• Is World Book Day is out of control? I know some schools think so and are not going along with it anymore. Certainly parents are driven to distraction by it. The getting of costumes is now a regular joke in TV sitcoms.

    My attention was drawn to a post on the Birmingham Mail website about World Book Day. Most of the post is about costumes and where to buy them.

    World Book Day is supposed to promote literacy, but the costumes are often far removed from books. Supermarkets pile up costumes for WBD, knowing that frazzled parents will buy them to stop the kids nagging and not to lose face at the school gate. Never mind that the costume probably promotes a movie, sport or computer game.

    When I’m asked to judge a fancy dress at a school, I immediately eliminate anything that has come from ASDA. The kids with amazing, shop-bought costumes look confused when I choose some kid wrapped up in bin bags and granny’s old hat. That’s what I call dressing up.

    Image from the Birmingham Mail web post. Great Trump costume, but what is the book the child is celebrating – Fire and Fury or The Art of the Deal? Not Primary school books either way!

    World Book Day is supposed to be about celebrating books and promoting literacy. Many children come dressed as footballers, superheroes, princesses in bridesmaid dresses or other famous movie or computer game characters, in off-the-shelf costumes. I’m always asking them, “Yes, but what book are you supposed to be?”

    Schools – It’s okay to NOT dress up on World Book Day.

    Leave dressing up to a special end of term dressing-up day or Halloween, when it doesn’t really matter what anyone dresses up as or how.

    Celebrate the book on World Book Day, not football or Disney.

  • I saw this amazing machine at an auction yesterday. It had a drawing table attached to the top of a pendulum and a pen attached to the top of an other pendulum. when they were set swinging, the pen would draw indicate patterns similar to the old spirograph toy.

    The pendulums could be raise and lowered to alter the period of swing and both pendular were independent and could be swung in any direction or in circular motions. Great fun and I thought you would like to see it.

    Here are a couple of other pendulum drawing videos if you are excited by this.

    Lissajous pendulum graphing swing 

    Painting pendulum 

  • Mrs Bee tweeted photos of her year fives drawing Spitfires from my drawing videos on YouTube, and what wonderful drawings they are! Well done Year Five.

    I’ve walked into classrooms and been met by a similar scene before: children watching my videos and drawing from them, the classroom a babel cacophony of my voice coming out of twenty or thirty tablets or laptops!

    It’s is exactly what I hoped for my videos. So glad to see them being used this way!

    Here is the video if you want to join in.