Long live books!

This delightful French book (available in German "Mein Buch ,mein Freund,mein Abenteuer" and can be found in Spanish and Italian too) has one phrase per page with the most powerful images.The images and phrases enoucrage readers to think about how exciting books can be.! It uses phrases such as "livre gros" ( and the image is an elephant on a page) and "livre petit" ( and the image is a mouse on a page ) and "livre chapeau" ( a book as a hat!). The story book "Vive les livres" ends by suggesting that there is a book for everybody at all times! I love the book! 

Here is a slide share of the French version "Vive les livres".

With  or without the book here are some activities for your classes on world Book Day that this book has inspired me to create.

Gathering books for Mystery book Messages and a Post It  Activity

The children will have to consider book categories and also think of their own favourite book.
The types of books you are introduce will depend on the books in your own school library or class reading area and the children will be responsible for  selecting some of the books.

Have a look around your library or class reading area and find books that meet some of these suggested categories below:

big book,small book, funny book ,happy book ,sad book, sacry book , sunny book, sports book, recipe book , story book,book about animals, factual book , book about geopgraphy , book about history, book about paintings ,

Mystery Book  Message                   
First activity will work best if you have real books that show the different types of books that we are describing and practising with actions linked to the book types. However you could use a mixture of real books and also pictures of the type book you want the children to guess, say and add an action for each type of book.

• Put the books at the front of the class or in the class library and write on "post its" the "mystery book message" (which is actually the phrase to describe one of the different types of books). Give one post it to a pair or a table.
• Ask the children to solve the mysery book message and then to go and select a book that matches the mystery message. Here is an opportunity to use bilingual dictionaries to solve the mystery book message. 
• They need to bring this to a collection point at front of the room and post the post it on the front of the book and stand it up as if on display for the class to see. 
• As a class investigate the books the children have brought to the collection point and look at the mystery book messages.
• You could take a photo of your new class display with the post it labels in view.
• Now the class is ready for the next activity.  

·Bring the books to life with bookshelf freeze frame pattern performances!

• Take a look at the books that the children have put on the collection point display.Read thre labels together. Work out as a class what each label means.
• Add a mime to explain the book post it message and say the mystery book message for each book in a voice apporirate to the book e.g.. a scary action and a scary voice for the "sacry book" etcetra.
• Working in pairs can the children select their four or five favourite book message mimes and voices and create a "bookshelf freeze frame pattern" of these books .The children need to say, act out and bring to life each of the four or five mystery book messages and in between each of the four book physical performances they must freeze frame as if they are books on the shelf waiting to be picked and brought to life. 
• Invite volunteers to share their "bookshelf freeze frame pattern performances".
• If there is time the next activity will be an opportunity to explore extra language to describe the books.

Mystery book message lift the flap posters.

• Give each child an A4 piece of plain paper.
• Each child should place the piece of paper portratit style in front of them on the desk.
• ask the children to fold  the A4 piece of paper in half  and make a crease.
• Ask the children to open up the paper and make sure it is portrait style in front of them .
• Fold over the top hakld of the piece of paper and make a crease .
• Open up the folded over half and make sure that this can work as a flap.
• Underneath the flap the children need to write nouns and adjectives and possibly infinitives of verbs associated with the type of book they have selected,For instance for a scary book the children may decide to write the target language nouns for ghost , witch , bat , vampire, cauldron and adjectives for creepy, dark etc.They should add a small diagram or picture to explain each of their nouns and adjectives etc.
• On top of the flap they need to write the mystery book message in the target language in hand writing appropriate to the title - e.g scary hand writing. for a scary book .
• On the bottom half of the page the children should use the book the class have found and put in the collection area to add a drawing of the book , its title and the name of the author.
• You could  ask class volunteers to compile all of these in to a sugar paper "World Book Day Mystery Book Message" compilation so that all the children can look through and see each others ideas.  

You may like to listen in or listen after to our Active and Creative Story webinar next week 28 February 2018.More details here.

You can find out more about all we can offer schools here on Primary Languages Network website.

Contact the sales coordinator for a FREE tour of our Primary Languages Network virtual learning environment and take a look at our Ready Made SOW for KS2 and the stories within the SOW.