Reading for Pleasure
‘Something cold and soft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in the middle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes falling through the air.’
C S Lewis’ words seem rather appropriate given the week we have experienced and World Book Day yesterday. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is one of the first books I recall reading and it brings back happy memories as I type. Although we didn’t see any Fauns yesterday as Lucy did, we did see quite an array of characters ranging from Toad of Toad Hall to a chilli (from a cook book) and from Mary Poppins to a roly-poly bird with the usual Harry Potter cast in between. I thought the outfits were amazing so thank you all for the effort that went into their creation.
As a whole-school event, initiatives were taking place in different parts throughout the day. Following a fashion show in Pre-Prep, Reception and Year 1 made Gruffalo crumble, had a gruffalo feast and went on a gruffalo trail. Year 2 read their favourite stories, wrote book reviews, drew themselves in character and had a wonderful Mr Men musical session. The excellent author and storyteller Kevin Graal led a very entertaining chapel service for Years 1 to 4 and then visited the Nursery children who participated enthusiastically in a very interactive storytelling session. This was
followed by three workshops for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2, developing their creative language and inspiring their story writing with lots of ideas, music, movement and laughter.
Further up the school, with staff reading passages from their most loved books over the lunch break, and visits to the library throughout the day, the children were inspired to share their favourite books with each other and it was lovely to hear them discussing this. Pupils are now taking part in a two week sponsored reading challenge to raise money for the Read for Good charity and they have also received a £1 book token which they have until 25 March to spend in (most) bookshops. All in all it was great fun and I’d like to thank my colleagues for all the organisation.