There were lots of fun and creative activities at Dallam’s World Book Day, all designed to encourage student to positively engage with reading.
Many members of staff got into the spirit of World Book Day by dressing up. Students then had to identify the book character they were dressed as. The Head Students awarded Mrs Gould with ‘Best Costume’ for her very impressive Queen of Hearts outfit.
Some staff had themselves photographed with their favourite book covering their face. Students had to guess who the Masked Readers were.
During period 2, all students got to enjoy a ‘whole school read’ of short story Moving On. It has a great twist at the end of the tale – read it here – don’t let your child spoil the ending before you’ve read it.
As you’d expect, English lessons on World Book Day were slightly different – not just because the teachers were dressed as book characters! There were many lively discussions in all the lessons around:
- what would be their desert island book – some suggestions included: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson, Maze Runner, my grandad’s WW2 diary; and some clever answers like a notebook so I could write my own stories and a survival guide!
- difficult choices in a literary-themed ‘Would you rather…’ They had to choose and justify their answers to questions like: Would you rather be a villain in a book or the hero? Would you rather have dinner with your favourite author or your favourite book character? Would you rather read a book with an annoying cliffhanger or one where your favourite character is killed?
- the opening lines of six well-known books. Students were posed questions about what made them effective hooks, what atmosphere did they create and what would they write as the next line?
To help develop their creative writing skills, students were tasked with an extreme short story activity. Prompted with a choice of four images, students had to choose one and write a 50- or 100-word story. It was more difficult than they thought to stay concise once they’d started writing.
The canteen staff came up trumps, as ever, with a special World Book Day menu based on The Jungle Book.
After all this literary fun, we hope that our Year 7-9 students will invest their World Book Day £1 token in book they’ll really love.