Running wild on World Book Day

When I asked Ferdy this Friday what he'd like to do to celebrate World Book Day (his proclaimed favourite day of the year apart from his birthday), he said for me to read him 1216 books.

So after some fractions with birthday cake (it was Billy's birthday) and apples, we read: A Friend Like Simon; The Chocolate Tree; Ian's Walk and The Great Kapok Tree.

We learnt a little about the Mayan rainforest last week when we went to the chocolate factory, so we all really enjoyed, and spent ages looking at the Great Kapok Tree, the story of a man who tries to cut down a giant Kapok tree in the Amazon rainforest. As he takes a rest, the animals who live in and around the tree plead with him not to destroy their world, citing its importance for many things including shelter, food source, rainwater soak and habitat. It helps that it's beautifully illustrated so we talked about the animal community and studied the different layers of the rainforest.

We're also just finished Michael Morpurgo's Running Wild (mentioned last week), and despite it being a different rainforest, many of the themes surrounding nature and the human destruction of it are the same.

After all that serious stuff, it was time for a bit of our own running wild.

tl-clockwise: balancing; playing with the dollshouse; the rabbit we spotted; playing hide and seek;
storytelling; through the story tunnel

Sudbury Hall is one of the boys' favourite places so we go there a lot. There is lots of space for exploring and running around, and there is a museum of childhood with a plethora of toys, and most importantly, more books to read. Heaven.

Gil was also excited to spot a rabbit, who didn't move (probably out of fear) when we went up to it, and when Gil realised that our storytelling session we'd booked in to at the museum, was based around a story about a rabbit, he was overjoyed and keen to tell everyone in the room about his rabbit sighting. He's definitely no longer the shy boy we knew a few months ago...

Later on, Ferdy wrote a rather elaborate tale about how the God of earth (named Wikit) brought bamboo to earth, but was challenged by a man called Greendo who disguised himself at Wikit and tried to get the people on earth to shoot arrows at the real Wikit. A story very much influenced by the Story of Chocolate we read, although slightly more complicated.

Including the books at Sudbury Hall, I probably managed about to read Ferdy about eight books. Just 1208 to go then...