With World Book Day on the horizon, it’s time to consider how schools can inspire children to enjoy books!
Enjoying books and immersing children in literature, is after all, the point of World Book Day – and while we love a dress up day as much as the next person, it’s a day about books rather than an excuse to dress up as Mr Twit!
(Maybe there should be a separate day for dressing up, just called ‘dressing up day’?!)
For many children, reading can be hard, for others it’s their favourite thing to do!
So how can you bring some intrigue and interest to World Book Day, while engaging all children in your class?
Once you have retold a story, acted out a book, done an author focus – what comes next?
A workshop can be a brilliant way to bring depth into the curriculum, especially for visual learners who need to experience, see, hear, touch and interact with a topic.
Once children have learnt to juggle or tried using a diabolo, reading a book or writing about the circus becomes much easier!
We have run a number of workshops on world book day over the years, we have also found ‘inspire writing’ workshops are also increasingly popular.
Last year we ran a number of workshops to link in with the curriculum focus on the text – ‘Leon and the place between’. An increasingly popular book which of course, we also love!
As Leon is transported from Abdul Kazam’s magic show, to ‘the place between’, He finds himself in a magical world. Some have likened it to a circus themed Alice in wonderland, both wonderful stories to ignite the imagination of their readers.
There are some brilliant teaching resources on the book, here:
When children come to a circus workshop, we immerse them in a multi sensory, circus experience.
Children get to experiment with circus equipment which helps put themselves in the shoes of a circus performer.
We ask –
- Would they feel nervous?
- Excited?
- Worried?
- What colours do they see?
Seeing coloured scarves floating down as they try to juggle, or learning to spin a plate, and feeling its weight as they use it, all provide a bank of experience from which to write with or relate to the story they are reading.
Feedback from previous schools has been that once they have experienced a circus workshop, the creative writing produced after it has always been outstanding.
SEN provision.
Children who find the mechanics of reading hard, will benefit from a circus workshop on World Book Day. Bringing a book to life with a workshop, can be a refreshing change for them from the daily struggle they experience when trying to read.
Story, after all, can be experienced in many ways other than simply through the pages of a book!
How does a circus workshop fit into the school day?
The length of our workshops depends on the age of the children, and how many class groups you are hoping will take part during the day.
You can read the full guidance on how our days work, here.
Please do contact us , and we will help to work out how we can best fit in with what you need.
Whatever your school does on World Book Day, we hope you have a wonderful time!
Further reading:
Circus of dreams is another popular circus themed book.
For more World Book Day ideas, you will find plenty here.