Handa's Surprise

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Retell the story in the form of a storyboard with captions and speech bubbles for each character / animal.

The Handa’s Surprise book also has lots of opportunities to start a discussion about different cultures and countries. You can discuss with your children how people live in Kenya and more about the people’s culture and traditions. Handa’s Surprise book resources This book is a wonderful book to read to your children. It features some beautiful and colourful illustrations to help bring the story to life. It has lovely illustrations and could be used to introduce children to different types of fruit or animals as part of an art or geography lesson. The ideas in this wonderful EYFS Reception Topic Planning Web: Handa’s Surprise will be perfect for you if you're looking for enjoyable and engaging learning activities for your reception children based on this much-loved book. I love visual jokes, and tried to incorporate one into the second Handa story, Handa's Hen. Ididn't manage to do this, but have been able to in Handa's Noisy Night. Handa's having asleepover at her friend Akeyo's house. She hears strange noises and can't see what's makingthem–but the reader can! Once I'd worked out the story, illustrating it was a mammothtask. I spent a lot of time looking at the sky's changing colours as day turned into night – andeven longer illustrating it! Drawing giraffes and bush babiesThe book ‘Handa’s Surprise’ by Eileen Browne tells the story of a girl named Handa, who decides to take seven tasty fruits in a basket to her good friend, Akeyo. Handa’s Surprise is beautifully illustrated book for children in nurseries and reception classes. The story is set in a village in Africa, and the pictures are bold, traditional and bright coloured to capture the imaginations of little ones. This book can be used to cover a range of subjects across the early years curriculum e.g. numeracy (counting animals, fruits), art (drawing fruits, make displays), geography (discussed exotic fruits, wild animals, Africa), knowledge and understanding of the world (habitats, traditional clothes, culture), science (taste fruits, healthy eating). Gender and race must be intrinsically reflected in all children's media. If it isn't, childrengrow up seeing inequality as normal. So yes, diversity in picture books is very important. Handa puts seven different delicious fruits in a basket to take to her friend Akeyo as a surprise. But Handa’s walk takes her past a variety of animals, and the fruits do look very inviting...” As she carries the basket on her head to her friends house, various animals steal the fruits, piece by piece but an accident results in her arriving with a basket full of tangerines which are incidentally Akeyo's favourite fruit.

The book uses relatively simple language and could probably be read independently by a six or seven year old. This said, it uses a variety of punctuation marks which could possibly used as a platform for a more advanced lesson. All the Handa books needed extensive research. For Handa's Surprise, the well-knownanimals were mostly found in library books, zoos and safari parks. I love drawing from lifeand until I looked at a real giraffe, hadn't realised what long tongues, whiskers andeyelashes they have. Finding nocturnal south-west Kenyan creatures for Handa's NoisyNight was more difficult. Zoos and wildlife parks had a few, but in daytime they were usuallyasleep. In London Zoo's "Twilight Zone", bush babies and bats tore around so fast in thesemi-dark, that I couldn't draw them. For your younger children, you could use these themed worksheets to help your children with their pencil control. What surprises have people organised for you? Can you think of a nice surprise that you could arrange for somebody else?

Engage children with digital learning

Explore Eileen Browne's sequel with Handa's Hen Activities for Early Years Children. What is Handa's Surprise? Draw a map showing Handa’s route to see Akeyo and add pictures which shows the events which took place along the way. You could also ask your children to call out the different fruits and count them to help our children with their counting skills and fruit recognition too. Handa's Surprise is a book about a Kenyan girl (Handa) who visits her friend with a basket full of seven different fruits as presents. Along the way to Akeyo's village, Handa contemplates which fruit Akeyo will like the best. However, each time Handa thinks about a certain fruit an animal pops along and takes that particular fruit. For example a monkey steals the banana. Unaware that various animals have taken these tropical fruits, Handa contiunes along her journey, at which point a goat bumps into a tree and a bunch of tangerines fall into Handa's basket. Much to Handa's Surprise Tangerines are Akeyo's favourite fruit.