As part of St Mirren’s involvement in the SPL Reading Stars project at Foxbar and Glenburn Libraries, the club asked each child involved to write a story of paragraph about the club’s mascot, ‘Paisley Panda’, to encourage them to write and be creative.
Each child was given a diary, a stuffed toy panda and a disposable camera to document what their very own ‘Paisley Panda’ got up to!Here’s what happened to the Paisley Panda...
“The Paisley Panda was at Glenburn and he scored three goals. Wayne Rooney was there and he was excited and happy”
“The Paisley Panda was reading about a panda book because he is nice panda.” Chloe
“The Paisley Panda paid his council tax!” Heather
“The Paisley Panda was reading climbing a bamboo tree because he loves to climb trees.” Dean
“Ewan was going to take me to Hampden to watch the Rangers game, but he thought it was too busy, so he took my picture before he went. We played football when he came back.” Ewan
“We went down to the woods and played in the trees.” Cameron
“He went down onto the bunk bed and was looking out the window.” Sean
“He came to school with me and we had loads and loads of fun.” Kyle
“He is on my dad’s car bonnet. I love his car. It is the best thing in the world to me and my dad loves it too!” Richard
“I (Panda) enjoyed being with Keiran and his family. We had lots of fun. I went climbing up a tree and there is a picture of this.” Keiran
“I (Panda) enjoyed my time with Rebecca and family. We did lots of stuff. My favourite was going for a walk. I pushed Rebecca’s pram with her. I have this on picture so I can remember it!” Rebecca
“Taylor took me to school” Taylor
“This is the Paisley Panda reading a Hannah Montana book at Glenburn Library. The Panda has his library card.” Liam
“The Paisley Panda was playing pool with his friend at go-zone.” Frazer
SPL Reading Stars is part of The Big Plus, a Scottish Government awareness raising campaign which aims to encourage adults to improve their reading, writing numbers skills.
The project is a partnership between Scottish Government, The National Literacy Trust, the Scottish Premier League, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Library and Information Council. The project is an extension of the Premier League Reading Stars project which began in England in 2003.
SPL Reading Stars is now in its second year and uses the popularity of football to promote the importance of reading within families.
Each SPL club has nominated a player, a ’Reading Star’, to be a champion for reading. Each ‘Reading Star’ chose their favourite children’s book and adult’s book which form the basis of library sessions. 25 libraries across Scotland are involved in the project and each recruited ten families to take part in learning sessions, which included an author visit and the chance to meet their local Reading Star.
Jack Ross is St Mirren’s Reading Star and chose Dear Max by Sally Grindley as his children’s book and Omerta by Mario Puzo as his adult reading book.
To find out more about the campaign and what support is available visit www.thebigplus.com
SPL READING STARS 2010
