Jingumae International Exchange School (JIES) celebrated annual Literacy Week in the last week of March, with this year’s theme being “superheroes.”
Teachers wanted the students to think about literacy as a super power that could be used for the greater good, so they designed a number of literacy-related activities to encourage students to have fun while learning about the power of reading and writing. Literacy-based games such as Jeopardy were played in mixed-age groups in order to get children excited about Literacy Week. Students composed their own PYP-based superhero stories. There was also an art competition in which students had the opportunity to design and draw an original superhero based on the attributes of the PYP learner profile.
For one day, everyone could go to school dressed as their favourite superhero or character from a book. There was also an exhilarating school-wide spelling bee. In order to enhance the literary experience, the entire school cooperated in a five-day reading marathon.
Each individual class also created a reading “fort” using cardboard, paint, and other materials found at school. Constructed and decorated were a colourful house, a cat bus, personal water closets, reading pods, and a stately castle that was half haunted. On the last day of Literacy Week, the reading forts were revealed, and plenty of time was available for the children to explore and read in them. The children read on their own or in pairs or trios, and enjoyed the fun environments that they and their peers had created. — KENAN ULU
