Book Week 2024
This year, during Book Week, we immersed ourselves in the work of two brilliant authors. Elm, Beech, Chestnut and Hazel Class enjoyed the work of Peter Bently and Ash, Lime and Cedar Class were inspired by the work of Ali Sparkes.
Peter Bently
Peter Bently visited us on Wednesday 6th March. To prepare for his visit we immersed ourselves in some of his stories.
Elm Class enjoyed a range of Peter’s books and then met him for a story telling workshop. Peter was brilliant at doing all the characters voices and making the stories come alive.
Beech Class loved reading ‘The Magnificent Sheep in their Flying Machine’ and many other Peter Bently stories. They made aeroplanes and sheep and enjoyed writing their own version of the story. When Peter visited the class, he read ‘Shark in the Dark’ which everyone enjoyed. He also helped create a collage of the colourful and brave fish from the ending of the story.
Chestnut Class and Hazel Class loved reading ‘Shark in the Dark’ and finding out Shark facts. They read lots of other stories too such as ‘Shocktopus Octopus’ and collected facts about Peter Bently. When he visited the classes, he read ‘Cats Ahoy’. There were lots of activities to take part in.
At the end of the day Peter was kind enough to meet us in the hall to share his brand-new story that is not even published yet. We had a brilliant day!
Ali Sparkes
Ali Sparkes visited us on Friday 8th March. We enjoyed reading some of her books before she visited us. Our teachers took the time to read us whole texts so we knew some of Ali Sparkes stories, the ideas she has and her style of writing. This meant we were ready to ask lots of brilliant questions. Ash Class enjoyed one of Ali’s SWITCH series called ‘Spider Stampede’. Lime and Cedar Class loved ‘100 Summers’ Ali’s brand new book published in February 2024.
Ali started the day with her introductory workshop called ‘My Wonky Path’. In the workshop she immersed us in her journey to becoming an author and he wowed us with some impressive tricks! Following this each class completed a writer’s workshop with Ali where she encouraged us to form ideas and begin to move them towards a story plan. This really helped us think about our stories and how we write. We asked hundreds of questions and learned a lot. We loved meeting Ali Sparkes!
During the week the children enjoyed lots of other books and book activities. In the pictures you will see us sharing books with other classes, bringing stories to life using the props in the story sacks, enjoying our wonderful school library and, some of us completed our 24 hours of reading homework. We are proud of our book week displays in the corridor.
On World Book Day we dressed in our pyjamas and shared our favourite stories from home with our class and other classes. Lots of authors delivered online storytelling and writing workshops online during the day; Year 2 enjoyed a session with the illustrator Nick Sharratt and Year 4 enjoyed listening to Michael Morpurgo, the author of Butterfly Lion, a short novel they loved reading during the autumn term. All of the staff made a masked reader video of 'The Shark in the Dark' we enjoyed guessing who was who.
Book Week was amazing !