We celebrated Book Week from 27th February to 3rd March 2017. The theme was ‘United through Books’. This year we had various subject specialists, such as Music and Language Acquisition integrating by making literature a focal point in their lesson that week.
Every day throughout the week we had 10-15 minutes DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) sessions in the classrooms, students can read any book of their choice.
The week kicked off with an ‘Author Visit” from Mr Rohinton Daruwala, who is a poet, blogger and speculative fiction writer. Mr Daruwala talked about speculative fiction and shared his experiences of writing stories with our PYP 4 and 5 students.
On Tuesday, Ms. Eileen, our Director, talked to our PYP students during morning assembly, about her childhood experiences of reading a book every night with her Mum. She shared some of her favourite childhood books with everyone. Included in her favourite titles are “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett and “Where the Wild Things are” by Maurice Sendak. There is a chart outside the PYP Library that shows who in our PYP community has read the same books as Ms Eileen. Parents you can sign in a square too if you like!
Later that same day MYP 2 students: Aryan Palave, Ayan Vijaypurkar and Sharwari Khare conducted a Kahoot Book Quiz for our PYP 4 and 5 students. Each House team was represented by students, selected by their peers, for good book knowledge. By a very close margin Agni (Red) house won the quiz.
Wednesday saw a ‘Book Swap’ event, this is where students brought in 2 to 3 of their favourite books, from home, and shared them with their classmates. Book swapping empowered students, encouraging them to share and read different books.
On Thursday, PYP 3 Skyped with an author, Jean Reidy, in the USA. The students were excited to meet Ms. Reidy, who interacted with them answering all their questions. Ms. Jean Reidy spoke about her childhood, inspirations, books and encouraged our learners to keep writing stories.
The MBIS basketball court came alive on Friday, with enthusiastic students and teachers dressed up as characters from their favourite books: from different time period, countries and genres. To name just a few Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Greg Heffley, Crayons, Nancy Drew, Tigers, Bard-tempered Ladybugs,
There were various Book vendors like Scholastic, Speaking Tiger, Oxford and Bargain Books who put book fair cum sale during the book week.
In the Music sessions this week, PS1 – MYP1 took a children’s book and added melodies, drumming to illustrate the rhythm of the words. These were presented at thoughout the week to the various PYP audiences.
PYP1 students had so much fun going up and down the steps of the barred instruments and making a tremendous sound on instruments of their choice, as they sang and presented the book “Mortimer” by Robert Munsch.
PYP 2 students played the Ta and TiTi (1/4 and 1/8 notes) on the barred instruments and djembes, bringing the jungle rhythms alive in “Rumble in the Jungle” by Giles Andreae.
PYP 3 took their time to find just the right instrument that sounded like the animals in “Cock-a-Doodle Doo, Barnyard Hullabaloo” by Giles Andreae. They made up a little melody to introduce the story and let the instrument animals do the rest. How their audience laughed when they met the pig and the donkey.
PYP 4 students brought drama and music to the book “Caps for Sale” by Esphyr Slobodkina, as they narrated, sang and played the song of the peddler as he walked the streets selling his hats. Using different instruments, they brought each color hat to life, and of course, the mischievous monkeys were the maracas.
MYP1B students got a real treat when their audience entered their music class. PS1, 2 and 3 came to see their musical presentation of “The Napping House” by Audrey Woods.
In the German Language Acquisition lesson we kicked off Book Week with a “Klatschlied” called “Am Bam Bi”. It required a lot of concentration and coordination to not get “clapped” at the end of each round, as the song became faster and faster. Then the students chose from a selection of children’s books, the one that interested them most. It was not easy to understand the books, as there were a lot of new words. However, students did their best to follow the story through the pictures, familiar words and context. Later in the week we heard the story of Lars, the little polar bear, who got stranded on a sheet of ice in the middle of the ocean while he slept. Many new friends helped him to find his way back home. On the last day of the week we related our version of the stories to our classmates. Book week was a lot of fun.
In French Language acquisition one learning engagement was “Dis-moi dix mots” which means “Tell me ten words”. It is a contest in French. We were given 10 words. We had to choose one word, draw it and write a sentence about it.
Student reflections on the engagement:
“I drew “Avatar”. I liked this challenge a lot and it helped me learn new words.
We also listened to an audio book “La Belle et la bête”
Vrinda Vasisht PYP 4
We read books in French class. I read a book “Lili la petite grenouille”. It is the story of Lili, Leo and Lea. The book was funny. I liked the fantasy in the book.
Umayra Monie PYP 4
Pour la semaine des livres, je lis un livre “La Carapace de la tortue”. C’est l’histoire de la tortue et du perroquet. Le livre est super! J’aime la tortue. J’apprends 4 nouveaux mots: il attrape; la carapace; la patte; tout à coup.
Tania Poonawala PYP 5
During the Book Week we also read a story in the PYP French class about how the Eiffel Tower goes over to New York to visit her cousin the Statue of Liberty. The students enjoyed listening to this story.
This week saw the PYP children unite together to appreciate, celebrate and share their love for books!
Devaki and Audrey
