Shopping baskets around the world

http://imgur.com/a/mN8Zs I don't know how long the above link will be live for, but it is a truly remarkable series of photos of families around the world with their week's groceries. There is so much literally food for thought here. Just talking about the different types and amounts of foods in different countries will provoke much deep thinking and conversation. What do the children notice most? What do these images tell us about culture, lifestyle, wealth and healthy living?

Arty fundraiser

Check out the Arty ideas page for this way to incorporate fundraising into an art project.

North by Nick Dowson

Go to the Book-based ideas page for teaching ideas for my husband's great new non-fiction book!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

An unashamed plug for my new book, recently published.  Teaching notes for Jeff Kinney's book, in the Scholastic 'Read and Respond' series.  Follow this link to order from Amazon!

Haiku

After a very long pause, today there's a great idea for introducing Haiku, on the Literacy page.

Plenaries

Follow this link to go to the Guardian's teacher network site, for their Plenary generator.  You'll need to register to access it, but it's free.

Blue Plaques

I've added a great idea for local history on the Serendipity page.  Make your mark on history and check it out now!

Tigress, by Nick Dowson

Here are some text-specific ideas for using this fantastic nature storybook.  Scroll further down for cross-curricular suggestions.

• Look at the cover.  Why does the book have the title 'Tigress?  Why might the author have chosen to focus on the female rather than the male?
• Look at the endpapers.  The Paisley design was chosen to represent India, one of the places where tigers live.
• Note the hot colours the illustrator has used on the first spread (p6-7) echoing the heat of the tigress's environment.
• Notice the two types of text - the main one, in a poetic style that tells the story, and the more straightforward language of the sub-text with gives extra information.
• On pages 6-7 find allusions to the tigress being magical, and link this to camouflage.
• Also on pages 6-7, find the first examples of alliteration - tree,tail; stalks, slowly; and assonance - tigress, hiding; fiery, stripy. There are many more to be found throughout the text.
• On pages 8/9 there are five sentences.  Notice how they all start differently and there are no unnecessary words, showing deliberate and careful word choices that ensure an efficiency of language.
• Find the simile on page 10 - 'body like wind on water' - and find others elsewhere in the book.
• On page 14 look at the three spellings and meanings of the words two/too/to.
• List the powerful verbs e.g.: crouches, gleam, ripple, wriggling, snarl, bared, sheathed, crunched, wrinkling, quiver, gliding, nuzzles.  Remember that the test of whether a word is a verb is that its tense can be changed.

Cross-curricular links

• Make a time-line of tiger cubs' development
• Create tiger stripe designs in paint or collage
• Write a  poem based on tigers.  Include their movement, description, sounds, size, hunting etc.
• Map where tigers live
• Find and measure out the size of an adult tiger - nose to tail-tip
• Create a tiger fact-file, using this book and the internet for information
• Make a poster about protecting wild tigers
• Compose some tigery music to accompany the reading of the book
• Create a dance sequence based on the powerful verbs found in the text
• Have a debate about whether wild animals like tigers should be kept in zoos.  What are the pros and cons?

Coventry Cathedral image

Click on the Serendipity tab to find a whole raft of ideas across the curriculum based on a photograph of the ruins of Coventry Cathedral.

A load of nonsense!

There's an instant lesson on Jabberwocky for you today.