On Tuesday 23rd April, we all arrived at school with smiles on our faces and excitement in our hearts, as we got ready to celebrate World Book Day! From novels and audiobooks to illustrated stories and rhymes, World Book Day is a celebration of storytelling for people in all its many forms. 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of Children’s Book Week and one of the themes for this year is “Read Now. Read Forever”, as the world takes time to reflect on the lasting power of the book to spark our children’s imaginations.
In Dallington Primary this week, poetry was the protagonist… and what a week it was! Children throughout the school were swept up in a series of fun lessons and activities focusing on a wide range of poetry and stimulating rhymes. While Year 1 set their imaginations to work on rhyming couplets (“The children like the ocean shore / We want to leave but they want more”), Year 5 were immersed in the works of prolific poets like Alfred Noyes and his spine-tingling narrative poem “The Highwayman.”
The children in Years 4 and 5 were especially lucky to take part in a workshop led by Mr. Shallcross, as he drummed up excitement in Year 4 for The Magic Box by Kit Wright, while the children in Year 5 enjoyed a relaxing Haiku called The Old Pond by Matsuo Basho.
The book swap was also a huge success, and the children loved exchanging books with friends in class, giving recommendations and sharing enjoyment of their favourite fiction and non-fiction. When the sun came out on Thursday afternoon, children of different ages throughout the school came together to support each other in an effective buddy reading session. Year 1A and Year 1B partnered up with Year 3 and Year 4, while Year 2 teamed up with Year 5, as the older children read to the younger children and talked about what they love to read.
The week culminated with a ‘Poetry Spectacular’ where each class performed a poem from memory. Each class were sensational and made their teachers and the rest of the school very proud.
In EYFS the children were also delighted to listen to and learn poetry from our special guest Pedro Letai, Javier´s father. In EYFS we took a slightly different approach to the event, focussing on a Personal, Social and Emotional Development. We had many opportunities to participate in special circle times and share books with a variety of themes all related to the ‘Golden Rules’. All of these books were written in development with the specialist Jenny Mosley’s circle time model. The children listened to a variety of books and met the main characters of the story; Gino Giraffe, Elsa Elephant, Zelda Zebra,Mona Monkey and Louis Lion. In each story the characters in the book learnt something about the golden rules. For example, in the story “We listen… we don’t interrupt” Zelda Zebra learnt the very important lesson to stop and listen. If she had not learned to listen to her friend Gino Giraffe, she would have missed out on his birthday party!
The children then participated in activities related to these books. They learnt about looking after property, looked at pictures of the characters and discussed if they were being kind and helpful or not. The children also made their own book mark inspired by the characters in the story, the children of Reception designed their own book cover, and finally they made their own mini books and collages related to the characters and themes in the stories.
We enjoyed every line, verse and rhyme of this week’s celebrations here at Dallington!