World Book Day 2018

Had a great day on our postponed World Book Day at school last week. We were closed due to the snow on the real World Book Day, but that wasn't going to stop us - besides, if parents have been good enough to pay for costumes or put the effort in to make costumes, then how could we let it go?

It's fabulous to see so many children dressed up as their favourite book characters, and great to hear them talk about books they love. Sharing experiences of favourite books is a big part of the day - after all, there is a point to World Book Day. We have a lot of children with reading ages much lower than their peers, and peer excitement can be a great motivator to make them want to learn, so we make a big deal of giving them time to talk to each other about what it is that makes their favourite book so fantastic.

We invited Class 5 to come down and pair up with our Class 2 kids and read to each other. 

In the afternoon, one of the Year 2 girls read out a book she had written and illustrated all by herself. This inspired everyone to make their own books, so I handed out blank booklets I'd prepared earlier and everyone got to work. 

We finished the day with the last couple of chapters of Buttercup Sunshine. Class 2 are the only class IN THE ENTIRE WORLD to have been an audience for it, and they loved it! I'm pretty chuffed about that - it was a real buzz to read my own story to the kids I work with. Just awesome.   

As you can see below, things got quite animated. Being attacked by a zombie Harry Potter has got to be the highlight of the day. 

That's not my real hair! I'm in disguise.

Being attacked by a zombie Harry Potter

Photos courtesy of the school's Twitter feed.

Colin Mulhern