Book Week at Friars – Monday 27th February until Friday 3rd March 2023
What a fantastic week! So much learning about reading and story writing taking place across both key stages as part of our book week this week. Reading and developing a love of reading is a major focus this year at Friars – of course, reading is always important but this year in particular, there is a special focus on getting children to really embrace and enjoy it.
Some year groups decided to have a week of story writing, inspired by their learning in other lessons such as geography and history. In Year 4, the children wrote a story based on their learning and understanding of World War II. The challenge for the children was include description that was so good, that it made the reader feel as if they were there and part of what was going on. In Year 5, the children were focusing on describing characters through their actions within narrative writing. Good story writing can always be inspired by reading and this is another of the many reasons why reading is a focus this year.
World Book Day was on Thursday and several of the classes joined the live lesson from the BBC with Konnie Huq as a presenter. The half hour programme was about how to use setting and description to great affect when writing a story. The children took a well-known story and were challenged with altering the setting….imagine Hansel and Gretel being set in space rather than in a forest! We had emailed into the live lessons and managed to get a shout out on the BBC Live Lesson Blog! They were very impressed that we have a whole book week and not just a day.
Mrs. Stephens was able to supply a book themed lunch – ‘Goosebumps Pasta,’ and ‘Where’s the broccoli?’ which left many children to ask where the broccoli was.
Classes were able to visit each other and allow their children to read together, sharing their love of story reading. Year 4 were able to spend time with reception, reading to them and discussing their favourite stories and characters.
6G took part in a scavenger book hunt, where they were set a variety of different challenges such as:
Find a book where the main character is animal.
Find a book where there is a magical character.
Find a book where the title is exactly 5 words.
The week ended with the children and staff coming in dressed as their favourite book characters. The children looked amazing. A whole school assembly was held and you could see the children watching each other, enjoying working out who the different characters were and which books they had been taken from. Never have so many ‘Harry Potters,’ been in the Key Stage 2 hall at one time.
A huge thank you to all the parents and carers who took the time and effort to send the children in costume and to all the staff for providing such excellent learning and reading opportunities for the children this week.