It's time to dive into October, a month full of important awareness events, poetry celebrations, and of course, Halloween! Read on for just some of the exciting things happening this month.
Black History Month
Black History Month is the nationwide celebration of Black History, Arts and Culture throughout the UK; find out more here. Share the excitement and raise awareness in your classrooms with our fantastic Lit in Colour resources which will help support an inclusive and diverse reading culture in your school community.
Libraries Week
Showcasing the amazing work of libraries and the important role they play in their communities, Libraries Week takes place from 4th - 10th October. With a focus on Taking Action, Changing Lives this year, why not encourage children to step into their school or local library and discover what they have to offer? Find your local library here and keep up to date with Libraries Week 2021 by following @librariesweek and share your plans at #LibrariesWeek.
National Poetry Day
National Poetry Day falls on 7th October this year and the theme is 'Choice'. This wonderful event celebrates the power of poetry to bring people together and across the country events will take place online and in-person to shine a light on expressing yourself through poetry. Take inspiration from a whole host of poetry resources including our KS2 Poetry booklist and children can join Rashmi Sirdeshpande in writing an alphabet poem with our KS2 Video.
Puffin Virtual Visits
The new series of Puffin Virtual Visits kick-off this month! First-up on Friday 8th October is Tamzin Merchant, author of The Hatmakers, who'll be sharing exciting insight into the writing process, activities for children to join in with, and more. You can sign up for FREE and enjoy the online author visit with supporting resources to help get children excited about reading and stories! Find out more about this and future visits here.
International Day of the Girl Child
The United Nations designated 11th October as International Day of the Girl Child to focus attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment so they can achieve their full potential and find their voice. Read about the extraordinary lives of inspirational girls such as Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai and other brilliant female role models with our booklist.
Halloween
October 31st sees the annual celebration of all things spooky return and it's always a great opportunity to spark the imagination! Get some brilliant ideas from Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Spooky Stories and his story starter and storyboard activities. Enjoy an extract from Roald Dahl's The Witches read by Stanley Tucci with our KS2 storytime video and follow that up with The Witches resource pack!
Whatever you are doing to celebrate stories this month, we’d love to hear about it! Please contact [email protected] with 'Inspiring Ideas' in the subject line.