Our Junior School students once again celebrated the National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday 22 May. The event involved over one million children with schools and Libraries across Australia and New Zealand reading the same book at exactly 11.00am.
This year the book was Alpacas with Maracas by Matt Cosgrove, so we invited some very special fluffy friends along to Somerset to join in the fun.
Ms Rebecca Collie, Head of Junior School, read the story to our Prep friends who all waited very patiently for the word ’maracas’ to be spoken so they could shake theirs.
Four alpacas on the Somerset Towers Quad was a sight to behold!
With thanks to Pauline and Col Glasser from Wahgungurry Alpacas in Grafton, our Junior Students all had the opportunity to get up close with Suri alpacas Aristo and his sister Beersheba, and Huacayas Marquisette and Mr Gigilo.
Pauline taught us that Suri alpaca are the ones with long dread-locked fleece (like Al in the book) and Huacaya are fluffy (like Macca).
We learned that alpacas are very different to their cousins, llamas; their fleece is a soft as cashmere and as strong as silk and they are very sweet, curious creatures that rarely spit at people. Nevertheless, our young risk-takers shone and curiosity won out and a few of our lucky Seniors managed to get a quick cuddle too after their exams.
The aim of National Simultaneous Storytime is to promote reading aloud to children as it is so important for every aspect of their development. Shaking maracas and cuddling real, live alpacas prove it’s also a lot of fun!
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