Showing posts with label visits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visits. Show all posts

Friday, 9 May 2014

St Matthew's School art workshop

St Matthew's School ran a workshop as a finale to the Children's Book Award.







As you can see the Year 3 and Year 4 pupils created some very individual and imaginative book jackets based on the 'My Funny Family' books and were truly inspired by meeting children's author Chris Higgins.








Tuesday, 6 May 2014

The children had fun at the Book Award Ceremony

We mentioned that the children from our Champion schools came up on stage and gave presentations during the Children's Book award Ceremony.

This included:
  • St John's school performing a Magical Peppers role play.
  • South Camberley writing their own adventure for Claude and Sir Bobblysocks and producing book adverts.
  • Kingfield  school talking about and showing the art work they had created.
  • Loseley field school shared their thoughts about the shortlisted books.
  • Weyfield Primary school made a tap dance video.
  • St Bartholomew's school read out their reviews and shared their artwork.
These were all fantastic. Well done to all of the children.

Loseley Fields Primary School have allowed us to share their artwork here. It looks like they had a lot of fun being a Champion School.


Monday, 7 April 2014

My Funny Family Series by St Bartholomew's Year 3 pupils

These reviews were sent in by Year 3 pupils at St Bartholomew's school. Author Chris Higgins also visited their school and they have shared some interesting facts about her writing too.


The first book we read of the “My Funny Family” series was “My Funny Family Gets Bigger”. The main character in the book is a nine year old girl called Mattie. Mattie worries a lot because she has a big family and they are all very different.

Chris Higgins, the author, came to our school to tell us about her books. She gets her inspiration from her own family. Her grandson gave her the title “My Funny Family”. She was going to call it the Butterfields. I like the title because it is much more catchy than the Butterfields.

(by George, Year 3)

The first book I heard and read was “My Funny Family Gets Bigger”. The main character is a nine year old girl called Mattie. Unfortunately, Mattie worries all the time about anything. Whenever she worries her brain gets tangled up “like spaghetti” she says. She also says she has a “funny family” because it’s so big as there are lots of people all in one house.

Chris Higgins, the author, came to pay a visit! We learnt that all the characters are based on members of her family, that she’s written other books  and … how to publish a book! What you do is to get someone called an agent and the agent’s job is to say whether or not they think the book should be published. If they say yes then they take it round to different possible publishers and, if one of them says yes, it’s published.

(by Lizzie, Year 3)

The first book we read was “My Funny Family Gets Bigger”. The main character is called Mattie, a nine year old girl who always worries a lot as she has a big family who are all very different, as well as having a big gap in ages.

Chris Higgins came to our school to tell us about being an author. She has her own room so she has peace and quiet and nothing gets moved. Most of her character’s names are based on artists.
She is going to write three more books, including “My Funny Family Gets funnier” (from inspiration of her grandson).

(by Hugh, Year 3)

Matty, who is the main character, is a big worrier. She worries so much because there is always a lot going on in her house. Her mum says her brain is like spaghetti and it gets all tangled up.

Chris Higgins, the author, came to our school to tell us about her books. She gets her inspiration from her own family. She is going to write “My Funny Family Saves the Day”, “Moves House” and “Gets Funnier” because her family gives her brilliant ideas that she just has to get down on paper.

(by Lucy, Year 3)

The first book I read in this series was “My Funny Family Gets Bigger”. The main character is Mattie. Mattie is a nine and a half year old girl who has a big family. She worries a lot, probably because of this.
Mattie is the main character because the story is told from her point of view. Chris Higgins chose Mattie because she is the same as Mattie.

Chris Higgins, the author, came to visit our school. She told us that she got her inspiration from her own family. She gets ideas for the names from famous artists. Chris is going to write two more books, three if she includes the one her grandson suggested she might write which is “My Funny Family Gets Funnier”. The series was going to be called the Butterfields but her grandson was keener on “My Funny Family”.


(by Poppy, Year 3)


Thursday, 3 April 2014

Author Chis Higgins visits St Bartholomew's School

Some of the shortlisted authors visited school children at the Book Award Champion schools earlier in March.

Here is Chris Higgins, author of My Funny Family Gets Bigger, during her visit to St Bartholomew's primary school. Chris also visited Loseley Fields and St. Matthew's primary schools.







It sounds like everyone enjoyed the visits, as Chris later said:

"Lovely day at Loseley Fields and at St Barts Primaries talking about My Funny Family @SurreyLibraries. Great questions!"
"Fab time at Loseley, St Barts and St Matts."

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Sian Pattenden's visit to The Dawnay School

Last Thursday, Sian Pattenden paid a visit to Hedgehogs Class at The Dawnay School. She told us all about how she became a writer and introduced us to the Seven Steps to Story Success (there might have been eight but for the purposes of alliteration, we'll stick to seven).

She and the children then created, bit by bit, starting with his head and working our way down to his feet, our Superhero, with springs on his boots, VERY strong hair and a cape that may or may not lead him into trouble.



Sian then showed the children some magic tricks. She did not make anyone disappear, nor did she saw any children in half but Daniel did channel the magic force so enthusiastically we feared he might explode!



Happily, he didn't and Hedgehogs Class were very impressed with Sian's tricks.

We finished the session with the same number of children as when we started (which is always a good thing) and everyone was keen to write stories featuring the superhero they had created, who may have been called Captain Rubbish, or perhaps Fred.

So, all that is left to say is a big THANK YOU to Sian for a great session and to Surrey Libraries for arranging it all.