Dress-up, stay & read and a book cover competition.
Kennet Valley School celebrated World Book Day March 3rd with a competition to recreate a favourite book cover. Judging from the amazing creations seen here the school governors are going to have great difficulty in choosing a winner! Other celebrations included, in what became a whole week of activities, Stay and Read sessions, paired reading and writing tasks, virtual author talks and a dress up day.
Emma Russell, Headteacher, was overwhelmed by the amazing results of the book cover recreation competition.
It is clear that the children all worked exceptionally hard on their recreations and I was delighted to receive them all. The governors of the school are going to be asked to judge the winners – a very difficult job to do.
The Stay and Read sessions held during this special week, allowed parents to enter the classrooms and join their children for a reading session. Mrs Byford, school reading leader said,
It was amazing to see so many people in the school again, and it highlighted how much we have all missed these opportunities due to the pandemic. A huge thank you to everyone who was able to attend the sessions. I know that the whole staff team are busy planning other events that parents can attend over the coming terms.
On World Book Day itself, all the children in the school had the opportunity to take part in a virtual author talk. Harriers and Kites (years 4, 5 and 6) joined a talk from Michael Rosen, while Kingfishers and Wrens (reception, Years 1, 2 and 3) heard from Catherine Rayner. Michael Rosen has written over a hundred books, which include stories and poetry. Catherine Raynor is an award-winning author and illustrator. Jacqy McQue, Wrens’ class teacher said,
I know that all the children (and staff) really enjoyed listening to these amazing talks about the process of writing. The younger children also had the chance to learn about the skills an illustrator needs, and all drew their own characters.
The book “The Night Gardener” by The Tan Brothers was used as inspiration for collaborative writing. Emma Russell commented,
“In this story a boy wakes up each day to find that new wonderful topiary has been cut in his bland and quiet town. Each class read this beautiful book together and then thought about the description of the character and settings within the story. The classes then ‘hunted’ for powerful vocabulary which they added together to make our own topiary vocab tree, which is displayed in the school! To continue the work on the book the children swapped classes to work together to write their own versions of this heart-warming story. All the staff loved seeing how the children helped each other in their story writing, with Kites collaborating with Wrens, and Harriers being paired with Kingfishers. The stories will be illustrated by the children and shared with the parents in the coming days.”
8 March 2022// by Sue Round