Gwynneth Bailey on a story that helps children to explore life experiences in the curriculum

Outline

How Do You Feel? charts 10 emotions felt by a five-year-old during his first week at school, when he loses his teddy bear, and when he visits the dentist. The bold text at the foot of each page helps the story along and the book has three pages of suggested activities. It also comes in a Welsh edition.

How to use it

English * Children can learn to read and write the days of the week and the emotions in the book (“shy”, “happy”, “cross”, and so on).

* Sing the days of the week to the tune of “This Old Man”, with children raising their hands on the day they are on. Repeat until pupils are happy with it and divide them into two groups to sing alternate days. Sing in groups of fours, threes and twos, to build confidence and concentration. Learn the alternative “week” in Eric Carle’s Today is Monday (Picture Puffin, pound;4.99).

* Talk about special things children do on set days of the week, such as going swimming.

* Make a Monday-to-Friday class diary of planned activities. Use large sheets of card folded in a zig-zag so that the book will stand up to be read on both sides. Discuss activities. Teacher models the writing, children provide the drawings. Practice reading the diary to each other.

* Make mis-matched sentences and ask children to sort and re-write them correctly, such as: “Today is Sunday, my birthday.”“I felt so cross that I stamped my feet.”

* Ask each child to choose a name for the boy in the story and retell the story to a partner. Over a week, older children can re-write this independently.

* Discuss how the story is told in the first person. With teacher modelling, retell whole story in the third person. Ask pupils to rewrite the Monday page, then choose any day of the week to rewrite.

* Read together and discuss the 10 emotions listed at the top of each page. Sing them slowly to the tune of “Hot Cross Buns” (give four notes to “S-A-D” and three notes to “LO-NE-LY”) then try to express the emotions facially while singing. Hold a competition to see who does it best.

* Use the speech bubbles for instant role-play. Choose five characters to play the parts and read from the big book. Develop into drama with a small group being responsible for each day of the week.

* Hunt for picture books in which an emotion can be pin-pointed, for example, “scared”, shown in Little Lumpty by Miko Imai (Walker pound;4.99), or Sarah, Percy and Bill’s reaction to Mother’s return in Martin Waddell’s Owl Babies (Walker pound;4.99).

Maths

* How old is the boy in the book? Count the candles on his cake. Which children are older, younger, or the same as he age is?

* Study the different-shaped birthday parcels on the Sunday page. Count, then draw the parcels, with a line that leads to a drawing of their idea of the present within.

* Learn to count in sevens up to 5x7. Demonstrate with different sets of counting apparatus.

Arttechnology

* Use multi-media to writepaint stick lists of days of the week. Add a sliding pointer to change each day.

* Use circles of white card and a mirror to make self-portraits showing an emotion.Write the name of the emotion on the back of the card and display.

Gwynneth Bailey is language co-ordinator at Aldborough county primary school, Norwich