Over the past fortnight, children across the school have enjoyed some author and illustrator workshops, either in-person or virtual, as part of their English lessons. Bringing authors and illustrators to the classroom in this way provides unique opportunities for storytelling, catalysts to spark our children’s creativity, and demonstrates to them a potential career path that they may like to follow in the future.
Reception
In Reception, the children listened to Petr Horaeček, illustrator of the story ‘A New House For Mouse’, which is covered in our English Curriculum during the Spring Term of Reception. Throughout the virtual workshop, Petr read some of his popular stories, including: ‘Blue Monster’, ‘Elephant’, ‘The Greedy Goat’ and ‘A Best Friend For Bear’. Sitting quietly, the children were engaged from start to finish, with plenty of giggles along the way, offering the following soundbites afterwards:
Felix RO – “I liked when blue monster ate all of his friends, it was funny!”
Sergei RO – “The elephant got squeezed into the house and it was a really silly picture!”
Lolade RCO – “The elephant messed everything up!”
Ruby RCO & Freya RCO – “We liked it when the goat drank all of the pig’s coffee and ate his breakfast. He was very greedy!”
Year 2 and Year 3
Last Thursday morning, Year 2 and Year 3 had a morning of storytelling and illustrating with Adam Stower, author and illustrator of ‘The Troll and The Oliver’, which is covered in our English Curriculum during the Autumn Term of Year 3. We also welcomed pupils and staff from Bishop Challoner to join us for the special occasion.
Adam’s work as an author has seen him write a range of fiction, with stories including: ‘The day Fin Flooded the World’, ‘The Thing from Space’, ‘The Curse of the Mummy’s Gold’ and the hilarious ‘GRUMBUG!’. His illustrative work alongside David Walliams has captured the attention of children across the world, bringing characters to life from books such as ‘Marmalade The Orange Panda’, ‘Little Monsters’, ‘Robodog’ and the recent hit ‘Astro Chimp’.
To commence the workshop, Adam played some illustration guessing games with the children to ignite their creativity, and get them thinking outside of the box. As the workshop progressed, the children got to listen to segments from his new story collection, ‘Murray and Bun: Murray the Viking’, and then do some draw-alongs with Adam using his joyous characters. Whenever it was time to draw, there was a PENCIL ALERT! The children also gave Adam suggestions to help him create a new, unique character for his stories, which they called ‘Gobbaly the Bun-Eater’. Here’s what some of the children had to say:
Sammy 3C – ‘I liked it when we helped Adam design the new villain because they were all our own ideas and it looked really funny.’
Erik 3C – ‘Adam’s characters were very cute and my ones were good too. I love drawing!’
Kitty 2J – ‘I loved learning how to draw; it is one of my favourite things to do at home.’
Mert 2J – ‘I liked helped Adam design the new monster. I would like to do that again.’
Raphael 2C – ‘Sketching was my favourite part as the characters were really good.’
Emily 2C – ‘I loved the guessing game; it was really fun! I can’t wait to read my new book.’
Towards the end of the workshop, Adam kindly signed a copy of his book for each child as a memory for the day, as well as several other copies for our school library. Before leaving St Christopher’s, Adam did one final, very special doodle: a drawing of his famous troll from his book ‘The Troll and The Oliver’. This drawing is now permanently doodled on the wall in our newly incepted ‘Author’s Alcove’… do you think you might be able to find it?!
