David Walliams at the Auckland Writer's Festival

Wonderful David Walliams visited the Auckland Writer's Festival recently and I took my children along to listen to him.

It was wonderful to see so many Woodlands Park School families at the show, and one of our ex students, Hannah, even featured on the six o'clock news getting her book signed by the delightful author and comedian.

I feel like I was privy to some in-house information by attending his talk. Did you know:

• Walliams fashioned the Gangster Granny on his own grandma.
• The character in Ratburger was inspired by a contestant at Britain's got talent who ate live cockroaches!
• Walliams wrote a book for Simon Cowell's first child because he wanted to give something unique to a billionaire who has everything.

We have most of David Walliams's books in the school library and I highly recommend them. If you want to hear David Walliams reading Gangsta Granny: click here and scroll down to the sound bite.

Upcoming Reading Fair

I'm excited to tell you about our upcoming reading fair. It's like a science fair, but it's all about books the children are reading. The Y6 book club has organised themselves into small groups and has been working steadily on their projects this term. 

We have talked about all of the sub-headings that need to be included, like the author, publisher's details, genre, setting, plot, characters, conflict and more. The children have been enthusiastically designing layouts, writing down short sentences on the above sub-headings and last week the display boards arrived and the book club members pencilled out their design and layout. Some children have come in twice a week at morning teas, and during the occasional lunch-time to work on their reading fair project. We still have a way to go, but we aim to be finished by the end of term 2. Once we are closer to being finished, I'll set a date for viewing and judging. 

Here is a sneak peek of two of the groups who have got to the painting stage. Their creativity is so inspiring!