Read Grow Inspire Book Week Slogan 2023 (Part 4) GROW

GROW    HOW?

Back to the definition of 'grow'... to become larger or greater over a period of time. How does this happen? Lets read to find out...

Grow: Secrets of Our DNA  by Nicola Davies and Emily Sutton

This book begins with the statement, "All living things grow."

The corresponding illustrations show that plants, animals, and humans do just that. 

This understanding is further refined by the next observation: "The way living things grow helps them to survive in different places." Complementary illustrations depict plants and animals that grow quickly or slowly depending on their location.

Beautifully lucid, engaging sentences blend with detailed, informative illustrations that artfully extend big ideas about growth and the role of DNA. 

Something simpler that looks at how young animals — and people — grow into unique individuals is 

Grow by JoAnn Early Macken and Stephanie Fizer Coleman

As We Grow  by Libby Walden and Richard Jones 

No one knows what lies ahead or who they’ll grow to be, It’s all a part of growing up.

In this stunning picture book, Richard Jones’ enchanting illustrations sensitively depict each stage of life and the journey of transformation that we undergo as we grow up. 

The Growing Story by Ruth Krauss and Helen Oxenbury

A little boy, some chicks and a puppy live on a farm. They see the first signs of spring growing in the fields and the little boy asks his mother if he and the puppy will grow too. Of course you will, she assures him, and as spring turns to summer he sees his dog growing taller and the chicks become chickens. But as the seasons change and everything grows around him, the little boy feels like he has stayed the same. Can he really be growing too?

Now to the most obvious way to celebrate growing...look at books about, plants, gardens and growing things for yourself. (Pinterest on Gardening)

Grow! by Rizanino Reyes and Sara Boccaccini Meadows 

Here we meet  fifteen plants and fungi with incredible powers, then learn how to grow them.

Beginning  by   Shelley Moore Thomas and Melissa Castrillon

A father and child see all the wonders and connections in nature and in life as they go about their day.

From a seed to a plant, from an egg to a chick, from a caterpillar to a butterfly, a child and father observe the cycles of nature and come to see that as each journey ends, new adventures begin.

You will not have any trouble finding five books on growing for a book a day!

Read Grow Inspire The Slogan for Book Week 2023

Read Grow Inspire - three verbs to unpack for the three word slogan for Book Week this year! I am beginning to think about how to decorate the library, what to put on display and just what tangent to go off on, which is often what I do in preparation for Term 3 Library lessons. Of course there's the shortlisted books to consider too, but they are easier to plan for because hardly any of them come without any teaching notes or ideas online.

READ is quite self explanatory, but what a good chance to explore with children why they read. So often they tell you it is to learn and that is a good reason, but what about to enjoy, to use, to escape!

At my school more emphasis needs to be placed on reading for pleasure. We want children to become life-long readers, children who can not only read, but who choose to read! I worry that some very young learners who are spending so much of their learning time on isolated phonics, do not know why they are doing the worksheets and saying these sounds over and over again. If they are not read to at home and the teachers are saying they don't have time to read picture books or a serial so that their class experiences pleasure from reading, will the students make the connections, will they be inspired to want to read? Why read at all? There are so many other pleasures to pursue.

GROW can stand a much wider interpretation. Simply it means to become larger or greater over a period of time. This could be the child, a plant, a tree, knowledge, confidence... in fact anything that can become bigger or change physically.

It would be fun to explore the origins of the word 'grow'. The Latin root 'cult' means to grow. How many words can you list with that root in them which have something to do with growing...cultivate, culture, horticulture, agriculture... ? How many other words can we list that are synonyms for grow...sprout, bloom, germinate, flourish, flower ... ? All of these words could be leaves of a tree or petals on flowers for a display.

INSPIRE means to fill yourself or someone else with feelings, thoughts, motivation, stimulation or even with the urge to do something creative. How wonderful! 

Now of course we could take this literally. Read something...learn something...be inspired to do something like William Kamkwamba the boy from a Malawi village who spent his days in the library during a drought where he read about windmills and figured out how to build one using junkyard scraps. Later he worked out how to use the windmill for irrigation purposes. His story is in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. 

There will be other biographies telling students about something that the person read about, that later became the inspiration for some invention. Reading picture book biographies will be ideal wide reading for this slogan. Perhaps think about a biography wide-reading contract.

If you take it less literally Read, Grow, Inspire can be translated to mean Read, Connect, Act which is the mantra for Empathy Lab and what we as teachers should be aiming for  when choosing books to read to our students. Whichever way you choose to interpret this slogan it allows for plenty of flexibility, creativity and activity. Go for it!

Next... Why did Matt Ottley choose to put a seahorse on the Book Week poster?