Category Archives: Literacy
Sarah Webb
To celebrate World Book Day on Thursday 3rd March we joined award-winning children’s writer, Sarah Webb for a live online event.
Sarah talked about growing up in Dublin, becoming a reader and what books mean to her. She shared some of her favourite childhood reads and books she loves today. She works part-time in a children’s bookshop and she reads a lot of children’s books!
She read from her latest novel for children, The Little Bee Charmer of Henrietta Street and talked about how the book was created from start to finish.
And finally, she took questions from the children about books, reading and writing. We were thrilled when she mentioned our class and answered our question.
Wordle
Wordle is a daily word game you can find online here. It’s fun, simple and, like a crossword, can only be played once a day. Every 24 hours there’s a new word of the day, and it’s up to you to figure out what it is. The children in the Senior Room really enjoy the daily Wordle challenge and have started to develop their spelling skills using Word Master. Word Master (octokatherine.github.io)
A Christmas Tale
The children in the Senior Room have composed and recited a Christmas poem. We would like to thank Victor from the S.C.P. for all his help. Please click below to watch the video. We hope you enjoy.
The Moon
Although he is best-known as the author of such adventure tales as Treasure Island and Kidnapped, and horror stories like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson was also a great writer of children’s verse. The children enjoyed creating winter moon artworks and recited Stevenson’s poem The Moon to create this video.
Alan Nolan – Author and Illustrator
Did you know that Vampires are Irish? Or that Dracula is actually from Dublin? Author and illustrator Alan Nolan told the children in the Senior Room all about icky Irish monsters, from bats to banshees and from pookas to pixies! Alan Nolan has written and illustrated many books and comics for children and grown-ups, including Fintan’s Fifteen, Conor’s Caveman and the Murder Can Be Fatal series. During his live online visit, as part of The Children’s Book Festival 2021 Alan showed the children how to draw some scary monsters and spooky creatures. The children really enjoyed this super fun Hallowe’en themed event. Learn all about The Children’s Book Festival 2021 here.
David Walliams
The senior classes were delighted to have a zoom call with David Walliams today. It certainly inspired our talented readers and writers. David Walliams is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. Multi-talented, he is also a very well-known writer of children’s books, having sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. In 2008 David published his first children’s book ‘The Boy in the Dress’, illustrated by Sir Quentin Blake selling over one million copies. Since then, he has published 29 further books, including 9 picture books.
A series of best-selling books have followed, many of which have been staged or televised, such as ‘Mr Stink’, ‘Gangsta Granny’, ’The Boy in the Dress’ and ‘Grandpa’s Great Escape’. So far his books have been translated into 53 languages and have sold over 40 million copies worldwide. We have many of his books in the library.
We were delighted when he read all about Windy Mindy from The World’s Worst Children!
Summer Stars 2021
Summer Stars 2021 has launched in Cork County Council Library and Arts Service. Call to Dunmanway Library or any branch to get a reading card and record the books that you read during your Summer holidays. Everyone is invited to join the adventure and explore the fun and pleasure of reading and writing over the summer holidays.
Even if you read just one book and return the reading card you will be entered in a raffle at the end of Summer. You will have the chance to win some great prizes and it’s all completely FREE.
Activities for Summer Stars 2021:
1. Books: Call to the library to visit and stock up on your summer reads and register for Summer Stars!
2. Summer Stars BorrowBox: Browse, borrow, read, and listen to the Summer Stars collection of children’s e-books and e-audio books through the library’s BorrowBox app. This is free to all members to use from anywhere, anytime. Non-members can join in their local library or online for free at https://www.librariesireland.ie/join-your-library.
3. Online Arts events & Activities : Summer Stars arts and craft workshops will be delivered online throughout the Summer- Keep an eye on our social media pages for updates.
4. Story Competition: Summer Stars is celebrating children’s imaginations by running a short story competition. There are three age categories age 6-9, age 10-14, age 15-18 with great prizes including a Tablet and vouchers * This is a national competition.
To enter, write a story using the following opening line:
Of all the places in the world, I never thought I would be here…
Finish the story to enter this year’s Summer Stars short story competition!
For terms and conditions and more information check the Libraries Ireland website at https://www.librariesireland
Rugby World Cup Projects
The children in 4th, 5th and 6th were each given a country playing in the Rugby World Cup Finals to research for a Geography Project. The children really enjoyed supporting their allocated country during the tournament. Of course the child with South Africa was delighted! The children also enjoyed presenting their projects to the children in other classes.
