Page 12: Hattie and Friends, EYFS literature

 Page 12: Hattie and Friends, EYFS literature ...

After finishing a lecture on Tuesday, I opened my door to see a parcel left outside - I was puzzled. As I opened the package, I saw what I had received. Lesley Berrington (author of the Hattie and Friends stories) had kindly her set of four books: A day at the sea side, A day at the farm, A day at the zoo and A day at the park. With my placement in EYFS starting soon (not yet to be confirmed if this is going to be online or in person), these are going to be amazing to share with the class. Reading with the pupils, is a great way of building that crucial teacher-pupil relationship that you aim to establish quickly. What I particularly love about these books is the fact that they can be used for 'reading for pleasure' just for the enjoyment of storytelling, but also these can also be built around the key framework to allow pupils to achieve their developmental goals. 

In the EYFS setting, there are seven areas of learning and development. They are essential for igniting children's curiosity to learn. When tacking one of the three prime areas - communication and language, incorporating these stories into planning can help achieve those essential key elements. The Department for Education define the communication and language development as "involves giving children opportunities to experience a rich language environment; to develop their confidence and skills in expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a range of situations."  

What makes these books further stand out to me, especially when deciding ways I would like to use them in the classroom is how inclusive they are. With many young children facing anxiety when attending school ranging from a number of reasons from attachment to feeling like they don't 'fit in', 

"This series of books shows how children of all abilities love to have a day out. With clear type and colourful illustrations they promote a positive image if disability for young children."

Following on from this fairly long introduction, in today's post I will share a lesson idea per book that I would like to try out with a class when I can. The possibilities of these books are endless, so if this is something you like to see on the blog, I would be happy to share more lesson ideas around these stories. 

The development matters document (which is a non statutory document, however, most settings follow its guidance)  states that for learning to be effective the characteristics are: playing and exploring (engagement), active learning (motivation) and creating and thinking critically (thinking). Through these tasks I will demonstrate below how these books can cater for this in the classroom. 

A day at the Seaside:

Brief Synopsis - 

Hattie and Lucy are going to the beach. Starting from their journey meeting at the bus stop, they take the bus together and arrive at the beach. The book describes the fact there are seagulls by the loud noises, and that it is windy, by feeling the breeze blow against their faces. The simple high quality description through using senses describes the warm sand and hearing bells to find the donkey's!

Lucy is partially sighted. The way all senses are incorporated into the book to tell the story, shows how the author is promoting a postive image of disability for young children. 

Link to DfE EYFS Framework -

Speaking: children express themselves effectively, showing awareness of listeners’ needs.

Activity - 

Continuous provision makes up a large proportion of the day in the EYFS. This involves the teacher facilitating and setting up the learning opportunity for children to work through and learn from themselves. To fit in theme with a book, most EYFS settings have a sand and water pit, in our case "the seaside". For pupils to be able to work together and talk about similarities and differences, I would place matching cards in the water and sand pit, for the pupils to identify and match together. The cards will be on theme with the story for example, donkey's, ice creams, buckets and spades. This task will be ideal for developing this talk between pupils. 

A day at the Farm:

Brief Synopsis - 

Hattie and Nisha are going to the farm. They walked around the farm, seeing and feeding the animals. After, they took a well deserved lunch break to feed themselves whilst still observing the "chickens strutting around the farmyard." followed by a tractor ride, a play in the adventure playground and inevitably a trip to the gift shop!

Sharing positive light of disability, the illustrations really help to show this in the story and how there is no limitations of having to use leg braces and a walking aid. In the EYFS, many children who have weak limbs, will use these to support and help their body develop. Sharing a story where children can recognise themselves in the book can help them relate either personally or through a friend feel included.

Link to Development Matters - 

•Uses some number names and number language spontaneously. 

•Uses some number names accurately in play. 

•Recites numbers in order to 10. 

Activity - 

For one of the books, I wanted to focus on the key mathematical requirements stated in the Development Matters document. Focusing on the tractor ride. Numbers can be introduced to the lesson by the fact there is an illustration of a clock with numbers one for the time of the ride. The aim of the session would be for the pupils to become familiar and confident with counting (1-10). I would do this by printing and laminating the tractor and a range of animals they might see on the tractor journey. Pupils would have to for example count the number of wheels on the tractor, or identity how many animals are in a group. I.e. 3 chickens, 2 pigs. This would be a whole class teach incorporated through a 'circle time' style. The teacher would place the big images n the middle, a few pupils would identify the number, and then to practice and facilitate the counting (names and numbers) the whole class would say the name together, and indicate how many on a set of number beads. This can be repeated with different animals and farm counting to allow 1-10 to be reached. 

A day at the Zoo:

Brief Synopsis - 

Hattie and George and going to the Zoo. Starting by Hattie's Mum making a picnic in preparation for the day, the duo arrived at the Zoo and started finding the animals. From giraffes, to elephants (which soaked them!!) and then waddling penguins, they were exhausted so stopped for their picnic. They then watched the parrot show and one even landed on George's shoulder! Finishing their day exhausted with an ice cream, it was then time to go home. 

This book, highlights the friendship between Hattie and George by working together. When they visiting enclosures, Hattie pushed George in his wheelchair. It shows the action packed fun day that can be had and that using a wheelchair causes no limitations! 

Link to DfE EYFS Framework -

Reading: children read and understand simple sentences

Activity -

The structure of this book is simple, and perfect for building confidence and working through phonics knowledge in the aim for children to read and understand simple sentences. When working with a small phonics / reading group, teachers could select a few sentences from the book, and break these down phonetically to illustrate to phonemes (unit of sound) to the graphemes (the letters that represent the phoneme). This is a great way of relating your everyday phonics lessons to a class book, as the fact pupils can use a book they know and understand, it will help consolidate the learning. For example: "We can find the monkeys now". This can be broken down into phonemes and the children can build these together to support the reading of the book. 

A day at the Park:

Brief Synopsis - 

Hattie and Toby are going to the park. They brought their tickets, took the train and waved to the cows through the window. They firstly headed to the lake to feed the ducks and stopped for their picnic before heading to animal corner. They petted the rabbits, and saw chickens and peacocks!

What is great about this one, is the use of description when describing the colours and things seen. Toby wears a cochlear implant. The story shows how having a hearing impairment, does not limit your capabilities and enjoyment at a fun day out. Physically seeing the implant in the illustrations also highlights to educate children and shows them the normality of the device. 

Link to DfE EYFS Framework -

Understanding: children follow instructions involving several ideas or actions. They answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences and in response to stories or events.

Activity - trip to the park (practical task)

Whilst wanting to indicating a range of ways and genres to use these books, why not throw a school trip in! A trip to the park is often seen in reception as a school trip. I think school trips (free ones) like a walk and park adventure, is crucial for development outside the classroom and of the world for pupils. For many disadvantages children, little trips like these may be the only time they get these opportunities so it is essential to do things like this when possible. It is ideal to link a book to a trip for wider context and understadning of literature. This will work towards their developmental goals as they will need to follow instructions and follow the actions of these. Whilst on the trip, pupils can do similar things to Hattie and Toby, relating to the characters so they are then able to answer 'how' and 'why' questions from their experiences. These could be visiting the park, feeding ducks etc.  As a result of this, there is plenty of follow up activities that could be conducted in the classroom. 

These four tasks will be ideal to carry out for any EYFS setting. This has been really useful too when preparing for placement soon, from my exploring of frameworks and linking practical activities around these. This has been a long one, but I think that further highlights how fabulous these books are. Being highly sought after EYFS literature, I would like to again thank Lesley for sending these to me. 

The postive use of inclusivity in these books allows all pupils to feel valued and part of the class society, by 'normalising' differences and sharing how these children can still get involved with the same adventures! 

Again, if you are interested in me sharing more ways I aim to use these books as well as others, I'd love to share more. Happy reading and teaching!

"The important message is that all children can be friends and have fun, abilities are not important. All young children accept differences, their curiosity will raise questions and they develop attitudes from the answers they receive. We must show, through our attitudes and actions, that we value all children equally."

- Miss Yeoman