On Wednesday this week, two of our year 5 classes (HB12 and HB9) visited Milton Keynes Central Library. It was a long walk from Loughton to the library – it took around 50 minutes – but all the children were fantastically behaved and didn’t even moan (much). However, we were lucky with the weather and the walk was worth it. Upon our arrival at the library, we were greeted by one of the librarians who took us upstairs to the Children’s library and told us all about the library and the types of books it contains. Did you know that the Central Milton Keynes Library holds around 100,000 books? At least 40,000 of those books are in the children’s library. There are non – fiction books on a wide range of different subjects, fiction books by many, many different authors, books written in different languages, books written in braille and even audiobooks! Following a brief introduction and a quick poem, the children got into teams and had fun searching the library for specific books in a game of ‘Book Bingo’. The children were instructed to find books meeting a variety of different criteria: a book about a museum, a book with a colour in the title, a book about pirates and so on.

The children worked well as a team to collect these books before returning to the carpet area to share their discoveries. Before leaving and heading back to school, there was time for those children with their library cards to select and borrow a book (or two) and time for relaxing with a book for those that did not have their card with them. HB9 and HB12 children and teachers had a fantastic morning and HB10 and HB11, who will visit next week, have lots to look forward to.