Join Norman the honey-loving bear as he tries to infiltrate Bee School in Nadia Shireen’s charming picture book, The Bumblebear.
What is The Bumblebear about?
Those of you who haven’t yet discovered the work of the wonderful author and illustrator Nadia Shireen are in for a treat with The Bumblebear.
Nadia has written several picture books and a series of highly illustrated chapter books. These are full of her trademark humour and subtle observations and are a joy to explore with young readers.
Distributed to over 700,000 children as part of BookTrust’s 2017 ‘Time to Read’ campaign, The Bumblebear is an absolutely delightful story.
It follows a young bear called Norman. He’s a bear who loves nothing more than guzzling gallons of honey and is always sad when it runs out. So, Norman comes up with a rather clever plan to ensure that never happens again…
Why teach The Bumblebear?
This book is a great choice to use with children who are heading off to school for the very first time. It’s also perfect for exploring ideas of acceptance and forgiveness with your class.
Activity idea
One of the key themes of The Bumblebear is that of saying sorry and forgiveness. Writing apology notes from the bees to Norman or from Norman to the bees would be a purposeful way for children to practise their sentence writing.
It also encourages them to see events from other people’s perspectives and reflect on how their actions could impact others.
Ask pupils what they understand by the word ‘apologise’. Can they think of any times when they might have needed to apologise to someone? Or when someone has apologised to them?
What did they do to say sorry? Draw a picture, do something nice for that person, give them a thumbs up? How about writing a letter or making a card?
How did Norman try and make amends with the bees at the end of the story? (He chased away the big scary bear who trampling over bee school.)
After reading the story with the children, encourage them to think about which events Norman might need to apologise to the bees for. (Eating all the honey in their secret honey store, lying about being a bee…)
The pupils are going to make a ‘sorry’ card on behalf of Norman that he could send to the bees as an apology. They will need to write a sentence inside which describes what Norman is sorry for.
Jo Cummins is an experienced primary school teacher and English leader with a passion for children’s books and mental health awareness.
As well as blogging about new children’s books and creating educational resources, she has been involved in long-listing and judging national books awards.
She currently works for a specialist educational provision in Hampshire in a teaching and advisory role.
