Students at St Joseph's School Dannevirke got creative for their Guinness Book of Reading Records entries, showing themselves reading as though they were in the Olympics.
Students at St Joseph's School Dannevirke got creative for their Guinness Book of Reading Records entries, showing themselves reading as though they were in the Olympics.
The 2024 Paris Olympics became the focus for St Joseph’s School in Dannevirke during its annual Book Week.
Organised by the school’s librarian and around the Scholastic Book Fair, the event enables parents and children to buy books at reasonable prices.
Teacher Leah Thompson says the fair helps the school raise funds for classroom materials and library books.
“It gives our tamariki access to more books as well as new releases, and it just encourages a love for reading and books and [is] something fun to look forward to.”
She says the school loves Book Week and each day is spent celebrating reading with something fun.
This year the school had Book Performance - Live come in to perform in an interactive live show called Way Too Cool, which introduced the students to three newly released storybooks.
A student from St Joseph's School in Dannevirke uses a photo technique to insert herself into an Olympic competition.
Leah says the school had the idea to do a theme around St Joseph’s Guinness Book of Reading Records last year, where students, whānau and staff were encouraged to display wild and wacky ways of reading.
She says this year, the task for those who entered was to show themselves reading as though they were “among the Olympics”.
The theme attracted some very creative entries, and the junior school centred its arts focus on photography to create green-screen entries of themselves.
Senior leaders also became “mystery readers” - they would read a story over the school’s intercom in a “mysterious voice” and all the students would try to guess their identify, with correct guesses going into a draw for a prize box.
“When the mystery reader gets announced later in the day, their excitement is real.”
Leah says the school had a “dress up in black” day to support Team New Zealand and “Mascots ‘n Milos”, for which children could create their own mascots and enjoy reading stories with them with a Milo outside in the fresh air.
The students also had an Olympic reading challenge card to complete over the week with various reading challenges and everyone was encouraged to dress up for the book character parade.
Students in costume for the book character parade.
“The effort and creativity that goes into the costumes each year is amazing,” Leah says. “Our staff love it just as much and dress up each day as different characters.”
Staff dressed up in costumes every day.
Staff in costumes representing characters from 101 Dalmatians.
“The tamariki look forward to seeing who’s going to be teaching each day,” she adds.
Prizegiving at St Joseph's, with two students dressed up as Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
One of Dannevirke’s librarians also came along to read a story and, to finish Book Week, the school hosted a prizegiving assembly where prizes earned over the week were awarded.
“It is such a fun, busy week, and for some of our tamariki, it is their favourite time of year.”
