Mar 2010 - Rhymes and Races on Book Day
On Friday 5th March, instead of pupils, the Royal Alexandra and Albert School had troops of soldiers, kings, Bo-Peeps, piggies and blackbirds in attendance. It was Book Day and the theme this year was nursery rhymes so all the children and staff came to school dressed as a character from a nursery rhyme.Fancy Dress Friday in the Junior Department was the culmination of a series of events designed to encourage children to get the most out of reading and enjoyment of books. As part of Book Week, children have written their own nursery rhymes, mixed up traditional nursery rhymes into new nursery rhymes, produced diaries as if they were a character from a nursery rhyme and even drafted newspaper articles reporting on an event in a nursery rhyme.
Literacy co-ordinator, and Year 6 Teacher, Alexandra Smith commented, “The children have really enjoyed remembering nursery rhymes and investigating their actual meaning. They have produced excellent examples of creative writing, artwork and have proved very perceptive when imagining what it is like to be one of the fictional characters.
“One of the highlights of this week was the workshop by author David Mason who really captured the imagination of the children with a humorous and animated performance of his own poems.”
“There were various events on Fancy Dress Friday and these included a parade (in which the Queen of Hearts delivered some real tarts) and sporting activities. Sport ‘nursery rhyme style’ involved pairs of Jacks and Jills racing up a very steep hill with a pail of water. The pail was full of holes and the children had to reach the finish line with as much water as possible. It was wet and muddy but luckily no one broke their crown!”
