Archive for May, 2020

Poetry book of the month July

May 31, 2020
Lots of fantastic poetry can be found in this anthology by Joseph Coelho
and Daniel Gray-Barnett. If you want to bring poetry to life and dive into them with children, then this book is one for your bookshelf. Joyous!

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Books that I’m looking forward to using!

May 31, 2020

I’m always looking for texts to use with lower KS2 and have enjoyed reading Andy Shepherd‘s series of chapter books about what happens when Tomas discovers a strange tree at the bottom of his grandad’s garden that seems to have odd fruit growing on it.
I love the idea of a dragon fruit that actually hatches a real dragon – Flicker. Children love dragons and I’ve collected lots of texts to use with the book, but just need the opportunity to use them now.
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Meet Dawn Robertson

May 26, 2020

Welcome to my newly revamped web site.

I created this website a few years ago, when I became a freelance English consultant, but then life side-swiped me and it felt easier to give little sound bites on Twitter (@justdawned). Now, things have changed again and we are all in the middle of very unsettling times. It felt right to try to rebuild my website as sometimes you just want, and need, to say more!

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Latest news!

May 30, 2020

During lockdown, I have developed an English based WELL-BEING PROJECT that some schools are hoping to use as a RECOVERY CURRICULUM, once we know more. Here are a couple of pages from it:

It’s packed with high-quality texts, film and music clips and resources to really engage pupils in their learning. If you want to know more just contact me directly.

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Daily dose of poetry for June

May 26, 2020

My love affair with poetry has been an extremely long one! Throughout June I challenged myself to think of a theme every day and to tweet four poems that could be used to help teachers explore it. So far we have looked at diverse themes such as poetry, school, identity, smiling and myths and monsters (these daily anthologies will be shared in the poetry section once I have everyone’s permission!).

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A wish

May 27, 2020

This is my friend’s little boy writing from his heart. I hope that his wish comes true!

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Books for whole school teaching

May 26, 2020
I am currently looking for high-quality texts to use for whole school projects in the autumn. This is one such book. It will lead to lots of work on well-being and growth and I’ll be able to use it with all year groups on different levels.
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Picture books that I love!

May 26, 2020
This is such a thoughtfully written book that carries such a powerful message about being true to yourself. It tells the story of Faizah first day and her pride that it’s her older sister Asiya’s first day of hijab–a hijab of beautiful blue fabric, like the ocean waving to the sky. Ibtihaj Muhammad and S.K.Ali explore the prejudices that she might face and show how the beauty in her strength and the power in celebrating who you really are. Hatem Aly’s art work is bold and powerful too.
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Garden Glory

May 26, 2020
A friend sent me a great video of the most amazing gardens with their own art! Here are a few of the images:
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Lizzie and the birds

May 26, 2020
Here is my picture book, Lizzie and the Birds, that I wrote with my husband Mick. We are so proud of it. It is a rip-roaring adventure about what happens when Lizzie, yearning for friendship after moving house, encounters a terrifying tornado (mu ha ha ha!) and has her world turned upside down by a rag-taggle bunch of feathery fellows!

I had always wanted to write a children’s book and having an artist as a husband meant we could illustrate it ourselves! I also wanted to be able to use it in schools to encourage reading and speaking and listening and to generate all different forms of writing, so I created a teacher’s handbook to accompany it!
It is full of detailed lesson plans, ideas and resources to help the book be used in any classroom. There is also a comprehension ‘test’ and GPS ‘test’ created to be used with the book. A bank of power-points and writing sheets were produced to give teachers everything they need! We really wanted everything at your finger-tips to bring Lizzie and the Birds to life!

You can purchase both of these directly from www.prim-ed.com, on Amazon or through Madeleine Lindley Book Sellers in Manchester.
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