Reading with Giglets: Engaging Texts for Spring

Springtime is the most wonderful learning prompt. With the weather and our surroundings undertaking a dramatic transformation there is so much to see, experience and learn.

There are many texts within the Giglets library that you might want to explore with your pupils at this time of year.

Like all Giglets texts, these come with sets of Higher Order Thinking Skills Questions and automatically marked Reading Test Questions to support the development of comprehension skills. In this blog post, we have also included additional suggestions for creative follow ups that will take you outdoors and into the fresh and breezy air, based around wonderful fiction and non-fiction Giglets texts.

Going Camping

Orange Tree level

Reading age 5-6

Going Camping is a beautifully illustrated, rhyming text about a camping adventure. The story features lots of the noises you might hear on a trip to the great outdoors, making it perfect for reading aloud to pupils in early primary.

Outdoor follow up:

• Create an outdoor tent (weather dependent!) or den and cosy in to read this story. Children may share some of their own experiences or adventures of camping. For those more unfamiliar with camping, the outdoor den will help bring the story to life!
• Write your own rhyming adventure story in the same style. Where will your adventure take you and what will you do, see and hear? You can then re-enact this, moving through your class, school and playground.
  

The Animals Series

Yellow Bird, Green Pumpkin & Blue Comet levels

Reading ages 6-7, 7-8 and 8-9

This series of 15 animal books includes wildlife of all shapes and sizes including bumblebee, butterfly, squirrel, hedgehog and frog. These texts are a great resource for exploring non-fiction and are accompanied by interesting and detailed photographs. By their very nature, more specialised language arises and so there are helpful glossaries included at the end of each.

Outdoor follow up:

What can be done to support the wildlife in your school and surrounding area? Perhaps you can build a new home for bugs, bees or birds.

Are any of these animals to be found in your local area? Can you go out and take some photos or do some observational drawings?

How Plants Grow

Orange Tree level

Reading age 5-6

In this simple text, full-colour illustrations support younger children in taking a first look at how plants grow. Explore the detail of planting and growing, starting with the appearance of the first signs of plant life in spring. Take a look at some of the wondrous things seeds can grow into!

Outdoor follow up:

Let’s get planting! You might like to plant potatoes, tomatoes, or carrots this spring and watch each stage take place in real time, matching each stage with the explanations from the text.

Take a walk! What plants can you see? Do they have seeds, flowers or fruit growing? Magnifying glasses are great tools to help look closer at the detail.

Caterpillar Butterfly

Orange Tree level

Reading age 5-6

This fully illustrated book describes how a caterpillar grows and transforms into a butterfly. You can also find ‘A Frog’s Life’ in the Giglets library which supports younger children taking a first look at a frog’s life cycle. If you have tadpoles in school, you can match each stage with the pages of the Giglets book.

Outdoor follow up:

Use materials found outdoors to create your own posters that exemplify the life cycle of a butterfly. A twig might represent a caterpillar and fallen leaves could become butterfly wings.

Go on a nature work to search for the first signs of spring! Can you see any symmetrical patterns like you see on butterfly wings?

Giglets in Your School

Have you explored any of these texts with your pupils? If so, we would love to hear from you! You can tweet us using @Giglets.

If you’re interested in accessing a growing online library of over 1100 texts in over 37 different languages, get in touch with us now to try Giglets for free! Just email info@giglets.com or sign up for one of our free trial webinars.