The fun of exploring language in all its forms was the focus of a special week of activities for children at St Nicholas-at-Wade CE Primary.
Before school, the reading cafes were popular with separate events for Key Stage 1 and 2 groups, including breakfast bits and reading activities.
Two distinctly different forms of literature were celebrated when the Looping the Loop Theatre group staged radically different workshops.
Key Stage 1 pupils centred their attention around The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s illustrated tale of a mouse taking a walk in the woods and deceiving different predators, including the Gruffalo. Older Key Stage 2 pupils considered Shakespeare’ s dark tale of ambition and tragedy in Macbeth.
On a lighter theme, favourite books and characters were the inspiration for dozens of clever potato head creations using a range of materials including paint, crayons, fabrics, glue, feathers and stickers. Many of the works were on display in the school.
To get in the swing of the annual World Book Day which was a central part of the initiative, pupils came to school dressed as characters from their favourite stories, with lots of colourful costumes on show.
Staff played their part by running a ‘masked reader’ challenge where pupils watched storytelling videos looking for clues to work out which teacher was behind the disguised narrator.
Booster Cushion Theatre’s version of Big Goldilocks was another firm favourite, with their six feet tall pop up books telling their version of the traditional tale.
The show featured lots of participation from the audience as they pretended to be woodland animals, disguised with colourful costume props, to help to save creatures with interactive singing as they helped The Three Bears to protect their house from grumpy Goldilocks.
Head Teacher Taralee Kennedy said: “We decided to hold a creative week of literacy-based fun learning activities that were not just around World Book Day, organised by Helen Bullard our English leader.
“Expanding it from a single event gave our children the chance to explore their creativity more fully as well as experience drama workshops, theatre shows and much more.”