For Book Week Scotland 2018 I visited Mid Calder Primary School in Livingston. My first story telling session was with Primary 1 and Primary 2/1 – what a lovely bunch of children they were. We read The Kilted Coo first and the kids told me all about the animals they could spot in the pictures and about the rhyming patterns in the story.

After we had chatted about The Kilted Coo, we read Ruan the Little Red Squirrel. He was a popular chap with this group and they all listened very intently while I spoke about the habitats that Ruan’s friends live in.

Lots of the kids had seen squirrels before, but very few had seen a red squirrel so we talked about them being an endangered species and about where to find them in the wild. I’m sure we’ll have lots of new squirrel spotters in this group!

From Primary 1 I went into the Nursery class – this was the first time I’ve read to a nursery group and I had forgotten how little the boys and girls would be! After playtime came quiet time on the carpet, and we all sat down for a story before the end of the session. The kids all sat very well and listened carefully, and we had a great question and answer session afterwards.

One of the questions I like to ask school groups when I visit is how old they think I am – I’m often told by teachers that I am younger than they expect (though how much longer that will last I’m not sure!). One of the biggest differences in age groups is what they guess – in Primary 1 most guesses were ‘soooo old’ at around 50, 60 and even 100.

In Nursery, their oldest guess was 8… which when you’re 3, must seem ancient!

More visits lined up soon! All photos courtesy of Mid Calder Primary’s twitter.

Rachel