Mary Poppins, James Bond, several Gangsta Grannies, Mr Stink, the Mad Hatter, James and the Giant Peach, the Boy in a Dress, Fantastic Mr Fox and many more wonderful characters attended Marlborough St. Mary’s for World Book Day on Thursday March 7 and Preshute Primary School on Friday March 8.
World Book Day is all about celebrating and encouraging children to read and teachers and pupils in both schools have been involved in all sorts of imaginative and exciting activities. As well as dressing up as their favourite characters and showing off their outfits in a special assembly, the children were asked to Drop Everything And Read every time the bell rang.
At St Mary’s each class decorated the door to their classroom as a favourite book cover. They were also encouraged to take a photo of some ‘extreme reading’ – reading in an unusual location – during the February holiday. The photos were shared on the day and ranged from reading in a shop window as shoppers passed by to reading while skiing and reading at the top of a tree!
Preshute Primary also launched an ‘extreme reading’ location competition. Also, pupils were challenged during the week to read out a passage from their favourite book to the class. The idea was to hook the reader without giving away too many spoilers.
In both schools, teachers entered into the fun by dressing up and by sharing their love of reading. At Marlborough St Mary’s the teachers became a crew of scurvy pirates straight out of the pages of ‘Pirates Love Underpants’. There was a vast array of bloomers on display!
Preshute teachers dressed as Crayola crayons and performed a play entitled ‘When the crayons quit !’
Mary Mundy is deputy headteacher at Preshute: “We all take books for granted so World Book Day is a good opportunity to promote reading and to instil a lifelong love of reading.”