On Thursday 6th March, everyone at The Willows celebrated World Book Day. Year 4 came dressed as their favourite book characters for the day and there were some incredible outfits! We spent the entire day off-timetable, celebrating our love of reading, our favourite books and taking part in lots of games, quizzes and discussions about books.

Year 4’s first challenge was to guess the ‘Masked Readers’, where the staff had all recorded themselves with their faces obscured by their favourite books and saying a short book review. There were some really tough ones, especially Mr Knight’s, who put on a really silly voice. The children then used this idea to make their own masked reader book reviews, explaining which book they picked, their favourite characters and why they recommend the book for their peers. 

At two different points throughout the day, all KS2 children took part in a story share, where 8 staff members read the first section of their favourite book for 20 minutes. The children got to choose who they went to listen too, with staff situated in different classrooms, the worship area, the hall and even the staffroom. The children swapped in the second session to have the chance to hear another reader and get tempted by another book.

One of the children’s favourite activities during the day was making their own ‘Top Trumps’ cards based on their favourite book characters. They had to score their characters for power, speed, size and wisdom, then illustrate each card, before having battles against their friends in class. Competitive spirit certainly came to the fore! Other activities we took part in were writing our favourite books on a new display board for the playground, watching the CBBC live lesson for World Book Day (but we unfortunately didn’t get a shout out despite sending an email together), reading lots more of our story ‘The Last Bear’ and working in pairs to do a World Book Day themed maths treasure trail around the playground. Add a few book character names to the questions and it is amazing how much more the excitement goes up!

Well done Year 4, we had a very busy day but it was brilliant sharing your love of books and love of reading with you!