Thursday 7th March is World Book Day 2019 and we have been celebrating by each class sharing a book from a different culture. 

Each class started the afternoon by talking about what World Book Day is and why and how we can celebrate it. Find out below what each class got up to...

In Class 1 we read the story 'We went on Safari'. this was about a group of children in Africa going on safari and counting the different animals they encountered. Class 1 watched clips of a safari trip in the Masai Mara and we discussed the animals we saw. We then recreated this in the classroom with small world toys. We wrote a list of animals that we had seen in the book. It was a fun day going on safari.

In Class 2 we read the story Amazing Grace.  Grace is a girl who liked to act out different stories so we had dressing up out and acted out in the classroom and wrote about Grace too. We also designed a ballerina dress like the one that was worn in the book.

In Class 3 we read and watched some Tinga Tinga Tales which are African folk stories about animals and why they look the way they do; Why the Elephant has a trunk and Why the Giraffe has a long neck. We looked at the bright colours in Tinga art and decorated some safari animals of our own. We listed the Tinga animals we spotted on our stimulus picture as well, which was a challenge because there were so many of them! We did some shared writing as a class and wrote our own African folk story called Why the Lion Roars. Which was your favourite story we shared?

In Class 4 we shared a story called “Not So fast Songolo” by Niki Daly. It was about a boy that lived in South Africa. His family were very poor and he has a very old pair of trainers they call “ tackies”. He helps his elderly grandmother to go into town and do some shopping. She finds it difficult to cross the road and get on the bus. She rewards him with a new pair of trainers. Following the story we did a book review of the story and we also made a shoe monster. We had lots of fun!

In Class 5 we looked at the different countries around the world which celebrate World Book Day and shared some of our favourite stories. It was brilliant to hear our friend’s favourite books retold by them! We then read ‘The Tiger and The Wise Man’ which was a fantastic book, enjoyed by all. After that we made our very own 3D tiger’s and discussed what we enjoyed about the story.

 In Class 6 we looked at the book 'Mama Panya's Pancakes'. We loved the story and really enjoyed thinking about what we would put on our own pancakes if we were to make them. Some of the suggestions were; Chocolate, marshmellows, sprinkles, lemon, sugar and banana. What is your favourite pancake topping? After reading the story we then designed and drew our own pancakes! Yummy! 

In Class 7 for World Book Day we read a story called ‘Handa’s Hen’. The children really enjoyed the story and listened very well. We all painted pictures of hens and looked at the features. We have lots of hens to put up in our classroom.  Can you remember where the hen was hiding in the story?

In Class 8  read Handa’s Surprise, by Eileen Browne, a story set in Kenya. From the story we learnt about the different kinds of animals and fruits that can be found in Kenya. Handa’s Surprise is also one of our school library story sacks, so we were able to use the finger puppets of Handa and the animals to act out the story. The story was also very useful for practising our understanding of adjectives. We also watched two videos about children in Kenya, one who lived in the capital city, Nairobi, and one who lived in the countryside, and we were able to compare their lives to our own. We found lots of similarities and differences!

In Class 9 the children shared ‘Making Friends’, a book about tolerance. A girl moved in next door and Emily wasn’t sure how she felt about her because she was different. She spoke a different language and her family dressed and acted differently. Emily’s mum encouraged her to find out about the new girl. Emily discovered that even though Amira was different, they could still be friends. The children had a great time acting out and retelling parts of the story and thinking about the importance of respect and tolerance to people whose appearance, beliefs or activities may be different to our own. We enjoyed sharing other stories with our friends during the afternoon too!

In Class 10 the children shared a booked called 'Masai and I' which is all about comparing life of a girl who lives in London and a girl who lives in East Africa.We talked about the similarities and difference of both lives and in groups the children discussed and wrote them down. We then watched a video about a boy who also lives in East Africa in a tribe called the Maasai. Can you remember what the boy lived in? The children then learnt lots more information about the Maasai people and then collected these facts to create a factfile about them. Can you remember two facts about the Maasai people and tell your grown up? 

At Westfield Infant School we love books and know how important it is to read so we all had so much fun reading a new story.