sudden Hill by Linda Sarah and Benji Davies (Simon and Schuster) o Not a Box by Antoinette Portis (HarperCollins) o The Nowhere Box by Sam Zuppardi (Walker) o Whatever Next by Jill Murphy (Macmillan) o Stanley’s Stick by John Hegley and Neal Layton (Hodder) . Once the children have discussed a range of ideas, give them the loose parts, space, time and supporting resources with which to collaborate to construct their own role play areas, constructions, imagined places. Support sustained shared thinking with careful intervention and provocations; valuing and clarifying the children’s ideas, supporting negotiation of ideas within the group, suggesting scenarios and alternative viewpoints upon which they can base decisions, and taking an interest in the narrative that the children are building whilst constructing their role play space. . Encourage the children to spend time enacting their growing narratives, making accessible mark making and bookmaking materials with which the children can record their stories or have them

scribed as they tell them. The children might also enjoy committing their stories to paper so that other children can act them out with their direction.

Re-reading, Retelling and Storymapping

Making a storymap is a way of retelling the story. It is a graphic means of breaking a story down into episodes and sequencing its events. This kind of graphic representation helps children to hold on to the shape of the story more confidently so they can retell it orally or in writing. Children can also make story maps as a form of planning, to prepare for their own writing.

. Give the children ample opportunity to hear, revisit and re-read the story with you and with peers, allowing them plenty of scope for book talk and re-enactment. You could record the story and let the children follow the by now familiar print alongside the tunes or an audio book which you could create in the children’s home languages by making recordings on an MP3 device. . Plan for opportunities for children to retell and play with the story. For example, you might have the children help you make puppets of the characters from the story by copying and laminating the illustrations from the story or small world figures using wooden blocks with illustrations from the book pasted on. . Provide children with lengths of paper on which they can begin to draw their favourite moments in the book, inviting their friends to share their own with them and creating connections between the two in terms of story sequencing. . Read the story again, drawing attention to the seasonal changes in the story; that it moves from a happy Summer of playing with her best friend, into a blustery Autumn when Simon leaves and Isabel feels angry, to a snowy winter in which she feels quiet and afraid in the dark, through to Spring time when she makes a new start with a new friend, Chester. It may be a new concept for the children to experience a story take place over a whole year rather than in a day. . Elicit from the children what they know about the seasons; what happens to the natural world, what events take place for them and for other people and how they feel about each of the seasons. Why do they feel one way or another? Perhaps some children find the wind exciting whilst enjoy being outside more in the summer or seeing new buds or baby animals in springtime. . Create a large scale sequencing board in which the children can see the seasons represented in the story for themselves and to which they can refer when discussing events as well as using as a backdrop during their role play and re-enactment.

. Make accessible props to support re-enactment of the environmental changes, such as autumnal coloured juggling scarves so that children can play the swirling leaves as well as the two characters saying goodbye to each other. You could provide musical instruments to enable the children to soundscape the story and add a sense of mood to the events that they are re-enacting or retelling in the story. . You might provide laminated picture cards of the key events from the illustrations so that the children can sequence them in the order that the events took place in the story. You might stick Velcro or magnetic tape on the back of each image to enable children to display them on a felt or white board then move them around easily.

. You could model how to create a storymap of the entire story by swiftly sketching the key events in the story. Show the children how the storymap can be used to help us recall the sequence of events. . Encourage children to collaborate to create their own storymaps of the story. Model how to draw on story language to support the flow and pace of the story as well as helping the reader to visualise the scenes. . When the children are confident in retelling the story, you could ask them to add detail and description to the part of the story that they found most memorable. Encourage them too to consider the most effective words to describe Isabel’s emotions at given points in the story. The children could pass the story around from group to group, embellishing that with which they are most confident or which they found most memorable.

Building a Repertoire of Vocabulary and Storymapping - Graph of Emotion

Making word collections is a way of focussing on the language of a text. Children can make collections of words that describe a particular character, their feelings, a place, and event or a situation.

Collecting words in this way helps children to have a more focussed awareness of the ways language affects our perceptions and understandings and the ways in which the author creates the readers' response.

. Read aloud the whole book and ask the children to talk with each other about the parts they found most enjoyable, upsetting, memorable or vivid, including any favourite words and phrases they recalled. Encourage the children to share these moments with the class. They might even act them out or freeze frame them for others to guess. What makes them memorable? . Encourage the children to consider what Isabel would have been thinking or feeling at a given moment. Ask the children to voice these thoughts and to record them in a thought bubble. For less experienced writers you could use talking tins or talking bubbles that can be attached to the display. Scribe for those children who are less confident so that they still see the reciprocal relationship between spoken language, written print and that writing can be read. Add the children’s though bubbles to the working wall or display or around the area in which role play takes place. You might take photographs of re-enactment and ask more experienced writers to write captions for their favourite moments in the story. . Work with the children to track Isabel’s emotional journey throughout the story. Place the laminated picture cards from the previous session in sequence to create a timeline of key events in the story along the base of a board. . Then ask children for suggestions as to how Isabel was feeling at different times in the story. Ensure that children have the opportunity to explore and discuss a wide range of emotions, rather than just happy or sad. Refer back to previous activities, such as the role play, and any language displayed on the working wall to support their vocabulary. If children struggle in discussing or understanding a broad range of emotions, consider displaying visual representations of different feelings or share books in which dealing with emotions provides a core element of the story: o Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears by Emily Gravett (Macmillan) o Grumpy Frog by Ed Vere (Puffin), o Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley (Little, Brown) o Pom Pom Gets the Grumps by Sophy Henn (Puffin) o ‘I’m Angry’ or ‘Lost’ from A Great Big Cuddle, by Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell (Walker) . Children are likely to generate words like angry, sad, calm, scared and happy. Take up to five contrasting emotions such as these and write them on word cards then place them up the left hand side of the board, to create the second axis on the Graph of Emotion:

. Provide several laminated images of Isabel which the children can help you place on the graph according to how they think she felt at that moment in the story:

. Leave the class Graph of Emotion in an accessible place so that children can make their own decisions about where to place Isabel. The discussions that take place during the emotional storymapping will strengthen the children’s ability to empathise with each other as well as inferring emotions of characters in other stories.

Narrative writing, bookmaking and publishing

Publishing their work for an audience helps children to write more purposefully. Bookmaking provides a motivating context within which children can bring together their developing understanding of what written language is like; making written language meaningful as they construct their own texts.

. Once the children are confident in retelling the story, they can go on to committing it in writing. They might write the whole of a straight retelling, just their favourite part or even be experienced enough of a storyteller to try to write from the viewpoint of either Iris or Isaac. They could even be encouraged to make innovations and use the structure of the story to create a new narrative involving two friends who fall out then realise it is better to share with your friend in the end. . Create handmade zig-zag books with the children so that they can illustrate and write in whichever order they prefer or that which supports them most to compose their ideas in complete sentences. Help them to use their storymaps to take a scene at a time for each of the pages in the book. . Alternatively, if they are retelling their favourite scene, they might collaborate as a group to create a larger book, each illustrating and authoring a page by way of contribution. . Once the books are complete, display them in the reading area of the classroom or somewhere more public so that they are published author illustrators, their works to be enjoyed by others. They could be displayed alongside Daisy Hirst’s books. . Create a bookmaking and publishing area in the classroom in which the children can engage in creating a range of handmade books and publishing their work in a variety of ways. Observe the children closely to fully appreciate the writing identity and personality of each of them, perhaps linked to their schemas or ways of learning. Some children may enjoy the secretarial aspects of writing so a range of stationery and mark making materials will entice them to write; others the compositional elements so voice recording equipment, small world and descriptive phrases from the book might support them to engage in writing. Some children naturally envelope so provide boxes and envelopes in which they can wrap or store their ideas; others might be driven to take writing resources from this area and transport it to another. Make provision for this by creating portable writing boxes or bags that they can help stock and maintain.

Phonological Development and Early Reading

Phonological Awareness:

Word collections: . Children can explore adjectives and adverbial phrases when describing their collaborative role play areas, dens or constructions, e.g. cosy, spacious, stable, unsteady, safe . Children can explore a range of emotional responses throughout the story and associated vocabulary, e.g. content, happy, sad, upset, tearful, frustrated, confused, cross, angry, sulky, grumpy, lonely, frightened, shy Instrumental Sounds: Children can create a soundscape to represent the seasonal changes or emotional journey that Isabel undertakes. Singing: Teach the children friendship and co-operation songs, for example:

‘Friend of Mine’ (can be sung to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb): Will you be a friend of mine, a friend of mine, a friend of mine? Will you be a friend of mine and (insert an action) around with me? (name) is a friend of mine, friend of mine, friend of mine, (name) is a friend of mine, who (insert same action) around with me.

Use and Application of Phonics:

Basic code – starting sounds: and, had, but, top, on, sit, not, and, did, big, den, sad, run Basic code - all sounds: night, might, back, push, sort, howl, need, moon, room, box, with, tell, too, corner Consonant clusters: went, stop, felt, dress, found, truck, help, next, cross, plain

This is a Core Book teaching sequence. The Core Book list is a carefully curated list of the best books to use with children in primary schools. It contains books which have been tried, tested and found to work successfully in classrooms, providing children with memorable and positive reading experiences. At CLPE we believe that the use of high quality books within the reading curriculum is at the heart of a school's successful approach to engage and support children to become motivated and independent readers. The Core Book List is a free online resource that you can access at www.clpe.org.uk/corebooks. This book was part of our Planning Creatively Around a Text in 2016-17. Find out more about our professional development opportunities: www.clpe.org.uk/professionaldevelopment

Have you enjoyed using this teaching sequence? Subscribe to the Power of Reading website to access hundreds of teaching sequences and examples of classroom practice. Find out more here https://www.clpe.org.uk/powerofreading