World Book Day at Footsteps 2022
On Thursday 3rd March, children and teachers across the United Kingdom celebrated the magic of literature as they donned costumes and undertook themed activities to mark World Book Day. The annual global event celebrates reading and is marked in more than 100 countries all over the world.
With reading topping the list of some of their favourite activities, children dressed as their favourite literary character. Characters from fictional favourites like The 3 Little Pigs, Peter Rabbit, The Tiger Who Came to Tea and could be found alongside Princes, princesses, dogs, lions, witches and many other famous faces as Footsteps Nursery and Pre-school marked the annual tradition at its sites in Chalfont, Watermead, Farnborough, Oving, Leighton Buzzard and Maple Cross. It wasn’t just the children who enjoyed the dressing up, staff got in on the act too and were not afraid to let their literary imaginations run wild!
Of course World Book Day is not just about dressing up, and the children were treated to a full week of literary themed adventures and activities.
At Watermead, we went on some amazing adventures with some of our favourite stories. With small world animal play as we read “Baby Elephant” to a Peppa Pig inspired reading corner. We ventured to the outside kitchen to recreate a lovely pot of steaming porridge for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and into the deep dark wood with the Gruffalo.
At Leighton Buzzard the children made their own Hungry Caterpillars and listened to stories with their story baskets to engage and inspire the children as they listened. They made porridge for the 3 bears to share amongst their friends, and made Superworms as well as Superworm spoons to use to recreate the story as they read it. We saw some brilliant costumes too!
Footsteps Farnborough organised a fun packed week of literary themed fun as they made mini Elmer the Elephants, playdough gingerbread men, recreated Goldilocks and the 3 Bears in their dolls house, made Gruffalo crumble and explored stories like The Hungry Caterpillar, Superworm and even a Penguin inspired book corner complete with some cuddly friends to read to.
Maple Cross children and staff joined in the fun as the team took inspiration from 101 Dalmations. Cruella and her spotty friends had a great time reading all the children’s favourite stories and marvelling at the wonderful costumes from Harry and his dinosaurs to White Rabbit and Tinkerbell – the final winner of their fancy dress competition paying tribute to Dennis the Menace complete with a set of fantastic eyebrows!
Over at Chalfont there were some incredible costumes on display and the children (and their parents) amazed staff with their creativity. It was incredible to see such an array of characters from such a wide range of books. The children clearly love to read and were thrilled to become part of their favourite stories for the day as well as take part in the fantastic range of crafts, sensory play and outdoor play.
Footsteps Oving were celebrating a huge £242 raised from their sponsored listen – all the proceeds going to buy new books from Usbourne for all the children to enjoy! They also enjoyed making bookmarks to use in the books they bought into enjoy together. We saw lots of animals feature among their favourites, from Superworm to The Gruffalo through to Monkeys and Lions – the day was a roarrring success!
After all the excitement, story time was a great way to end the day, with the children enjoying relaxing and winding down with staff as they were swept away into another world, only possible through the amazing power of books.
Founder Kelly Smith said “Enjoying books with the children is an essential part of every day at Footsteps. Exposing them to language, how it works and the fantastic stories to be found in books is a privilege. We really enjoyed celebrating and had great fun with all the different activities and crafts. A huge thanks to all the parents for the fantastic effort they put into the amazing outfits and to all the staff who go above and beyond to make the day a success.”
