It's all about books....
Engaging the children in the joy of reading has always been a goal at Bentley and we were delighted to welcome author Sam Gayton into school in April. His books ‘The Snow Merchant’, ‘Hercufleas,’ ‘His Royal Whiskers’ and ‘Lilliput’ are very popular and the children were very excited to meet him.
We enjoyed a fun assembly when Sam had the whole school perform tongue twisters and enthralled us all with an excerpt from The Snow Merchant, cleverly leaving the story on a cliff-hanger! He ran workshops with the Juniors during the day who all loved writing ‘nano-stories’ (a story in six words) with him. Amongst the favourites from Year 4 were…
Camping trip. Bear Kingdom. Empty tent. By Oliver
Zombie apocalypse. Everyone dies. Except Bob. By Maddison
One ship… one iceberg… one tragedy. By Max
Grey hair. Dyed it. Went well. By Holly
Lots of children and parents came along at the end of the day to meet Sam and have him sign a book for them – although one child did ask if that was his actual signature or just a scribble! It was lovely to see the children so engaged!
Sam’s visit began a week of reading at school which culminated in a very special opening ceremony for our lovely library which was relocated at the beginning of the school year.
An amazing story teller chair and some money
to buy new books was very kindly gifted to the school from the Stanley family and super artist Anna MacInnes created a wonderful mural from the whole schools’ favourite book characters. The children love the new school library and we hope that Sam’s visit, along with the Summer Term Reading Challenge, will inspire some great reading and perhaps one or two published authors of the future!
