Get Out of My Bath!

Today’s review is of Get Out of My Bath! by Britta Teckentrup, published by Nosy Crow.

 

Ellie the elephant loves her baths but on this occasion she is joined by more than just a rubber duck. A crocodile sneaks in, followed by a flamingo, followed by a tiger and finally a mouse. There’s just not enough room in the bath for all these animals and Ellie needs to come up with a cunning plan to get her bath back to herself (and her duck).

This Britta Teckentrup book is as beautiful as always. Her drawings are colourful, the faces expressive and the story full of fun. An added interest to young readers will be the tactile nature of the pages – the water (waves and droplets) are covered in a smooth material which makes touching them a treat. You really do feel as if you are in the bath with Ellie (if there were enough room!).

There is also a physical element to the book. The reader is encouraged to tilt the book to ‘move’ Ellie from side to side (though it’s worth remembering that, if you are reading to a class, like I was today, you need to do it the reverse way, as if they are holding the book) for this to work. You are also told to shake the book to try to get the animals out the bath (the children loved this bit!). And of course they jumped at the chance to join in with such commands as ‘Get out of the bath!’. Normally I have to encourage the younger ones to say it a little louder, but today’s group was loud enough the first time (and we had to repeat it – it nearly knocked me out the room!).

A great book for children to read. This would also make a fantastic bathtub book!

Happy Roald Dahl Day!

We’re only in our second week back at school and already we have something to celebrate:

 

If one of the most popular and well-loved storytellers of all time were still alive, he would have been 100 today, and the whole country (and beyond) is celebrating!

We’ve currently been running a survey to see which of his books is the most popular amongst our pupils. We’re still awaiting a few results but The BFG is in the lead by a fair amount, possibly influenced by the new Steven Speilberg film, followed by Matilda, then Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Roald Dahl remains a huge favourite in St Michael’s Library so we’re all excited to be talking about him and making things in his honour. For a start, we’ve created this wall display:

The little test tubes and jars will be full of dreams soon!

The children also spent much of last week inventing their own candy or drawing their own Roald Dahl character.

Candy creations

Sara (top left) created The Dancing Twirl (ingredients: sugar, music, fizz and ice cream), which makes you dance perfectly forever.

Arfah (top middle) did a Chewy Mug (ingredients: sucker, Mars, Snickers, Bounty, Twix and M&Ms) which is a sweet and yummy mess.

Sabeen (top right) created The Bouncy Castle Everlasting Jelly Kingdom of Chocolate, Including Boiled See-through Sweets (ingredients obvious).

Sahar (middle left) invented a Giant Chocolate Rainbow Bird Head (ingredients include chocolate, flavoured with orange, peach, blackberry, blueberry and lime but NO BIRDS).

Dexter (middle middle) designed a chocolate bar full of things guaranteed to make your teeth ache (ingredients: Gummie bears, marshmallows, chocolate cookies, strawberry lollies, white chocolate, dark chocolate, Haribos and fruit). Maybe we should call it Dentist’s Nightmare!

Harvey (middle right) rather likes the traditional chocolate bar, so decided to create his own Milky Way with lots of nuts.

Ethan (bottom left) made a very interesting but perhaps dangerous concoction called An Exploding Sprinkles, Lumpy-Bumpy, Triple Dipple, Chocolate Bomb.

Thomas (bottom middle) named his creation the Gob Grower, which gets biger and bigger the more you suck it!

Lily (bottom right) created her own Crunch, made from boiled sweets in the middle and first layers, biscuit crumble (second layer), and chocolate on the third layer and outside.

Crazy Characters

Unfortunately, my collage-maker has turned some of these the wrong way around (!) but I will talk you through them.

The large image on the top left is The Rotsome Trunchbull

The top right image is The Snoozing Gloop

The middle right drawing is The Frightsome Roly-Poly

The bottom right picture is The Squibbling Crabcruncher

The bottom middle creation is The Frightsome Bootboggler

The bottom left drawing is The Snodsin Twit.

We got these fantastic names from the Roald Dahl name generator. It caused great amusement as everyone came up to find out who they would be in a book (you take the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your second name and match them up to the names in the two columns). One person got The Vermicious Knid, which pleased me!

Cake sale!

There will be a Cake Sale in Year 3 at the end of the school day, with all proceeds going to Roald Dahl’s charity, so do pop along and buy a cake! Just look at some of the mouthwatering ones we’ve had in so far:

This clever chocolate creation contains Nishnobblers from The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me.

These cupcakes are based on George’s Marvellous Medicine!

This is an amazing tortoise based on … Esio Trot.

These are Whipple Scrumptious Fudge Mallow Delights!

This wonderful creation is based on the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Family.

Mmm, Crocodile Tongue Cupcakes, from The Enormous Crocodile.

This really is a Fantastic Mr Fox!

 

Which is your favourite Roald Dahl book?

Who is your favourite character?