A book review by Jamila in Jesse Owens

The Breadwinner 

What I liked the most about this book is the way the author set the theme. The author began by describing the country and how war had taken place which immediately set the picture for me as a reader. The author used a range of vocabulary and description which makes the reader imagine how the war is in Afghanistan .  This book makes me feel upset because some countries are dying out because of poverty and they are starving to death. I give this book a 10 out of 10 because I like the part when the girl had to get food for her family and I think she was very brave to do that sacrifice.     

A book Review by Ania in Nightingale

Book title: Jungle Drop

Author: Abi Elphinstone

This book is about two siblings who always envied each other. Their names are Fox and Fibber. They both are meant to save the family's company and whoever saves it will be the next to inherit the company. They meet Casper (an old man in an antique shop) which is when they visit the magical world of the Unmapped Kingdom. With the help of the phoenix they defeat the great sorcerer Morg who cast a spell over the kingdom. 

I like this book because it was full of magic and suspense, I would recommend it to people who enjoy adventure books with magic. 

Year 3

Bach Class

During DEAR time we have been reading lots of exciting books as class. This has inspired some of us to do our own research on particular topics at home. We have been enjoying reading non-fiction books on polar bears and gorillas. Also, we have enjoyed sharing our favourite books as a class and giving recommendations.

Mozart Class

The children from Mozart Class have been enjoying reading a range of books in class, particularly their Power of Reading book Gorilla. They have been inferring the feelings of the characters from the powerful images and looking carefully to ‘read’ the pictures. From this the children have then created their own freeze frames of scenes from the text while explaining how their characters are feeling at that point in time. This has solidified their understanding of the characters, their emotions and widened their range of vocabulary.

Many children have also described the similarities and differences of the plot and characters with other popular books they have recently read.

Year 4

Dali Class

During DEAR time children shared books with their classmates. Children have had an opportunity to make book recommendations. Children have also engaged in doing book reviews by using their reasoning skills to explain why they would recommend this book to their classmates. The children gave their peers a short summary about the book as well as a brief description about the characters. 

Children are becoming more confident in coming up to the front and sharing their thoughts and opinions about the books. In Dali class we have a number of children who are very eager to share their books with their classmates.

To celebrate Poetry Day Year 4 and Year 6 shared their poems with each other. Children really enjoyed sharing their writing and poems with each other. Year 4 have also enjoyed listening to the Year 6 poems about their personal experiences.

Monet Class

Year 4 Monet participated in a book review to their class partners. Here they gave a short summary of the book that they were reading, who the main characters were and what they enjoyed about it. Furthermore, the children gave their recommendations on whether they would recommend it to their peers. The children enjoyed hearing about each other's recommendations and even discussed choosing those texts as their next free choice books.

Prefects

At Sir John Heron, we're proud to be part of a community which celebrates both reading and positive mental health and in order to to raise awareness of World Mental Health day, our prefects took their love of reading to each class in school to read the children a story which linked to issues to do with mental health whether moments in life which can impact the way we feel, or ways in which to manage feelings that we have.  

Year 5

This week in our DEAR time we have been celebrating National Poetry day by sharing our poems with Year 2. We performed to each other and discussed our poems and what inspired them. We also had a visiting prefect from Year 6 who came to explore themes of children’s rights through reading and asking questions. We have had great discussions and enjoyed sharing our love of reading with the wider school.

Year 6

We've been delving in to all things poetic for the last few weeks - learning about the work of different poets, performing their pieces and writing our own works emulating some aspect of their style and content.  This is the culmination of our hard work where we got to read our own creations to children in a different year group in school as a way to celebrate National Poetry Day.  We focused on ensuring that we enunciated our words, spoke confidently and audibly and used our intonation to convey the mood of what we were describing in our poems.