Handa's Surprise

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The story is based in south-west Kenya. Can you find this on a map? Can you find out more about the country? How is it similar / different to where you live? Watch this travel guide about Kenya for some ideas: 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. The story is full of questions. Look at the use of question marks in the story. Can you write your own questions and put a question mark in the correct place?

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. However, along the way, the fruits in her basket are eaten one by one by some cheeky animals – a monkey, an ostrich, a zebra, an elephant, a giraffe, an antelope and a parrot. This book tells the story of Handa and her friend Akeyo. At the beginning of the story Handa puts seven different fruits in her basket to take to her friend Akeyo. As Handa makes her way to Akeyo’s village she tries to imagine which fruit Akeyo would like best. Every time Handa describes each of the fruits in her basket; an animal native to Handa’s part of the world takes it out of the basket. Eventually when Handa’s basket becomes empty a goat breaks free from its rope and runs in to a tangerine tree which results in the tangerines falling in to Handa’s basket. Still unaware Handa arrives at Akeyo’s village telling her that she has a surprise for her. When she takes the basket of her head Handa is the one who is surprised as her basket which originally had 7 different fruits is now full of tangerinesIt 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. Gather some fruit and use this for data handling activities… What is the favourite type of fruit in the class? Make a graph to show how far each type of fruit has travelled from its country of origin. What is the average number of grapes in a bunch? You can help bring the magic of Handa’s Surprise into your KYFS or KS1 classroom with Twink’s range of colourful and engaging support materials.

There are ways to help with Maths skills too, Addition Sheets make a lovely themed activity to practise this key skill. You can make all kinds of Handa's Surprise activities for early years maths, having fun counting each of the fruits and seeing how that changes in the story. I'm thrilled that Handa's Surprise is still going strong and have been asked what I think is itsenduring appeal. It's probably a combination of several different elements. The key to thebook is the "Look behind you!" joke running through the pictures, where the text pays noheed to the visual story of animals stealing fruit from Handa's basket. Young children delightin being in on the joke and probably want to warn her. Discovering Kenyan culture Created in collaboration with the book’s publisher, Walker Books, this EYFS Reception Topic Planning Web: Handa’s Surprise is a perfect resource for practitioners who are planning work around this wonderful book.

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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 babies Here are a few resources you can use to whip up some educational activities based around the story: