World Book Day 2023
It's World Book Day and at St Stephens we are passionate about promoting reading for pleasure.
This year our theme was 'Snuggle up with a book' and the children came to school dressed in their pyjamas.
We wanted to offer every child at our school the opportunity to have a book of their own and develop their love of reading. Mrs Hooper met with the House Captains and decided that we wanted to give the children the chance to swap books that they have previously enjoyed, with other children in the school. This is something that links really well with our work on climate change and sustainability.
We were absolutely delighted to receive so many book donations that each child in the school (including pre-school) was able to take home a 'swap book' as well as their World Book Day £1 Book Token.
Each class also be held a 'Reading Cafe' from 2:45-3:15. This gave parents and carers the opportunity to come into their child's class and to share books and stories with them.
We also took part in lots of special World Book Day events.
These included -
Year 6 - The Anne Frank Trust hosted an interactive online learning event.
Award-winning children's author, Tom Palmer (After the War, D- Day Dog, Arctic Star) led an online learning event. Tom has written over 57 books about history, spies and sport .
Tom's newest book "Resist" looks at how the brutal Second World War stretches on with no end in sight. Life for ordinary Dutch people in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands is fraught with peril and hardship. But what can a teenage girl do and how much risk is she willing to take?
In the online learning event they explored what resistance is and also writing for resistance as Anne Frank herself did. The event was interactive, with opportunities for the children to participate, ask questions and learn more about books, writing and Anne Frank.
The Anne Frank Trust is an education charity which seeks to empower young people to challenge all forms of prejudice and discrimination, inspired by Anne Frank.
In KS1/EYFS we mixed classes and took part in 3 different special book led activities.
With Mrs Hobbs we listened to an actor read the story of The Cave written and illustrated by Rob Hodgson. We then designed our own delicious tantalising doughnuts that could be used to tempt the "little" creature out of the cave - sprinkles included!
With Mrs Fritz we learnt about Rob Biddulph. He is a bestselling and multi award-winning author/illustrator of children’s books. In March 2020 he started #DrawWithRob, a series of twice-weekly draw-along videos designed to help parents whose children were forced to stay home from school due to the coronavirus pandemic. It proved immensely popular, garnering millions of views and international media coverage. We had a go at being illustrators and drawing Rob's Eugene the Owl.
With Mrs Hooper we learnt about one of our favourite authors and illustrators, Tom Percival. You can learn a little more about Tom here http://tom-percival.com/2016/02/25/a-bit-about-me/ We thought about why we love his books so much and what him such a great author.