Title: We Found a Hat
Author and illustrator: Jon Klassen
Publisher: Walker Books

Teacher and pupil review

The delightful Dragonfly class was pretty keen to hear this story. “We’ve been learning about hats,” pronounced Nina, and they told me all about their Hooray for Hats topic. Lots of different people wear hats for different jobs, and hats are different around the world.

The story of two little turtles who find a hat intrigued them from the word go. While I questioned why two turtles would be in scenery that looked like the Nevada desert, the children accepted this as OK. Sophia immediately recognised the hat as “a cowboy’s hat, because it’s tall.” The class teacher has taught them well.

This book is good for helping children to predict what might happen next, as the tone of it is somewhat pensive. The class discussed what the turtles would do with the hat. Femi was pretty certain one of the turtles knew what to do. “He’s going to put it on his head and then throw it on the beach,” he said. Why not, I thought.

‘Just buy two’

“They could rip it” said Angel. Sienna thought they could share it.

And Cailey thought the answer was obvious: “They could go to the shop and buy two.” You do have to love a discussion with a foundation-stage class. I just wish you still got the same off-the-wall ideas in Year 2.

The turtles then seem to have a dream sequence with said hat. When asked what the turtle might be thinking, Sam replied: “He wants to wear the hat all the time, even when he goes to his grandma’s house.”

Swimming elves

When I asked the Dragonflies what their dream hat would be, they had some brilliant ideas. Laken wanted to wear a big hat to the zoo. Evie wanted to wear “a princess hat to the castle”.

And Konstantinos thought he would like “an elf hat, to go swimming in”.

If I were choosing a story to read to a class, I might not necessarily choose this one. However, the Dragonflies loved hearing a story that fitted in so well with their topic that term. It clearly gave them lots of ideas and points for discussion and they gave it an overwhelming thumbs up.

Alice Edgington is deputy headteacher at St Stephen’s Infant School in Canterbury. She tweets as @aliceedgington

If you or your class would like to write a review for TES, please contact Adi Bloom, on adi.bloom@tesglobal.com

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