Collect some fruit and vegetable into a basket and draw it. What colours / textures will you need to show? Based on the latest guidance for reception, this topic planning web provides a range of exciting activities for all seven Areas of Learning. These ideas will enhance your provision and help your children explore the story and extend their skills and knowledge at the same time. There are suggestions here both for adult-led sessions and for continuous provision. Your children can reinforce their understanding of the story by putting together these story sequencing cards. This would be great as an individual or group activity. Who is Eileen Browne?

Handa's Surprise is a book about a Kenyan girl (Handa) who visits her friend with a basket full of seven different fruits as presents. Along the way to Akeyo's village, Handa contemplates which fruit Akeyo will like the best. However, each time Handa thinks about a certain fruit an animal pops along and takes that particular fruit. For example a monkey steals the banana. Unaware that various animals have taken these tropical fruits, Handa contiunes along her journey, at which point a goat bumps into a tree and a bunch of tangerines fall into Handa's basket. Much to Handa's Surprise Tangerines are Akeyo's favourite fruit. You could also ask your children to call out the different fruits and count them to help our children with their counting skills and fruit recognition too. In this picture book classic, a delightful surprise colourfully unfolds when a little girl called Handa puts seven delicious fruits in a basket to take to her friend.Retell the story in the form of a storyboard with captions and speech bubbles for each character / animal. The Handa’s Surprise book also has lots of opportunities to start a discussion about different cultures and countries. You can discuss with your children how people live in Kenya and more about the people’s culture and traditions. Handa’s Surprise book resources

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. Handa puts seven different delicious fruits in a basket to take to her friend Akeyo as a surprise. But Handa’s walk takes her past a variety of animals, and the fruits do look very inviting...” All the Handa books needed extensive research. For Handa's Surprise, the well-knownanimals were mostly found in library books, zoos and safari parks. I love drawing from lifeand until I looked at a real giraffe, hadn't realised what long tongues, whiskers andeyelashes they have. Finding nocturnal south-west Kenyan creatures for Handa's NoisyNight was more difficult. Zoos and wildlife parks had a few, but in daytime they were usuallyasleep. In London Zoo's "Twilight Zone", bush babies and bats tore around so fast in thesemi-dark, that I couldn't draw them.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. A modern classic named one of the best culturally diverse picture books in the UK, this is the story of Handa, who's part of the Luo tribe in south-west Kenya. Handa decides to take seven pieces of delicious fruit to her friend, Akeyo, who lives in the neighbouring village. But as Handa wonders, I wonder what fruit Akeyo will like best?, a series of sneaky animals steal something from Handa's basket, which she's carrying on her head... When Handa reaches Akeyo, will she have anything left to offer her friend? Handa’s Surprise is beautifully illustrated book for children in nurseries and reception classes. The story is set in a village in Africa, and the pictures are bold, traditional and bright coloured to capture the imaginations of little ones. This book can be used to cover a range of subjects across the early years curriculum e.g. numeracy (counting animals, fruits), art (drawing fruits, make displays), geography (discussed exotic fruits, wild animals, Africa), knowledge and understanding of the world (habitats, traditional clothes, culture), science (taste fruits, healthy eating).