Parents and grandparents then joined us for our 'craftanoon' back at school.  In Ash Class they celebrated our school value of kindness by making some friendship bracelets and friendship stones.

In Elm Class, they celebrated our value of respect.  They make respect wreaths to celebrate diversity and respect for everyone in our community. 

In Maple Class, they celebrated our value of responsibility.  They made 'responsibulls' and discussed being responsible global citizens. 

In Oak Class, they celebrated our value of hope for the future.  Each child wrote down their hopes and aspirations for the future and created a bag of hope.  

On Thursday 26th September 2024, Maple Class had a virtual author visit with the bestselling author Jenny McLachlan.  Jenny is  famous for her 'Land of Roar' books.  The children had a great time on their virtual author visit listening to Jenny talk about being an author and finding out what type of character they would be in one of her stories.  Maple Class then made their own character names using their favourite foods and animals.  Mrs Leonard would be a Chocolate-Sphynx! 

Maple Class then took part in an illustrator workshop with Jenny, who illustrates her own books.  The children had to draw one of her most well-known characters. The children had some great questions. They then asked Jenny:

How did you become an author?

How long did it take you to publish your first book?

Mrs Leonard asked the children how they found the visit and we had some great feedback!

"I thought it was funny when we came up with our own silly character names.  Mine was Mr Pic 'n' mix."

"I liked learning how to draw the book characters like an illustrator."

"I enjoyed the quiz activity where I was assigned the mythical creature character from one of her stories."

"I liked meeting her pet dragon when it broke out of its egg."

"I thought it was incredible how she became an author because she found writing at school tricky."

"It was nice to meet her pets. Her rabbit was really cute."