The St John’s passion for books and reading was confirmed once again across a wide range of book-related activities, all designed to increase the children’s enthusiasm for all things literary. The Byron House Book Week is a celebration of authors, illustrators, books and, most importantly, of reading.
Byron House enjoyed author and illustrator Paul Geraghty’s entertaining presentations. He described the animals and landscape in South Africa, where he has lived most of his life, as the inspiration for his books. He loves making up silly names for his animals and even has his own language. The children were amazed when he drew a huge picture of the Hoppameleon and a dinosaur from his books whilst talking. The author explained, “Writing stories is like having a dream, except you can control it and you can carry on flying wherever you want to go”. One child commented, “When Paul Geraghty told us his stories it made me laugh so much everyone heard me. I was laughing so much I could not stop laughing.”
Author Anneliese Emmans Dean enthralled the children with her ‘Buzzing!’ show, poetry workshops and ‘rhyme time rambles’. KG and T1 learnt and performed a selection of Anneliese’s songs and verses about creatures they met on a real or imaginary nature ramble. The T2’s explored millipedes and created a minibeast poem themselves. Anneliese wrote a poem for the F2 all about the Byron House library and the children found books to illustrate the poem and incorporate into their performance. Anneliese judged the Big Buzz Book Mark competition which she found “an agonising and impossible task as the children had come up with such a wide variety of fabulous book marks” and then even had time to compose a poem.
Book Week would not be the same without the Book Fair as well as the ever popular Extreme Reading Competition, which saw children reading in the most unlikely of places. Book at Bedtime was another favourite with Mr Jones and the teachers reading to the children after dark. Dress as a Book Character rounded off a successful week with some original and often wacky outfits on display.
Annaliese Emmans Dean’s Poem for Second Form:
You can journey through space ..
You can journey through time ..
You can pitter and patter
In rhythm and rhyme ..
You can have a good laugh ..
Have a good giggle ..
Learn about creatures
That flutter and wriggle ..
Where can you do these things?
Hmmm … let me see!
IN OUR BRILLIANT, BYRON HOUSE LIBRARY!
You can go on adventures
With wizards .. and kings ..
With talking animals ..
And dragons with wings ..
Adventures with girls ..
Adventures with boys ..
With teddy bears .., scarecrows ..
And magical toys ..
Where can you do these things?
Hmmm … let me see!
IN OUR BRILLIANT, BYRON HOUSE LIBRARY!
What’s a volcano? ..
How do planes fly? ..
Where’s Argentina? ..
How high is the sky? ..
If you’ve got a question
You just need to look
The answer will be
In a fact-filled book
Where can you find these books?
Hmmm … let me see!
IN OUR BRILLIANT, BYRON HOUSE LIBRARY!
So many stories ..
And fairy tales ..
Pictures .. and poems ..
And facts about whales .. (and snails) .. (and quails) .. (and the Prince of Wales) ..
In our Byron House library
Rest assured
YOU’LL NEVER, EVER, EVER
Be bored!
© Anneliese Emmans Dean www.theBigBuzz.biz info@theBigBuzz.biz
