World Book Day!
My favourite day of the year!!! (apart from Christmas performance day and Vltava performance day with the Year 5's)
I LOVE the excitement of seeing what children and adults will dress up as! The more home-made, the better!
This year, the teacher strikes were happening on the official 2nd March World Book Day.
My union had not achieved the threshold to strike so I was 'working' but because all the other teachers, bar one are with the NEU, our school was closed. I worked from home as my sympathetic SLT realise that making me do the 3 hour round-journey for no actual teaching was a waste of time and they know I will get on with work.
As I was working, it struck me that I could do an 'At Home' world book day costume. I tend to like to wear 'dressy' outfits for Book Day so I had a quick think about one I could wear at home.
I came across the wonderful 'Adventures on Trains; series by MG Leonard and Sam Sedgman a couple of years ago. MG Leonard had a son who was fond of trains but realised there didn't seem to be any chapter books aimed at older children with an interest in trains. She got together with Sam Sedgman and they wrote the series together. The first is called 'The Highland Falcon Thief' and is an excellent mystery adventure book with some wonderful historic train details such as the Water Scoop!
My Godmother bought me the next 2 AoT books for my birthday last year and I recently read 'Kidnap on the California comet'. The main character, Hal, wears a distinctive yellow coat, white and black breton striped top and jeans on the front covers. Ha, I can think of several of us who could pull together this outfit.
I donned the aforementioned garments and tried to mimic the pose on the front of the book (with added rucksack)
I shared my pictures on Instagram and Sam Sedgman shared my picture on his Stories and MG Leonard shared mine in her gallery of Hal on her website!
Did I tell you about a lovely story connected to these books?
My work colleague has a son who is around 8. We were chatting and she was saying that it was hard to get him to read any new books as all he wanted to read was Wimpy Kid books and wasn't enamoured by anything else. I asked if he liked trains (she said yes) and I offered to lend her the Highland Falcon Thief for him. She agreed and I lent it.
Fast forward a week later and she told me he was absolutely loving it and she had gone in and found him reading it by himself in bed and he even took it on holiday with him. He asked to buy the next book and when they accidently bought Book 3, he was fretting about it so I lent him the 2nd book. She sent me a picture of him already reading it in bed that night and he sent me a lovely picture of the Highland Falcon Thief that he'd drawn for me to say thank you! She was so grateful!
It is a pretty special feeling to know you have helped someone in their reading journey. I am lucky I have the time and inclination to read a lot of children's book so I can match readers with books. A lot of teachers struggle to make the time for it so it is nice I can help.
Anyway, back to THE ACTUAL WORLD BOOK DAY at school costume.
Well, I was planning on dressing as Paddington Bear but then I realised Year 6 had been learning The Highwayman- a classic ballad by Alfred Noyes and I would be teaching Year 6 that day.It tells the story of a doomed highwayman who is in love with the landlord's daughter Bess but it all goes wrong.
Back in my 'World Book Day list of ideas', dating from at least a decade ago, I listed the idea for The Highwayman or Bess to be characters. The poem itself gives you a detailed list of what the Highwayman wears.
Here's what I wrote on my blog post:
The highway man:
Also good for Year 6 and year 5 children. From Robert Louis Stevenson's classic narrative poem.
The poem tells you what the costume should be!
He'd a French cocked hat at his forehead.
A bunch of lace at his chin.
A coat of claret velvet
And breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
(So that's: a wine-red coat, ideally velvet, some sort of white shirt, ideally ruffly- you could make a ruffle out of some white material or just a handkerchief; brown trousers or leggings (if girl?), A hat can be made out of black card again. Think Admiral Nelson.
A sword in a belt, and two toy guns).
Let's have a look at my outfit:
I added Mum's vintage leather belt to cinch the jacket and my eYe Italian brown boots to emulate his boots (not-quite thigh-level!)
When it came to the hats, Mum had both of my tricorn hats in her loft (bought for The Pied Piper of Hamelin a few years ago).
She made me a blue ribbon hair-tie to do up my hair.
I asked Mum if she had any lace as I wanted to do something better for the 'bunch of lace at his chin' and for ruffly cuffs than CBC's Darcy shirt and sent her a picture of the Highwayman.
Fast forward a day and she had made me this wonderful neckpiece on elastic with some white cotton and some lace she had in the loft plus some elasticated ruffles for my wrists.
She also found an M&S vintage-looking blouse I'd given her from a charity-shop a few years ago that I could wear too.
I attempted to make a black eye-mask out of an old sock but it wasn't working so I donned a black headscarf as a face-covering to disguise my identify for any potential robberies!
I decided I would like a pair of pistol butts ("A twinkling") so I found a pair of duelling pistol images (which had both side views) online and I printed 2 sets of them. I cut them out and then stuck them to cardboard on both sides so I had the pistols to tuck in my pockets and brandish at individuals.
I decided against making a rapier. I did make an old sword for my Muskateer costume but I'm not sure where it is!
My final piece was to take a piece of cardboard and write out the opening verse of the Highwayman with its evocative setting-description (with excellent metaphors) so I could share it with anyone who asked who I was.
On the otherside, I wrote out the verse/stanza about his description.
I then used watercolour pencils to try and illustrate the setting.
The Year 6's were delighted with my costume. Many of the other children thought I was a pirate!
In singing assembly for Year 4, I shared my true identify from the poem and then spent the assembly telling them the story of the Sorceror's apprentice by Paul Dukas whilst playing them the orchestral music. I then showed them the beginning of the Fantasia version of it and encouraged them to try and find the end of it themselves.
They seemed pretty rapt with attention and said how clearly the music helped them.
Around the school, there were some marvellous costumes.
Some particular highlights were: The Gingerbreadman made out of Cardboard, the Headteacher in the most exquisite handmade 'Fantastic Mr Fox' outfit, the very hungry caterpillar in Year 6, Paddington Bear in Year 6. There were also lots of Wednedsay Addams characters- not sure if a book or not but they looked great!
Today was Cantatas and Concertos day in Year 6 where I got to share my joy in Bach's Coffee Cantata once again. I had a bit of a panic when I couldn't find my assessment sheets folder but luckily, after some ringing round, discovered one of the teachers had put it away safely for me! Phew!
Tomorrow, CBC and I are going to go on a foraging walk and meal with Vegetarian legend Leon Lewis and I really need to do some Gamelan practice!
Hope you are well!
xx