World book day this year was a bit different but we all had a really good time both at home and in school.
There were more resources online this year so that everyone could access the resources.
Everyone was able to access the live assemblies, where we heard from all the authors of the £1 books. This introduced the children to a whole range of authors and illustrators that were new to many of them. The themes of the books were:
These sessions really inspired the children, they taught us all a lot about how authors and illustrators gain their ideas.
In all year groups we completed lessons in class and online learning, linked to World Book Day. All year groups started our world book day with an assembly. We then gave a presentation of the Masked Reader videos from across the Federation, guessing which teacher was reading an extract from their favourite books! This caused much hilarity, trying to work out the voices of the readers and seeing the creative masks and disguises the teachers had used.
The children in Reception have been celebrating World Book Day by taking part in lots of animal themed activities.
Over the week, they have been listening to stories read by staff such as ‘The Little Monkey’ and ‘Blown Away.’ On Friday, the children took part in a drawing assembly with the author and illustrator Rob Biddulph to learn how to draw a penguin and a kite.
The children have also been enjoying watching Toftwood’s, ‘The Masked Reader’ and have had fun trying to guess who the staff members are before they are revealed! Some children have also had a go at filming their own version and these have been shared on the live Teams lessons for their friends to guess.
Alongside the Book Week activities, the children have been following craft tutorials recorded by Mrs Ratcliffe, Mrs Brown and Mrs Partridge. They have been busy making chain snakes, lion masks, frog puppets, handprint elephants and sloths!
For world book day celebrations in year 1, the children enjoyed watching the masked reader that the teachers had recorded. They loved using the clues to have a guess at who was reading the story and were really tricked by some of the masks.
We read the story ‘Man on the Moon’ which linked with our topic of ‘Our Planet and Beyond’. As we had been finding out about space explorers the children thought about what they would take with them if they could go into space. We then looked at part of Tim Peake’s diary from his space trip in 2015/16 and the children had a go at writing their own entry to a space diary. The children also thought of questions that they would like to ask Tim Peake if they could.
The children in year 2 celebrated World Book Day by watching some amazing authors talk about how they create and write their books. One author was Serena Patel, author of Anisha the Accidental Detective. Year 2 have now started reading this as their class reading book and are really enjoying it!
The children were mesmerised by the poet Michael Rosen reading his famous poem of chocolate cake. They were all giggling at the sound effects that he was making and the repetitive language he used when reading his poems aloud. As part of an assembly, they did a draw-a-long with the author and illustrator Rob Biddulph for the World Book Day mascot!
World book day was unusual this year as our lessons took place virtually but year 3 thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless. The children reported that their favourite activities were the draw along sessions provided by the Bournville Book fest website; in these we learnt how illustrators read the descriptions of the author to create their interpretations of the characters. We drew Dobbie with Johnny Duddle, Doris from the ‘Nothing to see here hotel’ series with Steven Lenton and Toothless with Cressida Cowell ( we were very impressed at the fact that, not only is she the author and illustrator of her stories, but can also teach how to speak Dragonese).
The children were given some free time to create a ‘hilarious story’ using a family anecdote after we learnt that Serena Patel based her series of books on funny things that happened with her family. The children all had a giggle at some of the stories their friends were going to use from runaway lobsters to pretend spiders to leaky loos!
Lastly, the children listened to author Tom Palmer talk about how he turned his love of football into a series of books. He talked about using knowledge from an area of interest/passion to inform writing and the children used his advice to write a short story about something they were passionate about. At the end of the day, the children read their stories aloud and we learnt lots about what things the children in our classes are passionate about and spend their spare time doing!
Year 4 children created their own questions (with answers) for a World Book Day quiz that we held across the year groups later on in the week. We were really impressed with the diverse questions and the well-chosen texts that meant nearly everyone had read them and we were enthusiastic participants in the quiz!
Year 4 also looked at the World Book Day £1.00 book: “Little Badman and the Radioactive Samosa” by Humza Arshad and Henry White. We listened to their video and then read Chapter One of the book.
The children were asked to think about a favourite food or drink that when they ate it would give them superpowers – just like the character in the book: Humza.
The children were very enthusiastic with their task and enjoyed it immensely.
In year 5 the children got inspriation from the Scholastic authors who led various live lessons. The childen had inspiration from such authors as Simon James Green, Kimberley Pauley, Lisa Thompson , Helen Rutter and Vashni Handy
This gave the children inspiration to then go off and wrtie their own stories, which many are still continuting past book day; a truly inspiring day for all.
Lastly in year 6 the children did a series of workshops, run again by published authors, many of whom are familiar to them from Reading Gladiators and from them visiting our school.
They learnt how authors create imaginary worlds (our writing unit at the moment) finding inspration and how to create worlds. Then we learnt about how to create stories from our pictures. This day we have followed this up in class, as they realise that many authors write from what they know, using names, places and people that they are familiar with.
Overall the childen have been inpsired to write their own stories. There are many new authors now emerging, as many teachers are sharing new stories the children have been writing at home.