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Ten delicious teachers age 5-7

Ross Montgomery, ill. Sarah Warburton

Walker Books

Ten teachers miss the school bus and decide to take a short cut through a forest. They don’t spot the hungry monsters waiting to pounce. One by one the monsters pick off the teachers on their way through the forest until only Miss Hunter, the nursery teacher remains. However, she is more than a match for monsters and in no time at all takes them in hand teaching them some manners and how to count to ten!

This is a very funny counting story with a humorous rhyming text well matched by the illustrations – the monsters are fantastic and might encourage young readers to design their own.

Watch author Ross Montgomery read from the book in this trailer:

Share the story

Before reading the story look together at the cover illustration and talk about what is happening and what the story might be about.

Read the story aloud to your child pausing to talk about what is happening in the story and the illustrations  

Join in

When you read the story again leave gaps so that children can finish the rhyming and half rhyming lines.

Talk about the book
➤When you have finished the book you could:
➤ Share your favourite or funniest illustrations – talk about the parts of the story you and your child liked best
➤ Talk about unusual words such as ‘snaffle’. Collect all the words you can find for the monsters ‘gobbling’
➤ Talk about all the different ways the monsters catch the teachers.

Things to make and do

Counting fun
There are lots of counting opportunities in the story, you could:

  • Predict and count how many teachers are left
  • Count how many monsters you can see ready to pounce
  • Count how many eyes the monsters have

Practise counting backwards from 10, 20, 50 – you can make this more or less challenging depending on how confident your child is.

Draw or make a map of the dark woods
Give your child a large piece of paper to draw an enormous map of the dark woods. Alternatively, you could create a kind of map on the floor using fabric, cardboard trees stuck on modelling material.  Children could use small toy figures, or decorate small bricks, cardboard tubes or cotton reels to represent the teachers and monsters.

Design a monster
Use collage materials to create a monster – your child will need backing paper, scissors, glue, and material to cut or tear such as magazine or fabric scraps and wool.

Make thumb print monsters
Using finger paints or other washable ready mixed paint help your child to paint their thumb and create a series of ten thumb prints on a piece of paper. When they are dry, they can add arms, legs and different numbers of eyes like the monster in the book.

Play Monster’s footsteps
Play a version of grandma’s footsteps with one of you being the teacher and the other being a monster creeping up from behind. This is even greater fun if you have more children playing.

Find out More

Try these activity sheets based on the story by illustrator Sarah Warburton WEB_READY_Ten_Delicious_Teachers_Activity_Sheets.pdf (rossmontgomery.co.uk)

Find out more about author Ross Montgomery Ross Montgomery | Award Winning Children’s Author and visit his YouTube channel Ross Montgomery – YouTube

Find out more about illustrator Sarah Warburton Sarah Warburton Illustrations

Read another story by the same creative team (Ross Montgomery and Sarah Warburton) Penguin Huddle

Read more picturebook stories by Ross Montgomery for example Space Tortoise lovemybooks | FREE reading resources for parents and The Building Boy illustrated by David Litchfield