From Borehamwood and Elstree Times
9:00am Friday 8th March 2013 in News
Hertswood School children make pop-up books as part of Literacy Week
by Natalie O’Neill

Pupils at Hertswood School in Thrift Lane looked on with amazement as John O’Leary turned pieces of card into colourful story books on Wednesday.

Teacher Laura Edgar said: “The children caught on very quickly and they’re going to be continuing using the skills in their next lessons.”

The event forms part of Community Literacy Week which is being celebrated by all primary schools in Borehamwood.Ms Edgar said: “The week is a great way of celebrating the joy of reading for pleasure and how important it is.

“Research has shown that children who don’t read for pleasure lag two years behind their peers by the time they’re 15. Literacy Week allows us to demonstrate the value of reading for the whole school community.”

(photo – Author and illustrator John O’Leary shows 13-year-old pupil Ryan John how to make his very own pop-up story book)

Here’s my line up for this year’s book week.
I’m very excited and looking forward to a series of intense, fun-filled sessions.

26 Feb – St. Mary’s School, Bicester

1 March – Chase Side Primary School, Enfield

5 March – Lindfield Primary School, Lindfield

6 March – Hertswood Academy, Borehamwood

7 March – Thomas’s School, Clapham

8 March – Hereward House School, Hampstead

Photos from my workshops at Cunningham Hill Infant School in St Albans last week. Each of the five classes were studying famous paintings from the National Gallery (including one of my all-time favourites). The children produced their own 3D versions of the paintings over the two days, as well doing their own personal pop-up designs. The 3D paintings aren’t finished yet, so more pictures to follow when I get them from the school.

This was a return visit to this school and it was very gratifying to see that, not only did many of the children remember me, but that they were able to build on what they had previously learnt. They even used some of these previously-learnt techniques when producing their cards last Christmas.

I was given a very warm welcome by staff and children at Thorn Grove Primary School in Bishop’s Stortford last Monday when I joined them for their Bookmaking Week.

Y1 and Y6 were each given a brief set of instructions and a collapsible cardboard structure before being sent away to work as teams on the project. The results were very impressive. Y1 managed to include a narrative in their giant pop-up which was inspired by a book they were studying in class (Rosie’s Hat by Julia Donaldson and Anna Currey). They showed the girl’s hat being blown up over the roofs, into the clouds and down again onto a truck carrying logs – brilliant!

Y6 did equally well and produced a fantastic Martian scene, showing the surface of the planet on the one side and outer space on the other.

While all this was going on the other year-groups were hard at work producing their very own pop-upbooks.

I spent a very exciting and creative two days at St Agnes RC Primary School in Cricklewood earlier this week.

A whole-school schedule was drawn up beforehand which included talks, storyboarding, reading and live drawing, illustration and pop-up book workshops, and an interview with the school newspaper (this was conducted by the wonderful Chelsea and Ziemek from year 5 and 6).

I noticed that year 3 and 4 hadn’t been included in any of the activities, so decided to set them a special challenge. Presenting them with two giant, pop-up, cardboard frameworks, I gave them a brief set of instructions – go off, have a discussion, decide what each construction would become, organise yourselves into working parties and get started. I tried not to influence them in any way but did show them photos of what a previous school had produced and challenged them to beat it.

The final ‘showing assembly’ had representives from each class showing work-in-progress. My aim had been to provide them with a starting point from which to work and they were very successful and creative in developing what I showed them and making it their own.

The giant pop-ups were saved for last and what was revealed was completely unexpected and truly spectacular. I was impressed by the wide variety of materials used (not just paper and card) as well as the incrediable amount of thought and innovative ideas that went into the project, including many techniques that I hadn’t actually shown them. And most astonishingly, both structures (you can see them below) still folded flat. A very moving moment – in all senses of the word!