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Celebrating Poems and Poetry National Poetry Day is a celebration of poetry and its power to bring people together. It is an opportunity to discover new poets and poems, and to share your favourites with others. Poems are an important part of primary school children’s education. They help to develop language and literacy skills, and can also be a fun way to learn about other subjects such as history or science. Here are my top picks for children’s favourite poets! “I’d Like to be a Poet!” Thoughts of a frustrated, wannabe poet!! Three of the best poets and poems for primary school children. Some of the most popular poets include Michael Rosen, Julia Donaldson and Roger McGough. There are, of course, many fantastic poets who have produced wonderful poems for…
Read MorePhonics for Parents and Carers: A Guide to Understanding and Helping Your Child Learn Phonics is one of the main ways that children learn to read. It can be a bit confusing for parents and carers, so here’s a blog post explaining what phonics is, and giving some tips on how you can help your child learn it. The Basics. Phonics is a way of learning to read by connecting sounds with letters. It can be a bit confusing to understand at first, but once you get the basics down, it’s pretty easy. Once your child understands phonics, they will be able to sound out words and read them correctly. So let’s take a closer look… Phonics works by breaking each word up into its individual sounds before blending those…
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On 3rd of August, 2022 it is National Playday in the UK.
Isn’t playing what children do every day? You may well ask. It certainly should be, but, while some children get the opportunity to play daily, others are less fortunate.
Long journeys to and from school, homework, lack of a suitable play area or someone to supervise kids if they want to go outdoors all contribute, even the weather takes its toll.
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The summer holidays are finally here, and that means it’s time to have some fun!
If you’re looking for some cheap and cheerful ideas of things to do with your little one, look no further. In this blog post, you’ll find several fun-filled activities that are perfect for kids under 5.
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Why is learning reading so important for your child? The old saying “Reading is the fount of all knowledge” holds true even in a highly technological era where we all still need to learn HOW to read. What is reading? Well it’s what you’re doing right now clearly, but if you had to explain (say to the extraterrestrial whose spaceship has just landed in your back garden), what reading is, how would you do that? Reading is a process that goes on in our brains which allows us to take in, make sense of, or understand the meaning of letters, and symbols.
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Malba books is run by me (Mary Barry) with the endless help of my wonderful family and friends. I write the silly words and rhymes. My genius friend Emanuel Alba creates the wonderful imagery – hence “Malba” My podcasting, doctor, scientist, radio presenter daughter (can you tell I’m a little proud) Claire records the audio books. My graphic designing brother Kieran does all the technical fiddly bits which are way beyond my capacity. And my son Stephen does the marketing, emailing and makes a semi decent cup of coffee!
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What a year 2020 was! We all started optimistically and I had a business that was doing well, running courses for horse owners all over Europe. But in mid-March, that came to a shuddering halt. Initially courses were postponed, rearranged, flights rebooked but it soon became obvious that all that was futile.
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