Bringing The Velveteen Rabbit to Life at Archway Veritas

Kindergarteners at Archway Veritas recently read the classic story of The Velveteen Rabbit and celebrated the literature and the wonder that the story inspires with a Velveteen Rabbit Day.

Sheena Barton, a kindergarten teacher at Archway Veritas, explained that her class has been reading the story all week. “We’ve been talking about what it means to be real,” she said. Being real is a central theme of the story and it also corresponded with their science unit. “We’re doing living and non-living things. So, they blend beautifully.”

This British children’s story about a velveteen stuffed rabbit, given to a small boy as a Christmas gift was Margery Williams’s first attempt at children’s literature. The story originally appeared in Harper’s Bazaar in 1921, illustrated by her daughter Pamela Bianco, before being released a year later as a book with illustrations by William Nicholson. It has since been republished many times.

The Friday before Velveteen Rabbit Day, the young scholars were asked to bring their favorite “stuffy” to school with them. “They got to do their work and read books and do all their things with their stuffies,” shared Barton. At the end of the day, students tucked their stuffies in for the weekend, with the hopes that some “nursery magic,” just like what happened in the book, would happen over the weekend in the classroom.

Once the last kindergartner said their good-byes to their stuffy and left their classrooms to go home, the teachers stepped in and arranged them around the room, posing them in classroom activities such as reading, writing, or using art supplies.

Barton said her favorite part of the day is when the kids line up outside of the door on Monday morning. “There’s a lot of anticipation building. They want to see their stuffies and we have to kind of really bring the magic and tell them, ‘Oh my gosh, we walked in this morning and something happened!’” Barton said all the effort is worthwhile just see their face when they open the door and they go to find their stuffy to see what theirs is doing.

The kindergarten students and their teachers traded in their school uniforms for pajamas for the day of cozy festivities, which included water coloring an illustration from the story, reading with their third grade reading buddies, and ended with the treat of hot cocoa and marshmallows.

“I love this day because it lets us bring magic into the classroom,” said Barton. “We get to kind of make those childhood dreams come alive. And if we believe it, they believe it. And there’s only that fleeting moment of time where we can really capture those things with the kids. So, we will do anything we can to preserve that magic for them.”

Celebrating this timeless story in such an imaginative way brings a lasting appreciation for literature and the wonder that it can bring. Something these kindergarteners at Archway Veritas will hold dear for years to come.

“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time – not just to play with, but REALLY loves you – then you become Real” – The skin horse, wisest and oldest toy in the nursery.

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