There was excitement and a flurry of activity in March when authors and illustrators visited Kingsmead to meet and work with each class. The arts organisation Pop Up scheduled the events for us and we saw mask making, puppets and heard instruments playing through Kingsmead. If you enjoyed the workshops, look at this website for activities and more information about the authors you met http://pop-up-hub.com/engine-room

Nursery hosted the author and illustrator Sophy Henn who wrote Where Bear? The children had been learning about bears so were experts when it came to making puppets inspired by Sophy’s book. They had a very enjoyable afternoon with her.

Emily Hughes loved working with our fantastic Reception class. Purple Class loved the illustrations in her books The Little Gardener and Wild. The book was all about trying hard and Purple Class areall very good at this!

Brown Class were lucky enough to work with Thomas Docherty who brought along his new book Little Boat and Brown Class’ favourite book Big Scary Monster (http://pop-up-hub.com/engine-room?author_id=515). Thomas explained to the class how illustration can make a reader understand so much more about a sentence. Have a look at some of the children’s detailed illustrations. 

Davis Litchfield who wrote The Bear and the Piano was so charmed by the enthusiasm and energy of Year 2 that he couldn’t leave Kingsmead at the end of the lesson and stayed to enjoy even more time!

We welcomed back Sally Pomme Clayton who brought her book Persephone a journey from Winter to Spring to share with Yellow class. The class were wowed by her captivating story-telling and loved finding out about what part pomegranate seeds played in the Greek myth.

Year 4 had a hilarious time with Rachel Rooney, who they found very entertaining!  Rachel’s  poems in The Language of Cat are really clever and inspired by many different aspects of life. To add to that, the Year 4 class even managed to write a poem of their own with her. Rachel very kindly left a copy of another of her books which she thought Year 4 would love.

Year 5 explored the myth of Icarus in Falling out of the Sky by John Canfield. There are some wonderful poems in the book linked to myths and legends, some of which the children were already familiar. John chose a few poems to read to the class and then the children wrote their own verse of a poem.