BY JIM AND LUKE

World Book Day is celebrated once a year widely across the world. This year it has fallen on March 7 however here at JKPS we officially celebrated it one day later and had activities running throughout the week.

These included: Drop Everything And Read, Reading Buddies, free book tokens, quizzes over Zoom, the Teacher Relay and of course the students’ favourite: dress up day! 

We think World Book Day is important because it helps to spread awareness of the importance of reading in our day to day lives. It also reminds everyone of the joy, fun and imagination that reading brings to your life.

“Having lived in America it is celebrated the same way there but with crazy costumes,” said Jim in Year 5. “This shows everyone around the world should enjoy books and have access to them too!”

Luke in Year 5 added: “Every year I have taken a picture of me in my costume. Now I have so many pictures to remind me of previous book days!” 

Above you can see some of the Year 5 students spending time reading to the Reception students on Friday as part of the Reading Buddies event.

And here are some interviews from teachers and students who all had an amazing time celebrating World Book Day:

“It is a really good opportunity for children to have fun and dress up!” said Mr Bruno.

“It is a great opportunity to get the younger years into reading as well as some of the older years who don’t love reading so much,” said Ms Sarah.

“I think it’s one of the best days in the school year. Children and teachers are buzzing. Seeing older children read with the little ones was pure joy too,” said Ms. Katie.  

“The quiz was great because some of the Year 6 boys don’t really love reading, but seeing some of their favourite football players love reading may help to inspire them,” said Ms. Donna.

And of course there is the dressing up! Walking through the playground on Friday lunchtime there were an array of incredible costumess, capes and wigs on display.

Joe in Reception dressed up as a skeleton from the book Bonesville. His classmate Sebastian dressed up as a reindeer from his favourite Christmas book: Dasher.

“I can dress up as Naruto!” said Micah in Year 5. 

“I think it’s a really silly day, and it’s really nice that we get to dress up and bring in things like baseball bats,” said Harrison in Year 2. “Sammy bought in a baseball mit, mini bat and rye bread, as he was doing the Catcher in the Rye. How exciting!”

This year has been a bit different because there has been an urge to not buy things. So we’ve seen lots of homemade costumes like Leo in Year 5 who dressed up as a muskateer from The Three Muskateers with a repurposed hat made out of an old Halloween costume and a safety pin. Anella in Year 5 made her own tunic inspired by the book Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter.

Here at Judith Kerr we are taking lots of steps to help children really get into reading even if they don’t necessarily love it. Some of these include the Teacher Relay. This is when one book is chosen by each class and it is read by loads of different teachers. All the teachers have to race from classroom to classroom in no more than 30 seconds where they pick up the story from where the last teacher left off. They have one minute to read the next section of the book to the class before moving on. By the end of it the teachers are all out of breath and panting, and the children are often in hysterics, laughing their heads off!

Another event is the Drop Everything And Read event. All week, when students heard the sound of a bell, they had to stop wherever they were and read. Jake was trying to do a headstand and read. Jim and Archie were sat on the windowsill. Harrison in Year 2 dropped his friend Ralph’s toy monkey and ran to his desk to read as quick as he could. It’s chaotic and really funny.

In case that wasn’t enough of a scoop on all the fun things we’ve been doing this week at JKPS, here are some book recommendations to get you even more excited about the AMAZING world that reading can open up. Let us know what you think!

•  The Bear and the Piano
• David Walliams books
• Dogman
• Harry Potter 
• Cressida Cowell books – especially How to Train a Dragon
• The Boy Who Grew Dragons
• Bunny vs Monkey
• The Big Bad Bogey
• The Book With No Pictures
• Race to the Frozen North
• Dragon Mountain
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid
• Dork Diaries
• The Detective Dog
• The Twits
• Supertato
• Captain Underpants
• The Bad Guys
• Sophie McKenzie books
• Investigators
• Ultimate Football Heroes
• Sea Quest
• Percy Jackson books
• Beast Quest
• Looshkin
• Flember
• Julius Zebra

HAPPY READING!!!