Book Week

Book Week 2020

“There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island”. - Walt Disney

Our Book Week topic this year was ‘Fantasy Worlds’, so the girls had lots of fun exploring imaginary lands and discovering unusual characters.

As ever, the week was jam-packed with events to inspire the girls. On Monday, the Lower School took part in a range of workshops run by Freshwater Theatre Company. Reception went down the rabbit hole to take part in an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Story Hunt. Using songs and puzzles, they entered Wonderland to learn about the extraordinary characters and to find clues that Alice left behind. Year 1 and 2 took part in an interactive group storytelling session. They explored a range of stories from Africa including ‘How Anansi became King of all the Stories’ and ‘How the Zebra got his Stripes’. They had great fun dressing as the characters and re-enacting key parts of the story.

On Tuesday we held a ‘Donate a Book Day’ and the girls brought in their unwanted children’s books for a collection for Inspire Malawi. Each girl was asked to write a message of kindness in the front of their book, and the books will be sent to help build a library at a rural school called Theke in Malawi. Thank you so much for your kind donations – we have lots of lovely books to send off and we collected £290 for the charity, which is wonderful.

Later in the week, Upper School pupils were visited by West End in Schools, a drama and dance company led by West End dancers and actors. This year, Years 3-6 focused on the story of ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl. The girls worked hard to tell the story through a series of moves, actions and freezeframes. They ended the session by creating their own 3D front cover, using their bodies and expressions to become key characters from the story. by the fantastic storyteller, Chris Connaughton. The children were treated to a range of exciting stories including ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘The Firebird’ and ‘Perseus and the Gorgons’. This year, Chris delighted the Year 5 and 6 children with extracts from his new book ‘The Essence Hunters’. This fantasy book full of suspense was the perfect selection for Book Week. Chris is a firm favourite during Book Week and I know how much he loves performing at Glendower.

On Friday, we were lucky to be joined by the award-winning author Jeremy Strong. He met with the whole school throughout the day and he had the girls in fits of giggles – his book ‘My Brother’s Famous Bottom’ was particulary popular! It was so interesting to learn about how he gets his ideas for stories and his method of writing. We learnt that he has his own writing studio at the bottom of the garden and that it is vital he has a fridge stocked with fruit and chocolate! It was great to be joined by such a well-known author for the day and many of the girls went home with a signed copy of one of his books.

This year I launched the ‘Read for Good Sponsored Read’ once again. The girls were challenged to read as much as they could over a three-week period in order to raise money that will be spent on books and storytellers in local children’s hospitals. The girls could read whatever they wanted, from comics to classics, and it was a fantastic way to encourage them to develop their love of reading even further, whilst also raising money for a worthy cause. At the last count, we had raised over £600, so thank you so much for your generous donations.

What a busy and exciting week we had exploring our fantasy worlds! A big thank you to all the teachers for their hard work and support.

Mrs Cadenhead

Head of English

Reception In Reception, we chose ‘Dragons Love Tacos’ by Adam Rubin as our theme for the week and many of our activities were based on this story. We read the first part of the book and we thought about what could happen next. Then, the children wrote predictions about the story. In maths, we revised 2D and 3D shapes and designed shape dragons. The children worked in groups to make their 3D dragons and learned about the importance of teamwork. We used our 2D shape dragons to decorate our classroom doors. The girls wrote party invitations and some girls chose to write an apology letter from the dragons to the little boy from the story. In Expressive Arts and Design, we used paper plates and tissue paper to create paper tacos. Finally, we enjoyed having a Taco Party and ate yummy tacos with our favourite fillings.

Year Four

During Book Week, Year Four were transported to the golden city of Jumanji! To introduce the book, the girls were given puzzle pieces and, in groups, they had to make a complete illustration from the text. We then predicted what might be happening in the pictures. Why is there a lion on the piano? Why is it raining in the lounge? Where have those rhinos come from? Another puzzle revealed the title on the front cover, back cover and blurb, and finally the opening page which was a great introduction to the inspirational book by Chris van Allsburg.

After reading the text, we decided to add another chapter to the story. We began planning by discussing our ideas. What else could occur in Jumanji? Who might arrive? We then sketched an illustration using pencil and shading, just like Chris had. The final step was to write the additional chapter, paying particular attention to strong verbs. We hope to collate all of the chapters and illustrations together to make our very own Year 4 Jumanji text.

Of course, we also enjoyed all the additional activities like parent readers and author visits. The Matilda dance and drama workshop was great fun and we loved working as a team to decorate our doors. Year One

Linked to the theme of ‘Fantasy Worlds’, Year One chose a book called ‘The Emperor of Absurdia’, a story of a little boy and his adventures in the weird and wonderful place called Absurdia. The girls were intro duced to synonyms and thought of alternative words for absurd when picking the name for their own fan tasy land. They then wrote all about the absurd things that happened there, the creatures that lived there and the food they might eat, illustrating their ideas to decorate the class door with.

Book Week WorkshopsYear Six Year Six went on an adventure through Middle-earth for this year’s Book Week as they explored the won derful story of The Hobbit. They began the week by designing their own hobbit character and creating an The Upper School had a wonderful identity card for them. In maths they created detailed maps of fantasy lands, using their knowledge of scale, time attending our annual Shakespeare proportion and direction. They examined some of the bizarre creatures that Bilbo and the Company come workshops! It was a delight to see the across (from the unintelligent trolls to the bizarre, cave-dwelling Gollum) and they had great fun designing girls completely absorbed as the stories their own imaginary beast for their hobbit to encounter. The girls then created their own lost tale for the were vividly brought to life. The girls book, detailing their hobbit’s adventures. Their map was completed with a set of instructions from none took on individual and group roles, acting other than Gandalf. As Tolkien said, ‘Courage is found in unlikely places’ and our hobbits were quick to learn as audience, chorus, sound effects and this lesson. What a fantastic week! lead characters to retell some of Shakespeare’s most popular plays.

Our workshop leader, Fiona, was im-

Year Five

In Year Five, we immersed ourselves in the wonderful world of Harry Potter! Our journey began by reply ing to Professor Dumbledore’s invitation to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft of Wizardry, with the majority of us very excited to take up our place.... although, a few students said they would prefer to retain their place at Glendower! The week culminated in producing our very own ‘Daily Prophet’ newspaper, complete with interviews with some of JK Rowling’s most famous characters and gripping accounts of some of Harry’s greatest adventures. What a magical week!

Linked to the theme of ‘Fantasy Worlds’, Year One chose a book called ‘The Emperor of Absurdia’, a story of a little boy and his adventures in the weird and wonderful place called Absurdia. The girls were introduced to synonyms and thought of alternative words for absurd when picking the name for their own fantasy land. They then wrote all about the absurd things that happened there, the creatures that lived there and the food they might eat, illustrating their ideas to decorate the class door with.

Workshops Year Six went on an adventure through Middle-earth for this year’s Book Week as they explored the wonderful story of The Hobbit. They began the week by designing their own hobbit character and creating an identity card for them. In maths they created detailed maps of fantasy lands, using their knowledge of scale, proportion and direction. They examined some of the bizarre creatures that Bilbo and the Company come across (from the unintelligent trolls to the bizarre, cave-dwelling Gollum) and they had great fun designing their own imaginary beast for their hobbit to encounter. The girls then created their own lost tale for the book, detailing their hobbit’s adventures. Their map was completed with a set of instructions from none other than Gandalf. As Tolkien said, ‘Courage is found in unlikely places’ and our hobbits were quick to learn

In Year Five, we immersed ourselves in the wonderful world of Harry Potter! Our journey began by replying to Professor Dumbledore’s invitation to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft of Wizardry, with the majority of us very excited to take up our place.... although, a few students said they would prefer to retain their place at Glendower! The week culminated in producing our very own ‘Daily Prophet’ newspaper, complete with interviews with some of JK Rowling’s most famous characters and gripping accounts of some Year Two

Linked to the theme of ‘Fantasy Worlds’, Year Two chose to look at the infamous book by Roald Dahl – ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. We had a fantastic week reading the book and exploring the way in which Roald Dahl describes his characters. Roald Dahl loved playing around with words, and his character descriptions are full of humour, disgust, admiration and fun! In the spirit of Roald Dahl, we created a ‘Guess Who?’ game by describing some of his favourite characters. We also designed and created our own magnificent sweets and we described what happens when you eat one!

Year Three

Year Three have loved exploring the book ‘A Little Princess’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We have undertaken lots of exciting activities related to the book. We have written character descriptions using interesting adjectives. We also wrote setting descriptions using our senses to help us; we thought carefully about how our senses really bring alive a setting. We also thought about how often items in fantasy stories are not quite what they seem. We used our imagination, like Sara Crewe does, to transform mundane objects into fantasy objects. For example, we looked at an old wax candle and imagined it was a sparkling, diamond encrusted chandelier. We also looked at an old rope and imagined it was beautiful, twinkling diamond necklace. In the story, Sara goes missing so we also created ‘wanted’ posters to help us locate her.