​Book Fortnight has been a great success in school. The children enjoyed the usual excitement of dressing up as their favourite book character and we had some amazing entries for the competition. The reading den, Charlie Bucket’s house leading into the chocolate factory, allowed classes to come together in a cosy and calm environment for them to share a class read. The den always supports the overall theme for book fortnight and encourages a great deal of discussion around the chosen focus story which this year was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Read dating allows the children the opportunity to share books that they have enjoyed with their peers and learn about new books that may appeal to them.

​The children also enjoyed texts exploring the themes of hunger and the use of food banks. These texts allowed the children to develop their skills of empathy – putting themselves in the shoes of others. There was also great excitement around preparing food related to the themes in the books they were reading such as creating fruit lollipops, soups and pasta dishes. Key skills for food preparation were learnt and the children certainly loved the end products!  The children also learnt about the importance of food composting and how we can then use the compost in the summer term to support our outdoor learning projects.

The launch of Stockport Book Awards has now created a buzz around reading and the children are already discussing this year’s texts and bringing in art pieces that they have created in response to their reading. We look forward to this continuing over the coming weeks.
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Thanks to all the parents and carers who support Book Fortnight by providing costumes, support home learning competitions and spend time reading with your children on a regular basis – it does all really help to ensure our children develop a love of reading.

Dear Parents and Carers,

Book fortnight is a special two weeks in school designated to raising the profile of reading for pleasure and helping the children to recognise the importance of reading. Reading for pleasure opens up new worlds for our children. It gives them the opportunity to use their imagination to explore new ideas, visit new places and meet new characters. Interestingly, reading for pleasure also improves children’s well-being and empathy. It helps them to understand their own identity and gives them an insight into the world and the views of others.

This year, book fortnight will run from Monday 24th February and our focus for book fortnight is around hunger and food poverty. Through exploring books around these topics the children will have the opportunity to empathise with others and understand why it is important to eat a healthy balanced diet. We will be using Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a stimulus for this theme, exploring the characters and their actions in this story. We will also link our Design and Technology learning about food to this theme and the children will be designing, making and evaluating their own food creations!
 
Home Learning
In addition, during this fortnight, the children will also be involved in many other activities to promote a love of reading. For home learning we would like the children to create their own book character from a healthy fruit or vegetable. We would also like the children to write a label for their book character telling us who their character is and also displays their own name and class on it.