Celebrating World Book Day 2021 - a fun-filled day at Hope School & College with Usborne Community Partnerships

World Book Day is one of our favourite days of the year and we always love hearing about the ways that schools have chosen to celebrate it.

Every year, we celebrate through holding hundreds of events in schools and nurseries planned and delivered by our army of Independent Usborne Partners.

Independent Usborne Partner, Emma Rimmer, who is also a teacher, tells us how she planned and delivered a day to remember for her school, Hope School & College.

“I was very excited going into 2021 to plan my first WBD event. 

“My school is for children and young adults aged 4 to 19 with a range of additional and complex needs. I wanted to involve everyone, so I decided to plan 3 different events. 

“For our nursery and reception pupils, I planned a Ready, Steady, Listen… around the popular Poppy and Sam collection. I made up a library loan box of around £150 worth of books for them to use on the day including the wind-up train, the Poppy and Sam Farmyard Tales, Poppy and Sam Magic Painting and Poppy and Sam snap cards. I also included a jigsaw and a matching game. To add to the fun, I printed the Poppy and Sam colouring pages and activity booklet from the Usborne website for the pupils to enjoy.

Images of the books the children enjoyed and of the event organiser Emma Rimmer

“For our primary classes, I planned a Ready, Steady, Listen… and retell. Each class selected a different traditional tale, and I was able to give them a copy of the book from Usborne’s My Reading Library. The teacher read the story to the class over a week and the class learnt the story. On World Book Day the classes had a dress rehearsal and on the Friday each class acted out/retold their story in costume over Teams, watched by the other primary classes. 

“For our secondary students, I planned a day of activities around The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates. I planned the event as a Ready, Steady, Listen… as many of our students are not independent readers. I took ideas from the Usborne school pack and some ideas from author Jenny Pearson's videos on YouTube. I created a PowerPoint to introduce the day, introduce the book and to introduce Jenny. It also included the activities for the day and competitions to enter. 

“The activities were: 

• To listen to and join in with the song 'One More Step Along the World I Go' and to talk about the meaning of the lyrics. 
• To identify who is a superhero to them and why? 
• To create a class story - to do this I used a symbol board of everyday objects. I selected 3 students, each to choose an item, we then discussed our ideas as a group and planned our story. We are currently on chapter 6 of our story about two of our teaching assistants and a baby who ended up on a time travelling train to the year 2090. They meet robots, dinosaurs, Sponge Bob, royalty, they get into trouble with a console controller and come across a magic pair of sunglasses... will they make it back home? Well, we need to continue working on it! 

“Throughout the day, while the students were working, I read The Super Miraculous Journey of Freddie Yates to my class. They enjoyed the story so much, that at the end of the day they didn't want to go home! We have continued to read the story after the event. 

“I have had lots of lovely feedback to say the day was enjoyed by all and the children had lots of fun with the activities provided. I really enjoyed planning the event for my school and our unique individuals. We raised £428.50 which Usborne has topped up with 30% in extra books to £557.05, and I can't wait to see the children enjoying their new reads!”

The exciting library loan pack loaned to Hope School and College for their event

If your school have been inspired by Emma and would like your own exciting book event, why not chat to your local Independent Usborne Partner about what they could create for you ? If you're not already working with an Usborne Partner, you can find your local Partner through our postcode search.