The theme for this year's Story Week was a little different from the usual, instead of focusing just on the writing side of stories, we focused on the importance of illustrations.
To help promote this theme, we were lucky to have a guest illustrator from the UK- Karin Littlewood, who spent the week on Upper and Lower Campuses. Karin has produced illustrations for various newspapers and magazines in the UK and she has illustrated over forty children's books published worldwide, one of which was her most recent book - Immi.
The workshops, which Karin lead with each class, were focused on ‘Immi’. Karin focused on the importance of illustrations that ignite the reader’s imagination, no matter what theme the story is. Each class had the chance to work with Karin on some of their own illustrations and ask her questions on their work. Alongside her workshops, Karin also led an assembly for Upper Primary, in which she read her book, accompanied by various activities to engage the senses of the audience.
It was a very busy and fun week in Upper Primary, as classes got stuck into their Story Week and illustrations-focused lessons. Each class did a range of different activities throughout the week. Just some of the activities that took part include- a shadow puppet show, collaborations between different classes, story writing and telling, library skills, teachers sharing their favourite books, competitions, a book sale, book signing by Karin, a bell ringing randomly each day to signify time to drop everything and read, book reviews and much more.
As part of our World Book Day celebrations, on Friday we dressed up as our favourite book characters. I am always overwhelmed by the efforts of the children and staff on this day and this year there were all sorts of characters ranging from Winnie the Pooh to Gangsta Granny. A very successful and worthwhile week in Upper Primary.
