World Book Day is always one of our favourite theme days that we celebrate at Webber and the children in the Junior School classes once again thoroughly enjoyed and were engaged in the activities that were completed throughout the day.

The children spend the days and weeks leading up to World Book Day discussing which stories they enjoyed and which characters were their favourites. We have so many conversations about their costumes and they always love seeing and guessing the different characters their friends choose to dress as.

In the Junior School each class focused their World Book Day work around an author and completed a variety of different activities around this author’s books. 

Reception children learned about the author Claire Freedman who writes the Aliens Love Underpants books which the Reception children love! They spent time designing their own underpants and writing sentences about what they would do if an alien came to visit them.

Year 1 and 2 researched the author Julia Donaldson and we were able to create an incredibly long list of books that Julia has written over the years. We spent Friday looking at Room on the Broom and the children took time to order and retell the story and we explored the wonderfully descriptive language that she uses throughout the book. We also had fun looking at the rhyming pattern of words and predicting the next word together.

In Year 3 the children enjoyed learning about the author Roger Hargreaves and looked at the Mr Men and Little Miss books and characters. The children then designed and created their own Mr Men and Little Miss characters and have written and created their own version of a story.

Year 4 were excited to find out more about the author Cressida Cowell who famously writes the How to Train your Dragons stories. They were intrigued to find out more about her life, learning about her inspirations for writing. They spent time studying the characters and designing their own dragon eggs and reading some of their own favourite stories throughout the day. 

Year 5 children were interested in learning about Beatrix Potter and have written their own biography on her. They also took time to think about the many story characters that she created and wrote about which was their favourite and took time to explain their reasons for their choice.

Year 6 have studied the Michael Murpurgo text War Horse over the last term and have worked hard to identify and explore the themes around the futility and waste of war and the reciprocal bond of love and loyalty between the men and the horses in the WW1 front line trenches.

The children were engaged and enjoyed learning about the authors and completing the themed activities. In addition to the work that was completed, we as staff are always excited to share our own love of reading with the children and take extra time during the day to stop and listen to a story being read out loud.

This week we introduced Mystery Readers to the Junior School children. At different times throughout the morning when the children heard a bell ringing it meant that someone had come to read them a story and they stopped their lesson to listen and enjoy a story being read aloud to them.

It was a wonderful day full of stories, characters and learning rhymes and information about authors and the books that they have written. We hope that we have inspired our young readers to develop their life long love of reading for enjoyment and relaxation.

Miss Kerry Duff

Head of Junior School