How To Deal With The Gruffalo!

Bowmore Primary School pupils on the Isle of Islay recently had the good fortune of enjoying a visit from Julia Donaldson, fuelled by the Meet Our Authors live event in May. Here, teachers Maggie Kerr and Susan Scougall share the ingenious ways the school found to deal with a Gruffalo in their midst.

We were delighted to hear that we have been selected to be one of four Scottish Book Trust Meet Our Authors Flagship Schools, and are here to share what we have been up to with regards to using the Meet Our Authors resources in school.

As you can see, watching just one event gave us countless ideas for engaging the children. Although we were lucky enough to have the author visit us live afterwards, we feel that most of the ideas and activities we used could be adapted to use alongside the recorded webcast of the Meet Our Authors event as well.

 During September, we were very lucky to secure a visit from Julia Donaldson to our school. This was inspired by the excitement that was generated when we watched the live online Julia Donaldson Meet Our Authors event in May 2010. We are also very grateful to organisers of the Islay Book Festival who arranged for Julia to come and see us.  

 The early years classes enjoyed her books and focussed on rhyming words.  They used a surprise parcel of materials to create their own personal reading space. 

They were so delighted with their own efforts that they  decided to share the end of the school day to read their favourite book to their mum and dad.  All the parents were suitably impressed.

Through their maths topic of ‘time’ P2 created a bright and colourful display based on Tiddler:

They also visited Julia’s website which gave them the opportunity to share their school involvement at home with their parents and family.

All the pupils prepared and presented work, displayed as a welcome to Julia:

In great anticipation the pupils from pre-five years old to Primary 7 gathered to meet Julia Donaldson. They were totally engaged for an hour with inspirational performances of The Gruffalo, Paula the Vet, The Magic Paintbrush and an action song which required the involvement of pupils and staff. Skills in reading, listening, talking, mime, song and role play were all practised during an interactive and enjoyable hour.

Having watched the Meet Our Authors event, P2/3 prepared questions and read a selection of Julia’s books. Primary 2/3 and 4 then had a question and answer session with her where she also gave feedback on the preparatory work that was on display.

A full and very fruitful hour left all concerned feeling inspired and confident in their ability to ‘become an author like Julia’.
P4 became young writers, Julia Donaldson-style by creating short stories.  They displayed their finished work with illustrations in book form.

P5/6 enjoyed reading her books and accessing her website.  They enjoyed studying her use of language and worked collaboratively to produce unique descriptions using nonsense nouns.

P6/7 made pastel pictures of the characters and wrote a diary entry – ‘A Day in the Life of ... (their chosen character)’.

P4-7 Gaelic unit wrote bilingual rhyming poems and rewrote the Gruffalo from his point of view.

Our Gaelic pupils were so inspired they performed ‘An Gruffalo’ in Gaelic, to an audience of school friends and parents with props, action and great confidence.

To finish things off, all pupils in school wrote letters of thanks to the author. P4 also wrote an article for our local newspaper sharing this exceptional learning experience – naming Julia Donaldson a master of her craft!

“It was a privilege to have such a famous author in our school. My favourite part of the visit was when Julia, Malcom and some pupils acted out The Gruffalo.”  Kimmi P4      

“Thank you for coming to our school and sharing your books with us we hope you come again soon.” Charlotte P4

“It was great to learn how to read from a script for a world famous character from a world-wide famous book. It was like being an actress!” Rhianna P6

 “We had a fun time participating in the stories, singing along with the songs and listening to the books you read us.” Jack P6

Scottish Book Trust Meet Our Authors Flagship Schools are four outstanding schools that have been selected as ongoing 'showcases' for their work with the Meet Our Authors Programme.

Read more examples and advice from our four Flagship Schools on how they are using the Meet Our Authors in their everyday planning and teaching to benefit their learners.

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