The Night Zookeeper School Visit – Inspiring Young Readers and Writers

Back in January we reviewed the Night Zookeeper book and Isaac and I were so impressed with it that we told the school all about the book and the school tour in the hope that they would invite them to our school, which they did.

Yesterday Paul (the Night Zookeeper) visited our school with a mission to inspire the kids to use their imaginations and he did just that.

I was lucky enough to sit in with each class as he worked his magic. He started with an assembly to introduce the kids to the book and its characters and had everyone from nursery to year 6 sat silently waiting for the next part, along with a few giggles along the way. There was the tale of the teleporting torch, a spying giraffe, a time travelling elephant and how to make yourself turn invisible!

Once the assembly had ended, the older children headed back to their classrooms and Paul started to work his magic with years reception to year 2. The book is aimed at Isaac’s age (7 and over) so I was wondering how he would do this, but I needn’t have worried. First of all he had the kids bounding around the hall doing animal movements – Kangaroo jumps, Cheetah’s running and birds flying. Once they were warmed up they had to invent some new animal movements and even combine some animals together.

Night Zoo Keeper

Once they had finished Paul handed out paper and pencils and the children had to listen to him and draw what he asked them to. Eliza drew herself as the Night Zoo Keeper with the spying giraffe and a spider monster they had to defeat. They worked up until break time and Paul really seemed to understand how to motivate the children so much so that Eliza went away back to her classroom and came back with her very proud teacher with some brilliant writing and a drawing of her as a Night Zookeeper!

Night Zookeeper
If I was a Night Zookeeper, I would explore” by Eliza age 5

Next up was Isaac’s class, years 3 and 4’s turn and after reading them a little more of the story, Paul continued with the drawing theme, only this time they had to split into teams to draw animal parts, each swapping papers before drawing the next part. It was lovely to see them all working together and not one creature was the same.

Once they had finished drawing their imaginary creatures, they all wrote an acrostic poem using their own names as inspiration.

After lunch it was the turn of year 5 and 6 and their challenge was very different as they used the Night Zookeeper website for their challenge. The website is a digital learning tool that inspires writing through competition. The teacher registers her class, then each child registers with the class code before they can design their very own Night Zookeeper and starting their writing challenge.

Students are inspired to produce their best writing using their classroom activities alongside the online game, the teacher can set class challenges and they can join league tables against the rest of the world. There are classes registered based in Cyprus, USA, Australia, The UK and many more. Teachers can also prove the impact that Night Zookeeper has on their student’s levels using the new curriculum tracking tool, reward students for great work and encourage collaborative learning by getting the children to work in teams to produce better work.

Night Zookeeper

It is not just the older years that can set up a class on the website and Isaac’s teacher will be setting one up for them too. From my observations yesterday, the whole school really got onboard with the challenge and I look forward to seeing the results. I know my two at least have been inspired and are keen to get on with more imaginative creations thanks to the Night Zookeeper.

If your school is looking for a way to inspire their students to produce some of their best creative writing then I can highly recommend Paul and his team. You can contact them at nightzookeeper.com/workshops.

30 thoughts on “The Night Zookeeper School Visit – Inspiring Young Readers and Writers”

  1. That looks amazing and what a great way to inspire the kids. I will definitely recommend this to A’s school as this is just the sort of thing that they like to get involved with.

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  2. WOW! This sounds amazing! This guy sounds like he really knows what he’s doing with all ages of students, and brilliant to hear it inspired lots of lovely enthusiastic writing. Hats off to you for recommending it to the school – I’m so glad they were on board with it!

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  3. This looks like a brilliant day. I think outside agencies coming into schools are a great idea as they really breathe in some new ideas and inspire the children. x

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  4. It looks and sounds great, I’ll definitely give it a mention to our school. Some of the best days have been when someone comes in to show the children life and learning from outside of school.

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  5. I have never heard of this before but it certainly sounds fantastic. I’m sure this could be a great assembly at my daughter’s school. Aww your kids are so adorable!! They seem so excited about the Night Zookeeper. Just to see them so happy makes me go and investigate more about this. I will have a look of this book. Thanks for sharing, 🙂 x

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  6. I LOVE anything that encourages kids to read. The boys school had a local author yesterday and they both loved it. This looks like an amazing day

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  7. I absolutely adore things like this! Kids Don’t just learn from being sat at desks, they need stimulation for their minds and loads of interaction. Paul and team are obviously excellent at what they do xx

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  8. I’ve never heard of this book, but having a live author come and visit the whole school must be so exciting for the children. I know whenever nursery had book reading by the author N was excited, but to get the chance to then do themed activities as well, it’s really inspiring for the children.

    Thanks for linking up to #schooldays

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