Project 46: Peter Pan

As we had a busy week of activities already planned for this week, we decided to have a book week: reading a classic of children's literature, and looking at how it had been interpreted in different films (similar to Project 24: World Book Day and the Wizard of Oz).

A few months ago the Carnegie medal winner Geraldine McCaughrean complained of the focus on children's book publishers being on creating 'accessible' books, saying instead children should be:

"...bombarded with words like gamma rays, steeped in words like pot plants stood in water, pelted with them like confetti, fed on them like Alphabetti spaghetti, given Hamlet’s last resort: ‘Words. Words. Words.’"

I think Peter Pan is the sort of book she had in mind (especially as she wrote a sequel!) - as it has plenty of new vocabulary and was a real push for us to get through in a busy week. It was a far cry from the Beast Quests that Solomon usually consumes if left to his own devices.

We watched two films: Peter Pan, and Pan. Solomon enjoyed them both, but particularly likes Pan, a far larger-than-life prequel.

Coincidentally, a trip to Knebworth House this week was also an opportunity to demonstrate how ingrained Peter Pan is in our culture, as there was a Neverland crocodile there.

Neverland Crocodile

No week is complete without at least a little craft activity, so this week we taught Solomon to make a paper hat!

A Peter Pan hat

Next week's project: Astronauts and space flight.