Dear Parents
“The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.”
- Dr Seuss
This week is Readathon Week at the Pre-Prep for the Grade 1s and 2s so wherever you go book characters jump out at you and boys are reading. There are class competitions and individual competitions in each class for those boys who can read the most pages. Prizes are a secret at this stage and there is great speculation amongst the boys as to what these may be. I was invited across to read to the Grade 1 classes on Tuesday (Mr Pearson had done the same the day before) and so spent twenty minutes with each of the classes. What a wonderful experience it was but it did remind me how much work it is to channel all that energy for six hours a day.
Firstly, it was crazy tie day and every boy had to show me his dad’s tie and I must say a number of them were seriously crazy! And so I had 24 very excited boys sitting around me on the mat with 100 questions for me from “How old are your children?” to “When is ‘snack attack’?” and, “What story are we going to read?”; so enthusiastic, expectantly waiting for something new and different. As I started to read "Imvubu, the Happiest Hippo" they were very quickly absorbed into the story (boys love being told a story whether they are 6 or 16) happily suspending reality or just accepting another possible reality of a dancing hippo having a wonderful time in an African forest leading all the other animals, from dragonflies to giraffes, in a merry dance. Within no time it was a “boom boom to the left ….. to the right ….. and waggle your tail in the sunlight” and, when I gave them the go-ahead they were dancing hippos themselves.
The written word is so powerful both in terms of imagination and information and it is available to us now on so many platforms, although I must say, and I am probably a bit old-fashioned here, there is nothing like the smell and feel of a book, being able to hold it as an entity, when reading a novel or poetry. A teacher recently observed to me that boys are not always that keen to write or work, but they love to learn new things and, I would add to that, be transported into a different world through the power of words.
How fitting that we are planning a new library and learning space for the Prep. Next week we will launch the details and action plan for this.
Have a good weekend.
Kind regards
GREG BROWN
HEADMASTER |
