Spellbinder Visits Haddenham
Haddenham Community Infants and Haddenham St. Mary's School were literally spellbound last Friday 17th May.
The community school marched down to the other end of the village excitedly and with great expectation of a new adventure with the other local infant school. 180 children sat together in St. Mary's School Hall mouths wide with awe, listening attentively to Mr Spellbinder's captivating stories of Jack and the Beanstalk and of dragons and soldiers.
Mr Spellbinder, a retired teacher, uses a range of strategies to tell children stories. He dresses in costume, uses lots of visual characters as well as the usual voices and expression (we all do at bed time story sessions with our own children).
In addition, and this is what makes it so special is he breaks the story with song and dance, so the children get involved in the whole process.
These are some of the comment the children made upon return...
"It is funny because he uses different voices" – Hannah
"It was great fun. We did lots of acting and drama" – Angus
"Amazing – he used different voices and I learned new things about the story" – Finley
"I liked the song at the beginning and end, it made everyone feel happy and ready to learn" – Rory
As you can see this joint venture had a great impact on our children and it was a fantastic experience not just for the children but also all our parent helpers who attended as well.
