We have once again immersed the children in a week of exciting book themed activities to promote a love of reading. The children began the week with a Booknic. The children brought in blankets and cushions and enjoyed sharing and recommending books with their peers as they tucked into their picnic lunch. It was a lovely experience and the children were inspired by the discussions that took place. During the week, the children also had the opportunity to take part in a woodland book hunt. They used the school grounds to find clues within the woods. The questions were focused on books, authors and much loved characters and the children ended their hunt with a hot chocolate and story in our woodland story area. Reading role models is of great importance at Hillside and we have used this week to use our whole school community to promote reading. This has included teacher swapsies- an event whereby teachers swap classrooms and read to a different class within the school and reading buddies – this included children from older year groups reading with younger pupils in the school. The children loved this experience and it was obvious that the older children got as much out of this as the younger children. Also, our parents and families have continued to come into school and read to the children as part of our ongoing mystery reader initiative. The children love the suspense of not knowing which of their parents will turn up to read to their class. We were fortunate enough to have a theatre company visit the school during the week and perform the class tale: The Hobbit. Although this is often classed as a text for older children, it was done in a way that was accessible for all ages and our children were enamoured by the fight scenes and unusual characters. The children then used the theme of ‘adventure stories’ as their stimulus for creative sessions during the week. The children had the freedom to let their imaginations run wild and to become authors themselves. To develop creativity further in school, we asked the children to use wooden peg dolls to create date a book character of their choice. The children used paints, felt tips and fabrics to design their character and it is going to be a difficult task to decide on a winner from each year group when we judge them next week.
Reading is at the heart of all that we do at Hillside and we hope the children continue to have a deep-rooted love for reading.
