Forbidden food

This week’s blog considers a theme in stories favoured by many authors – food. Here we explore how we can use this theme to develop children’s understanding of stimulus and consequence in narrative.

Food appears in many stories, frequently working as a device to move narrative forwards. Here we take a look at foods that really shouldn’t have been eaten. Food that we like to call ‘forbidden’….

Forbidden foods appear in stories from different times and cultures, meaning that they are great for making cross-curricular links and raising opportunities to teach NC Reading Assessment Focus 7. Once children have experienced a number of stories that use forbidden food they should begin to notice that there are always consequences for eating the food. This, then, in turn supports them in Reading Assessment Focus 3, so that they are able to infer what may happen if a character eats something they shouldn’t.

Before looking at some learning activities that could be undertaken with food, let’s consider some of the stories where forbidden foods play a role.

A serpent tempting Eve to eat an apple in the Garden of Eden has to be the starting point for any analysis of forbidden food. It also allows a useful opportunity to look at morals in stories and to make links to RE. Staying in the ancient world, what about Persephone in the Underworld? As a consequence of having eaten six pomegranate seeds whilst in Hades, she was doomed to spend six months of every year in the underworld for the rest of her life.

When Alice ventured through Wonderland she encountered two different types of Forbidden food: Eat Me cake which caused her to grown to an unfathomable size and Drink Me potion which did quite the opposite. Both of these consequences were an inconvenience to Alice, but neither was particularly sinister. This isn’t the case in all stories, however. Just think what happened to Edmund Pevensie when he ate the Turkish Delight in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; or Snow White when she ate the apple (yes, apples again).

Sometimes the consequences of a bit of food indulgence aren’t quite so serious. A severe case of tummy ache is all that worries little Tiro, when he’s indulged on stolen oranges in Journey to Jo’burg. More comically the young Michael Rosen is given away by a chocolate smudge after his nocturnal chocolate cake consumption. And Julian and Huey suffer a ticking off and a quick cookery lesson after eating the Pudding like a Night on the Ocean intended for mum.

So, how can we teach children about the use of forbidden food in stories? First we need to collect stories where something happens as a consequence of consuming forbidden food. (Take a look at our Pinterest board). Once children have knowledge of this narrative tool it should help them to make inferences when they come across other examples of forbidden food in their reading (AF3).

There are lots of PSHE links to be made by looking at forbidden foods. The danger of taking food from strangers springs to mind – this could be covered with Snow White in KS1 and The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe in KS2. What about foods, potions and poisons? Why not debate whether Alice should have drunk the Drink Me potion, how did she know it was safe? Alternatively, you could turn each of these foodie encounters into an opportunity to persuade a character why they should eat the forbidden food. This could be as a poster or a persuasive letter.

If you’re feeling really creative you could provide the class with a selection of food. Naturally they will want to taste it, touch it and smell it, which is great for stimulating descriptive writing. If you’ve used The Pudding Like a Night on the Ocean you could even persuade them to use figurative language. Why not then, get the children to invent possible outcomes of eating various foods. Giving them exposure to lots of stories that use forbidden foods should really help fire their imaginations.

Explore creation myths which use food. I’ve referred to Eve and Persephone, can the children locate any others? This would make a good research activity.

Ask children to write their own stories where a character eats some food that they shouldn’t. In KS1 these could be simple innovations on well-known stories such as Snow White or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In KS2 children could box-up the narrative structure from one of the stories above and include a forbidden food with consequences that are suitable to the setting of their story.

And now we’re off for lunch. This blogpost is making us feel a little peckish…

Rachel Clarke, Coventry Primary English Consultant.

Teachers as Writers

So, it all started with a question in a school hall on a Teacher Day not so far from here;
“How many of you consider yourselves readers?” Up shot the hands, nearly everyone, nothing unusual there.

“How many of your consider yourselves writers?” Few hands and an uncomfortable silence.  It’s stark, in a room full of teachers less than a handful consider themselves writers.

Listening in to the ensuing conversation, they do write.  One writes a diary “Yes, but it isn’t really writing is it?  It’s for me”  Yes, it is writing.  You are a writer.  “Is texting writing?” Yes, it is writing, scroll through mine and my best friends messages and it’s a story of our days and important events.  We then went on to a writing activity and I began, in analogue form, this blog.  So, reader, here’s your question;

“Are you a writer?”

Let’s start with this past week, write a list of everything you have written.  For me it’s a blog post, texts, emails, to do list, shopping list, menu plan, facebook updates, tweets, have I missed anything?  I probably write more now than I ever have!  And so do you, you are a writer, we all are, sometimes it’s about perception.  Do we percieve these activities to be valuable writing activities?  They are writing to inform (e.g. facebook), to entertain (e.g. twitter), to persuade (e.g. emails).

It is important that the children see these things, see us as writers but first you need to acknowledge that you are a writer.  Over on Facebook, when I asked about writing Hannah from BookHappy said this “There’s writing (the everyday kind) and ‘writing’ the high quality stuff that we aspire to but find it difficult to achieve.” You may not write perfect prose and elegant verse but you are a writer.  Louise Dobson said “I have an unpublished children’s ‘book’ in my bottom drawer! Keep wondering whether to re-edit and try again. I try to write when my classes are writing and I share what I’ve written. This is very important I think that the children see you as a writer…”  we agree, and Louise, that book, it’s a book, not a ‘book’.  What an amazing thing to have done.  Mirianda said “I love to write and I find it very therapeutic. I have a recurring dream, just as I’m drifting off to sleep, that I’m writing an article for a newspaper. The language is very eloquent and opinionated! I regularly dream about writing articles about the stock market- I don’t know anything about economics so I don’t know what’s going on there!”

So we teachers are writing, but not everyone, so here are a few ideas for how you could gently begin to write and encourage your class to write and if you have any other ideas pop them on a comment below, we’d love to hear from you.

Teachers as Writers, a few ideas (you don’t need to do them all!  Pick one you think you could do).

1) Class blog, write a class blog to communicate with parents and children. This has real advantages, gives the children and you a real life purpose and keep parents informed and may even get them joining in!  Try to ask a question at the end of the blog to draw responses too.
2) Write when the children write; make the deal.  For example, during guided writing could you sit with the group and write, model asking them for support when you get stuck and model good practice.
3) Write a round robin story one line at a time, using flip chart paper or a wallpaper roll, put up a starting sentence, the children can add a sentence at a time, anyone can join in, but as a teacher, make sure you add a sentence to it every day, it could grow all year if you did it on a wallpaper roll!
4) Make a big thing of writing, tell them when you are writing a note, making a list, don’t hide the everyday writing away.
5) Model writing, not just in English, do you model writing in science, history, geography?
6) Give children pieces of your writing as models, or to edit and deconstruct.
7) Start a class diary that you and the children can contribute to.

8) Send the class postcards from everywhere you visit even if it’s just for the day, it doesn’t take long and also gives you a conversation point.
9) Start a notice board so that children can contribute notes about exciting events or things they want to tell the class.
10) Value the writing that you do, be confident and write.

Further detail and information:

Our very own blog from guest blogger & professional writer Louise Etheridge – Be a Storyteller in 30 Minutes

Writing is Primary – Useful research document looking at supporting teachers writing to support pupils

Teachers as Writers: Learning together – Research document

Writing West Midlands - A useful organisation to get writers into school and for encouraging teachers as writers

We have some links with Theatre Absolute and are currently looking at a joint venture to put on Writing Gyms for teachers, keep an eye on the VLE, Facebook and Twitter for details.

Charlotte Reed – Coventry Primary English Consultant and Writer

With thanks for contributions to this blog by the Head and Staff of Richard Lee Primary School Coventry, Hannah, Louise and Miranda for their contributions via Facebook.

Maths? Using a story book?

 This week’s blog is from one of our Coventry teachers, Jan Pringle, who has been putting books to good use in maths lessons.

 As a maths leader, I quite often have the privilege of doing planning trawls and looking at weekly and medium term planning from other teachers. I’m often very impressed by the thought and detail that goes into these. But there’s one section that seems very rarely to be given much thought. If your weekly or medium term planning format is anything like mine, there’s a small section headed ‘cross-curricular links’, and I hardly ever see it filled in, except perhaps with the suggestions given on the format itself, and these are nearly always Science based.

On the whole, we are very good these days at making cross-curricular links, particularly at bringing writing opportunities into a whole range of curriculum areas. At the start of units, topic webs are drawn up and connections made – but maths is often very difficult to fit in to these and so we agree that it’s probably best to teach this discretely. I’d be the first to admit that it is often difficult to bring maths into our topic themes – although I do think it’s worth making the effort. It’s so important that children see the relevance of maths to their lives and the way that the skills they learn can be applied. However, one great way of linking maths to other curricular areas is by using story and picture books.

As I write, my daughter – in her first year of teaching – is spending a few days with us. Yesterday, she was starting to plan the maths for her Year 1 class for the Summer term and looking for activities in particular for time and money. She’d already planned to use Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ as a starting point for learning and ordering the days of the week, and ‘What’s the Time, Mr Wolf’ by Colin Hawkins and ‘The Bad-Tempered Ladybird’ (another book by Eric Carle) for telling the time and sequencing the day. I was able to introduce her to the wonderful Mick Inkpen book ‘The Great Pet Sale’ and she then happily spent most of the rest of the afternoon having lots of fantastic ideas about how she could use this – her role play area for the start of term will be a pet shop with lots of opportunities for the children to practise paying for items, finding the correct money and giving change, but also stimulating lots of writing opportunities too – descriptions of their pets, instructions for looking after a pet, recounts of visits to a pet shop – like most teachers, given an engaging starting point, the possibilities she’ll find will be almost endless. She also found some fantastic resources to use on T.E.S. and some good labels for her pet shop on Twinkl as well as a reading of the book on Youtube.

I suspect KS1 teachers have always been quite good at using story and picture books in some of their maths work, but as a KS2 teacher I wasn’t so aware of good books with mathematical links until I was introduced to some by the Coventry Primary Maths team at subject leader training and also during my MaST training.

A particular favourite is Anna Milbourne’s ‘How Big is a Million’ which tells the story of a young penguin eager to find out just what a million looks like. Big numbers tend to fascinate children of all ages and although younger children would love this book with its very simple story line, I’ve also used it very successfully with children in Upper KS2. Another is ‘The Rabbit Problem’ by Emily Gravett, again a very simple story attractively presented, but with some quite challenging maths to explore for older primary children. I’ve used this with Upper KS2 when we’ve been looking at number sequences to lead into looking at the Fibonacci sequence and algebra.

 There are so many books that can be successfully used in maths, from simple counting books like the beautiful Anthony Browne book ‘One Gorilla’, through books about measures like Pamela Allen’s ‘Mr Archimedes’ Bath’,

to books about working with very large numbers like ‘Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar’ by Anno Masaichiro. For fans of the ‘Horrible History’ books, there is even a whole series of ‘Murderous Maths’ books written by Kjartan Poskitt.

I’m continually collecting new ideas for my Pinterest board and Coventry Primary English also have their own board of ideas.

We’d like to thank Jan for a fabulous blogpost. If you have more marvellous maths ideas, do share them with us!