On Monday 4th December, we were thrilled to welcome author and illustrator Simon Murray back to Wakefield Grammar Pre-Preparatory School, to provide enthralling workshops to our Year 1 and Year 2 pupils.

Simon is the author of the children’s novel series ‘Icky Doo Dah’. His books detail the mischievous antics of ‘Icky’, a fun loving creature who loves to cause chaos and havoc around his home on Copperpot Farm. He destroys everything in sight – yet somehow he always seems to get away with it!

The workshops were 3D-workshops/Christmas-themed – creating a pop up 3D illustrations based on his Christmas book. Simon also visited our Early Years classes to read ‘Icky Doo Dah: The Christmas Hoo-Hah!’. Our youngest children were delighted to listen to the hilarious story of Icky as he got up to no good during festivities at the farm.

The day was extremely inspiring – Simon encouraged students to use their imagination, explore creative writing, and drawing for fun. He praised them for their listening skills, problem solving skills and their resilience as they met the challenges of being mini-illustrators. It was a brilliant reminder of the world of fun and adventure we can all have, within our own minds simply by imagining. At Pre-Prep our curriculum revolves around a Love of Reading, and we want our children to discover a joy and love of reading. Experiential workshops such as Simon’s, support our children to discover a passion for books: whether that is their illustrations, descriptive language, or immersive stories.

Thank you to Simon for visiting our school and conducting these exciting workshops. We also received additional copies of the Icky Doo Dah series to add to our collection in the library – so pupils can borrow copies of the books and read them again soon.

Mrs R Mayes

Literacy Co-ordinator