National Storytelling Week organised by The Society for Storytelling will take place between the 1st - 8th February 2020. If you are looking to celebrate this week in your school then we have a number of cross-curricular workshops that promote a love of storytelling! Read on for more details...

 

A Visit from Bookman - Character Visit

The world’s newest superhero, Bookman has the extraordinary power of bringing stories to life – and he'll fly into your school all set to help your pupils in doing the same. Armed just with his trusty Book Bag, he'll make an unexpected appearance at an assembly before leading classes through a series of exciting, engaging and enticing drama-based workshops (all differentiated for age). And the outcomes? Connection-making, Freeze-Frames and Talking Tableaux, illustrating key narrative moments from a host of well-loved stories!

"The visit was amazing,  Jay (Bookman!) was a fabulous start to the day with his assembly, which really caught the kids' imagination. I had staff coming to tell me they were shocked when he burst forth from the cupboard and surprised the hall. He was brilliant - and I'm especially impressed that he managed to work with children ranging from reception to Year 6s and entertained them all. It's created a great buzz around the school about reading which is brilliant in the week of world book day." Jeavons Wood Primary

Paige Turner's Fiction Mission - Character Visit 

If the characters in our favourite stories only come to life when their tales are read, what would become of them if Mr Noah Magination got his way and had all books banned? Paige Turner is on a mission to save the fictional worlds that these characters live in and she’s going to need your pupils’ help. After introducing herself at a whole-school assembly, she’ll work with a number of classes, using age-differentiated drama approaches to bring some of their favourite characters to life, exploring what it is that makes them so wonderful and what we would stand to lose if we never had the chance to meet them in the first place. This is her only hope winning over Mr Magination and guaranteeing the survival of books and stories for future generations- and that hope lies in you!

 

A Celebration in Rhyme - New for World Book Day 2020!

Working with up to 420 children to create and perform a School Poem in just one day!

New for 2020, A celebration in Rhyme has been developed to help celebrate the stories your pupils love in verse - by writing and performing a collaborative School Poem in just a single day! After a quick assembly sharing our love of poetry and issuing the overall challenge, children will participate in collaborative writing workshops, usually for a year group at a time. Using our unique “RunAround” methodology, KS2 classes will choose the themes and content, creating the lines as they go - with EYFS and KS1 providing the chorus. And the outcome? A beautifully crafted poem extolling the wonder of stories that’s unique to your school - and that will get its very first performance at a second, celebratory assembly at the end of the day!

 

Scrambled Stories: The Return of Bookman/Paige Turner

Already enjoyed A Visit from Bookman or Paige Turner? Well, now you can now invite them back for 2020 with Scrambled Stories! … Your favourite book lover has a new problem this year – because their archenemy has managed to wreck some of the world’s best loved stories by changing tiny details. Imagine how dull the tale of Red Riding Hood would be if the Wolf had turned vegetarian - or how boring Jack and the Beanstalk would become if Jack didn’t get his hands on the magic beans! It’s up to your pupils to save the day, by inserting themselves into the stories and putting them back on track!

 

CSI: Bookmark 

The Book Review Competition at Little Podmore Library received record entries this year – but someone snuck in before judging was complete, and jumbled up all the entries! In a series of age-differentiated workshops, we’ll be asking your children to indulge in a frenzy of connection-making, using their knowledge of a range of well-loved tales to make sense of it all!

 

The Story that Saved the Day

Although the many tales of soldiers’ lives being saved by books stopping bullets are almost certainly apocryphal, stories do have the power to Save the Day. From helping us identify with people like ourselves to unleashing our imaginations to roam in fantastical worlds, books and their authors really can change our lives for the better. Beginning with a whole-school assembly in which we share with your pupils a book that’s shaped our lives, The Story That Saved the Day leads into a series of workshops in which pupils consider and/or invent other transformative stories – and celebrate them through visual art.

 

 

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