All seems lost until Katie hitches a ride on a magical bird to The North Pole, determined to help Father Christmas save the day! Author and illustrator of the Christopher stories, Charlotte Middleton, gives us full backing and loves our adaptation of her story. Using a poem as a model is a super way to scaffold children’s own writing and, of course, Roger McGough’s Sound Collector would be a perfect poem to enjoy and use to create your own class poem together. In this story we revisit Mr Rosetti in his cafe and we meet some new characters along the way, as Christopher spots recycling opportunities all over town. I would probably have bought this book just for its title; Christopher Nibble in a tale of dandelion derring- do!

Thieves have broken into Father Christmas’ grotto and stolen all of the presents, and with only a few sleeps left until the big day, there is no time to make any more.

A lovely illustration about helping others as well as nurturing and planting seeds that is suitable for Early Years/Year 1. The way it will work is that each morning we will read our chosen book of the week at base camp and encourage the children to participate in several different activities connected to the story (if any children only attend an afternoon session, we will read the book to them when they come into the nursery). Christopher Nibble knows that crunch time has come when there’s just one dandelion left-but will this plucky little guinea pig have the flower power to save the day? Christopher is a guinea pig who likes dandelions, one day they ran out, he found one last one, waited and made sure to look after it until it was a dandelion clock then blew it on the top of a mountain so his village had dandelions again. Picnics seem to be a popular past time in Dandeville, which provides yet more role-play opportunities as children recreate the picnic scene from the book with all its culinary delights.

Then he blows the seeds from a hill high over Dandeville so that each dandelion seedling takes root and grows into a new plant. Author and illustrator Charlotte Middleton introduces the wonderful Christopher Nibble’s latest eco-adventure! Charlotte Middleton has illustrated her witty, quirky story with charming collage illustrations and her guinea pigs are the most endearing, funky little characters you are ever likely to meet.From here, along with Christopher, the children can learn all about how to look after and grow dandelions, meaning there are opportunities for science work and writing abound. Christopher and all of his friends are very conscientious guinea pigs who work hard, ride their bicycles with their helmets on, do a great job working in the garden, care for the environment and just look incredibly cute while they do it.

She has worked alongside Pie Corbett to develop Talk for Writing in practice and deliver training to schools. Once we had the planeter up, we then went about filing it with gravel and then compost ready to plant our seeds in. Could you use this sentence as the starting point for a brand new story about a different animal (or a person)? This was a great opportunity for the children to use some tools as well as introducing them to the concept of following a set of instructions. The young guinea pigs have worked their magic again and ignited the interest of all the residents of Dandeville and hopefully some aspiring young readers too!A warm-hearted adaptation of the well-known children’s book about a plucky guinea pig – Christopher Nibble. However, Christopher finds one dandelion outside his bedroom window and cares for this dandelion until, one day, it transforms with a beautiful white head.