Reading Book Bags and Diaries
We expect pupils to have reading book bags in school each day. This gives us the opportunities to read with pupils more often if the timetable allows. Children will read with an adult at least once a week and this will be noted in the reading diary. We ask that parents read with their child or listen to them read daily. This could be the text the children have chosen from school, a book on an online platform such as Oxford Owl, a comic or newspaper or a book the child has at home. We ask that parents comment in the reading diaries about their child’s progress at least once a week. If the diary does not contain comments from parents we will assume that a child has not received any support from home with their reading and we will contact parents to offer help and advice. Comments do not have to be lengthy. We have added a picture with examples below.
At Pleasant Street Primary School, we believe that developing an interest in reading is key to the future success of our children. We aim to develop enthusiastic and confident readers who can understand a wide range of texts. We have a well stocked library that children use regularly, they have an active role in the decisions about the texts that are available. We have a dedicated Twitter account that celebrates reading across the school and allows us to interact with authors and illustrators. Our children also enjoy sessions with our reading dog Saha who makes regular appearances in our school library.
Children will be taught to:
In July 2018, we achieved the Gold Level Reading Quality Mark.
From Year 1 to Year 6 children take part in Whole Class Reading sessions that are based on a chapter book. In the sessions children complete activities based on inference and deduction, retrieval and vocabulary.
Storytime Online extracts from booksfortopics.com. Scan the QR code or click on the following link to access all of the stories on their website.
Role Play
🌲📚 Year 3 stepped into the world of Into the Forest by Anthony Browne through role play! The children worked collaboratively to explore different scenarios from the story, including pretending a character was lost, creeping carefully through the forest and imagining someone coming to help. They used fantastic speaking and listening skills, thoughtful questioning and lots of creativity to bring the story to life. 🌳✨
Today we spent some time outside to read our whole class read book, The Boy who swam with Piranhas. This was lots of fun to be able to share our thoughts on the book and read in the garden.
Christophe’s Story
📚 We explored the front cover of Christophe’s Story and used the clues in the illustration and title to make predictions about what the story might be about. Lots of thoughtful ideas and great discussion as we practised inference and prediction skills!
A big thank you to one of the parents from Y4 who visited EYFS today as our mystery guest reader. We really enjoyed listening to the story you chose to share. If you would like to become a mystery guest reader, please get in touch.
The children read the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ in our NELI sessions, through learning special words linked to the story ‘decide, swap, follow and yell’. The children had lots of fun choosing in their self directed choosing time. They had a go at retelling the story using props in the tuff tray, measuring the beanstalks, building castles with foamy ‘clouds’ and junk modelling a fantastic castle.
The children had a lovely time listening to a very funny rhyming book called ‘ The day the banana went bad ‘ by Michelle Robinson and Tom knight, a story that celebrates differences and friendship. Then the children chose to write their own story using the same theme, drawing pictures or using scissors to cut out images of different fruits to illustrate their book. The children had some very interesting ideas and enjoyed sharing their story with their friends and teachers.
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Yesterday Class 2 had a lovely morning with a special visit from Becci Cleator, author of Bertie Bird’s Adventures.
We read the story Bertie Bird’s Adventures, which was all about Bertie Starling’s travels around Liverpool. Class 2 could recall some facts from their previous studies about Liverpool. We had lots of fun creating our own bird masks that were inspired by the colourful stained glass windows in the cathedral Bertie visited on his journey. Then the children got to take home their own copy of the book. 🐦⛪️📖
The children had a lovely story outdoors today as they enjoyed their drinks and a snack, consisting of either an apple, pear or tangerine.
We heard the birds singing and watched the gulls flying overhead.
Today the children enjoyed a camp fire, We began by thinking and looking for woodland animals then the children talked about fire safety before helping to chop the wood for the fire. We took turns to stack the wood correctly before lighting the fire with a flint, then we enjoyed singing songs around the camp fire and listening to a story.
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We were so impressed with the costumes that the children wore to celebrate World Book Day together. Our teachers had a very hard job, selecting a winner from each class. The children who were selected enjoyed a book buying trip and a delicious hot chocolate.
The children had a fantastic world book day, this year we celebrated fairytales and the children had a go at lots of wonderful fairytale activities in our choose time. The children then drew a missing poster for Goldilocks in our directed activity. The children had the best day. The children said ‘I loved to dress up and play cleaning up like Cinderella’.
Class 6 looking great in their costumes today. We read a book called Three Little Vikings, a story about 3 brave little vikings who defeated a Monstrous Troll. We then designed a poster with our own Monster and created a plan inspired by a traditional tale before putting our own twist on it. Finishing the day with a fun game of kahoot based on….you guessed it, Fairy tales.
Class 6 were privileged to attend a book signing with the brilliant author Frank Cottrell-Boyce. We were treated to a book reading by Frank and he talked about his childhood and his inspirations before signing copies of his new book for us.
This week in our NELI story we read Toby and the Tricky things, our special words were ‘pour’, ‘big and small’ ‘tricky’ and ‘by myself’. The children have been really trying to do tricky things this week such as putting on their coats and fastening their zip by themselves. The children in small groups have had a go at pouring different materials into cups, in the garden the children have poured rice into different containers and in the water tray the children have used containers to pour. In our maths this week we looked at big and small in connection with our NELI story, the children had a go at ordering big and small bears, big small and medium size wooden people and ordering people biggest to smallest in class.
Thank you to our mystery guest reader, a parent of one of the children in reception for visiting us in the nursery to share an information book, we enjoyed learning about how to keep our bodies healthy. We thought about looking after our teeth by eating healthy foods and brushing our teeth twice a day. We can not wait to see who are next special guest will be.
If you would like to sign up to be our next mystery guest reader, please send us an e mail.
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Damo, a parent of one of the children in KS2 joined us to read two books about very special dogs. We enjoyed listening to Detective Dog and Hospital Dog by one of our favourite authors, Julia Donaldson. We enjoyed listening and talking about the stories together and we can’t wait to see who our next special guest will be. If you would like to sign up too be a mystery guest reader, please send us an email.
A number of children from Year 4 and Year 6, were invited by John Moores University to present at the UK Literacy Conference last week. They spoke about Diversity across the curriculum and how they feel represented in reading. We are very proud of the way they spoke with confidence to delegates about the books they chose to share. They also confidently answered questions on reading and how it impacts them. A big thank you to John Moores for the opportunity and to Jo Tregenza, the President Elect of UKLA, who very kindly treated the children to their choice of text from the bookshop.
Our NELI story this week is “Nothing Can Frighten a Bear”. One of our special words inside the book was “frightened” so the children thought about something that frightens them and then drew it.
Today we listened to the a story called “The Colour Monster” and we spoke about all the different emotions that we may feel. In a circle the children confidently shared what makes them happy whilst holding the yellow monster which resembles happiness.
In science Reception looked at the lifecycle of Caterpillars and we looked after the caterpillars until they were all changed into butterflies. The children watched as the butterflies flew out of the nets into the sky. The children have loved learning all about caterpillars and butterflies
We enjoyed reading the story “Dinosaur Rocket” it allowed us to get creative and use our imagination. The children enjoyed making their very own rockets and shared ideas of what they would take to the moon if they were given the opportunity.
Some pupils from Y4 and Y5 were very lucky to take part in a fantastic reading and author event at John Moores University, organised with Liverpool Learning Partnership. The children took part in a range of magical themed activities and tricks, worked with other schools to perform Reader’s Theatre and then had the opportunity to listen to and meet Frank Cottrell Boyce.
The theme of the event was magic as the event was celebrating Cottrell-Boyce’s text – The Wonder Brothers. The children were so grateful to receive a copy of the text to take home and they can’t wait to read the story as the extracts shared today had them hooked!
Our story this week is Pip and Posy – The New Friend. Today our special word was “collect” so the children went into the garden with a checklist to collect particular items and put them inside their bag.
The children have been reading a story called “Pip and Posy – The New Friend”. The story is set at the beach so we explored what types of things we might see at the beach. The children used a magnifying class to look closely.
Our families joined us to play, we explored the nursery and the children were able to show their families what new things they have learnt and currently learning about.
During Diversity Day class 2 enjoyed reading Specs for Rex written by Yasmeen Ismail. Rex has new glasses and he HATES them! He does NOT want to wear them to school, and he tries to hide them in the strangest places! But it’s pretty tricky hiding specs that are so big, round and RED.
It’s funny how things turn out though, because Rex’s specs end up winning him a gold star and a new friend. Even better, he can SEE properly. A beautiful story about the positive effects of being, well, maybe just a little different.
We spoke about the word ‘Neurodiversity’ and what we thought this word meant. As a class we learnt that everyone’s brain works differently and that this word is used to describe the different thinking styles that affect how people communicate with the world around them.
For world book day this year Reception read the story ‘A Seeds Grows’ which is a non-fiction story about how seeds grow from a seed and germinate to push through the soil to grow into a wonderful flower. The children created a poster about a lifecycle of a flower and what flowers need to grow. the children also created some fantastic flower pictures and some paper flower crafts.
World Book Day 2025
Today we enjoyed coming into school dressed in either yellow or our favourite character from our favourite books. We all loved showing each other and discussing what happens in our characters book.
As a class we read and discussed the book The Magic and Mystery of Trees (The Magic and Mystery of the Natural World) written by Jen Green and illustrated Claire McElfatrick.
We discovered how trees communicate and warn each other of predators, how they nurture their networks, record the past, and anticipate the future to ensure their survival. There’s so much more to trees than meets the eye.
From the highest branch all the way down to the complex “wood wide web” of roots, every part of a tree plays an important role. Not only in its own growth, but that the ecosystem of the whole forest or woodland. Did you know that trees take care of each other and that whole forests are connected? As a class we loved learning all about how trees help our world.
Class two had the pleasure of reading “Home For Grace” written by Kathryn White. We learnt it was about a woman who appears with a sleeping bag, living in a shop doorway, Jess is full of questions. Where is her home? Why did she leave? And what will happen when the snow comes?
Class two enjoyed being part of the zoom with the author and discussing the underlying themes of kindness, understanding and empathy.
A number of our reading buddies visited JMU this week to share their experience and wisdom with some of their Education students who are planning to write their own books. The buddies shared information on what they look for in a text and how they engage and support their partners in sessions. They also demonstrated how they read out loud to others and answered questions to help with the students’ research.
Our reading buddies are happy to be back together and it has been great to see them enjoying texts together around school.
Today during Diversity Day we read the book ‘I am Enough’ and we have learnt that the book promotes self-acceptance, self-esteem, and empowerment. The book tells us about the importance of accepting ourselves as we are, celebrating our uniqueness, and recognising our worthiness. Our question today was ‘What does it mean to be enough?’ we enjoyed sharing our thoughts and ideas during our P4C.
After reading our comprehension text, we worked together to label a diagram, using the information from the text to help.
Our reading buddies have enjoyed reading together again this year. Some pupils enjoyed sharing some brand new non-fiction books together, finding out lots of information about plants and flowers.
In English Reception have been reading and exploring the story ‘Juniper Jupiter’. Reception have drew pictures of what happened within the story on to a storyboard. Reception worked so hard to remember what parts of the story and what to draw.
This week we have been reading Oliver’s Vegetables, we discussed what vegetables we already know and some new. To find out wether the children liked or disliked the vegetables we did a taste test.
We were so grateful to one of our Y6 pupils who decided to choose a selection of books for the school library to help other love reading as much as her. Thank you to you and your family for such a generous gift, we wish you every success for the future!
Class 3 enjoyed a trip to The Florrie on Friday to take part in poetry activities and to listen to Michael Rosen talk and recite some poetry. We took part in a workshop to create our own animal poems, played poetry games and listened to a man called George reading his favourite poems. We had a brilliant time and loved hearing some of our favourite poems including Chocolate Cake and No Breathing in Class!
In English this term we are exploring the book “Little Red”. In our choose time the children have loved to dress up as all the characters in the story.
This week the children have been working so hard to write all about the story. Today for our sentence snake we wrote “Red went into the woods” the children worked independently to write their sentence, they did a fantastic job.
Reception celebrated world book day by reading the story Little Red Riding Hood this year, we had a fun day with lots of different activities such as role playing the story and sequencing the story in to order, we also made our own little red riding hoods.
The children wore some wonderful costumes and outfits today, as they celebrated World Book Day. The children were also excited to take home their free book.
The children wore some wonderful costumes and outfits today, as they celebrated World Book Day in style. There were superheroes in class, along with wizards and princesses! The children were also excited to take home their free book.
We have had great discussions in class today on some interesting books and watched a live stream where the author John Patrick Green told us all about his ideas for his books and his inspiration for becoming an author.
Class three have enjoyed world book day! It has been so fun and interesting seeing and hearing about each others costumes and favourite books?
In Reception we were read a lovely story ‘Archie’s grand plan’ online by the author Ray Lowthian. Reception then drew a hat for Archie and pretended to be ants and anteaters. Thank you Ray for our lovely story.
Mental Health and Well-being Week
Today we have been very lucky to listen to Natalie Denny, Natalie went into amazing detail of her characters and what goes into writing a published book. We then had the pleasure of listening to the first chapter of Natalie Denny’s new book, Keisha Jones is a Force of Nature!
This book is about when Keisha discovers that the trees in a nearby park are going to be cut down to make way for a carpark, the Bee Squad has its next cause. It’s time for some green activism to save the VITs … that’s Very Important Trees!
Some of our reading buddies were invited to John Moores University library to talk about reading and books with some Childhood Studies University students. They discussed some of the books in the library, why they selected them and their thoughts on the content and illustrations.
We enjoyed looking at our hook reveal and making some amazing predictions on what our story could be about. What could all these items mean?
This term class 4 have the pleasure in reading “The Journey” by Francesca Sanna. This book explores the unimaginable decisions made as a family leave their home and everything they know to escape the turmoil and tragedy brought by war.
Today our new reading buddies had some training from their peers who ran demo sessions and offered some advice to help the sessions run smoothly. We can’t wait to get our new buddies out and about in school every morning.
The burning question today is who will get the copies of the sequel to Class 6’s whole class read book. We have never seen children so enthused about a series before.
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