Book Week 2016

Next week kicks off Book Week in Australia!  I always love sharing this week with my students, celebrating great Australian books and dressing-up like our favourite book characters.


I thought I would share a few activities and resources that I'm using next week. My first stop is always to the Children's Book Council site for this year's Shortlist. I usually focus on only the Early Childhood and Picture Book Categories in the classroom. 

I love going to the Zart Art Book Week PD and using the resource book they create each year to get ideas.  



Here are my favourite 3 books from this year's short list and 3 great  activities you might find useful. Click on the images for the original links & instructions.



Piranahas Don't Eat Bananas by Aaron Blabley
We love Aaron Blabley's books in my class and this one is hilarious! It is great for rhyming and there are also a heap of great crafts floating around.

Favourite Piranha activities:
1. Read the book or watch this YouTube video of the story being read by Two Teachers One Blog.

2. Make a Peg Piranha from Cleverpatch
Cleverpatch have a free template for this one & instructions here. You also needs wooden pegs, paint and glue.





3. Draw a 'Friendly Fish or Piranha' from Relief Teaching Ideas. All you need is an A4 or A3 piece of paper (depending on how big you want it. Too cute!


The Cow Tripped Over the Moon by Tony Wilson

This is another great book when teaching rhyme but is also fantastic for teaching about resilience, positive mindset and power of failure. And the illustrations by Laura Wood are gorgeous.




1. Read the book or watch this video of the author, Tony Wilson reading the story to his son (side note, watch this video it is beautiful).


2. 'Moon Jumping Cow' from Cleverpatch
This one is easy and only needs a paper plate, black and white cow template, foil, split pin and textas or blue paint. Click on the image for the instructions from Cleverpatch.

3. This is a great book to use for a STEM activity. Students could build their own machine or catapault to help the cow jump over the moon. I love this Cow Catapult activity from Science Sparks it only requires elastic bands, pop sticks and a milk top.




Finally my favourite book from this year's short list is Mr Huff by Anna Walker. This book is perfect for teaching about managing emotions and feelings. Even though it is in the Early Childhood category I feel it has it's best potential used in grades 3-6 (and I even think with adults, I know I really relate to this one). 
I plan to use this with my whole class but also throughout the year for my high anxiety kiddos (it is also a great tool to describe depression). 

1. Watch Mr Huff being read on Play School. This is a great video with lots of the presenters from the past and present reading the book (Eddie Perfect reads in this... I could listen to that man read all day).


2. Discuss worries and how we can turn a bad day around. Look at Mr Huff and discuss how he becomes smaller as the boy does happy activities like going for a walk. Autism Teaching Strategies have some great worksheet for writing about emotions. Worksheet 6 (pictured) is the one I am planning to use with this book.

3. Make a Mr Huff (Zart Art activity). This was also my favourite activity from the Zart PD. It's really simple only needing some stocking, polyfill, joggle eyes and some pipe-cleanrers/chenille stems. Sorry I don't have instructions for this one but it is easy to work out.

Beginning Christmas: Gingerbread Stories

We officially have 19 school days left until the end of the year! Eeek! I also have 6 more reports to write & a ton of editing to do, a classroom to pack up & move rooms, etc, etc but I am still excited for the end of the year and all the fun of Christmas.

Today we started Christmas activities with a week of Gingerbread fun. 
                                       
We read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett then made these adorable Gingerbread Babies from Mrs Miner's Kindergarten. Download the freebie here.

We played this Roll the Gingerbread game from Little Giraffes. Download the freebie here.

We did some Gingerbread addition and subtraction using this freebie packet from the Moffatt girls (I photocopied p3 & 4 so they were on the same page).

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow to update you on the rest of the fun plans for this week (I'd keep typing but I'm exhausted).

Happy Monday,

Currently November

How did November happen? Excited but gee-whiz it came up quickly! Linking up with Farley to share the November Currently love.

Listening to Buffy, season 4. 

Loving the gorgeous, hot 30C (90F) days lately which has been fantastic. Loving Spring and everything about it, except maybe the hayfever.

Thinking that we are starting Literacy testing this week and I have to get booklets ready plus I have a few days off of school coming up which I have to prepare for. Busy, busy.

Wanting & Needing
Personally, we have some stuff happening at the minute. I am no good at waiting for answers, which hopefully we'll have more of this week but we are both ready to know what direction our life will be headed in. Sorry to be cryptic but if you're the praying kind, a few prayers sent our way would be much appreciated.

Reading 
Oh my goodness my kidlets are addicted to The Day the Crayons Quit. 

I have read this about a dozen times in the last fortnight, love it but it's driving me crazy!

Happy November,

Storybook Saturday

I'm linking up with the lovely Paula at Paula's Place to show you our book of the week!

We have been focusing on rhyme this term and have been loving the "There was an Old lady/Old Bloke who..." books. 

This week we will be reading "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Thong". Incase you are wondering- 'what?' "thong" is the Aussie word for "flip flop" :)

I can't wait for Christmas (every year) but I'm super excited now as my new copy of "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Star" just arrived. Bring on December!

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodlebugs for another 5 for Friday. Gosh these weeks are coming around quickly!

This week has been crazy busy! Bookweek crazy to be exact. I had my Study Tour day in Melbourne so I missed out on the parade which I was shattered about. My kiddos excelled themselves this year. We had: The Cat in the Hat, Where's Wally? (Waldo), a robot, witches, Billy B. Brown, Doctor Who, Batman & Robin, Mario, a Smurf, a doctor and Cinderella. Doctor Who is my particular favourite- can you spot him? He is OBSESSED with the Doctor. L and his Dad even made a Tardis last month for him to play with.

Yesterday we had whole school Bookweek rotations. The kiddos were mixed up into multi-age groups and they loved it! My group made "Peggy's" from the story Peggy by Anna Walker. 

It is a gorgeous book about a chicken who gets swept up in a wind and ends up in the City (Melbourne to be exact). The illustrations are scrumptious.

This idea came from the Zart Art Book Week pd. If you are an Aussie and have never been to one of these- do! I am a big fan of their Christmas Workshops too.

These were made with: 1 sentence strip, fine liner pen for the buildings, black paint for the body and head (using your thumb) and a feather for the tail.

On Thursday the 5/6's visited us to read their picture story books to the kidlets. They were amazing! I love it when they read to the little kids.

We have also been preparing for Father's Day. We made these super cute toolbox cards which I found here.

Yesterday we had our Father's Day breakfast (my 14th breakfast- we have 2 a year). Teachers & parents cooking from 6.30. I learnt fast to get to work early and get a place on the bbq, it's the warmest place and where all the best early morning conversations take place. My teaching buddy and I rocked the eggs. It's a skill :)

Enjoy your weekend,

Finally Friday!

Time to link up for another Five for Friday :)

This has been the busiest week ever! It has been surprisingly good even with all of the craziness but I am so ready for the weekend. This girl is tired! Sorry about the lack of pics again this week, I had every intention to take a ton of photos but only managed a few.

On Tuesday we went on 'excursion' to the local TAFE library for part one of Book Week (we are actually celebrating this at school next week because we had so much on this week). The kiddos were so good! Taking all 4 Prep/1 grades anywhere is a bit of a challenge but they were brilliant. We watched Narelle Stone act out two books that have been nominated this year The Coat (which won) and Peggy (which is my favourite). She was hilarious!

Wednesday we had our School Aths. It was about 7 degrees, cloudy and rainy but we managed to survive and get through our activities in record time!

This week has also been all about the letter Q. We read Queenie the Bantam by Bob Graham (another favourite). It's also a great book for location and mapping.

Then we made these adorable chickens from Frogs, Snails & Puppy Dog Tails (I forgot to take pictures of the ones we made... oops).

Yesterday we had a PD day with Maria Forde at the gorgeous Nanga Gnulle conference centre/wedding venue in Bendigo. It was gorgeous even on such a cold day.

And on top of all of that I have been trying to get organised to head to the UK (less than 3 weeks now) for the Study Tour I will be part of! The hunt for a satchel bag that fits my laptop, is cute, under $100 and is long rather than wide (so it will sit on my hip) is proving to be a nightmare. Wish me luck!

Have a great weekend,