Tag / Book Week

by School Library Owl

Escape to Everywhere – Book Week video

This video was created using an iMovie template. It features the Deputy Head Mr Krigstein engaged reading Peter Pan. It was played at the K-6 Book Week Assembly and was a huge success. A big thank you to Mr Krigstein for being so obliging.

The images are from the following books:

Peter Pan J.M. Barrie, Illustrated by Greg Becks, 1998, ACC Children’s Classics.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, 2012, Vintage Classics.

Peter Pan: A spectacular pop-up edition of J.M. Barrie’s original tale by Robert Sabuda

A River by Marc Martin, 2015, Viking Penguin, Australia.

by School Library Owl

CBCA Book Week – Escape to Everywhere displays

The CBCA Book Week theme Escape to Everywhere has encouraged a lot of discussion with children about what happens when we read, how do we escape with a book, and what are the books we love to escape with.

Escape to Everywhere – Imaginative focus

Books featured:

  • A Child of Books by  Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston
  • Return by Aaron Becker
  • Book by David Miles and illustrated by Natalie Hoopes

Images from Pinterest Book Interest

Escape to Everywhere – pack up and travel with a great book

The old suitcase was found not far from home on the side of the street, it still had the SYD Qantas tag attached! It was not hard to find classic book titles related to journies to fill the case and a create vintage style display. The poster Reading Takes You Places was from Scholastic Book Club. There are some authentic looking airline tickets that we created for book characters using an airline ticket generator (an idea found via The Book Chook) and few genuine looking travel tags that made the final touch.

by School Library Owl

Read, respond, celebrate: engaging with the CBCA short list

Each year The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) promotes and celebrates children’s books with the major event of Children’s Book Week during August. There are several Posts related to Book Week on this Blog as it is a very special part of the Library program. Recently SCIS Connections published an article I wrote focusing on using the Early Childhood and Picture Book short list books, as well as providing an insight into exploring the Younger Readers chapter books in the F–6 school context. The full article can be found via Read, respond, celebrate: engaging with the CBCA short list

Book Week suitcase

SCIS Connections 102 Read, respond, celebrate article PDF.

 

by School Library Owl

Visual Literacy using the CBCA Short list Picture Books

The CBCA Short List Picture Books provide many opportunities to explore and engage with quality literature. This term Year 5 will explore the short list books in relation to visual literacy or visual grammar.

Visual literacy helps us understand and describe the features of a picture that create visual meaning. We learn who or what is in the picture, the activities involved, interactions between characters, emotions, and how the image catches our attention. We can learn to discover by looking deeper and thinking about what we see.

As advised by Callow, 2016 “Talking about the various features of picture books before, during and after reading allows us to teach children about their various features.” Using the CBCA Short List Picture Books offers a perfect way to introduce or extend on visual literacy. Exploring the themes and issues and applying visual grammar elements allows students to deepen their engagement with the books. Furthermore, providing instruction and direction to recognise, discuss and label visual techniques will ensure students enhance their visual literacy skills (Forrest, 2017).

What is planned?

  • Introduce one of the CBCA Short List books and highlight visual grammar elements
  • Provide students with the Visual Literacy Guide
  • Group students into small groups and allocate one of the picture books. Working with a partner create a sub-group where each sub-group selects one page (image) to focus on
  • Take a photo of the image and using Word or a simple photo writing App such as Phonto annotate onto the image
  • Post work to class Blog and share findings

Below is an example applying visual grammar following the guidelines that I created for student use. Goanna by Jenny Wagner is one of the first picture books I purchased in my early teaching days, I found it on my bookshelf and so loved reading it again.

Continue reading →

by School Library Owl

Postcard from your reading journey

The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book Week 2017 theme Escape to Everywhere opens many opportunities to connect with literature and have fun. In addition to the Missing Book Character Poster activity planned for students in P-2 we are planning a writing reflection activity for Grades 3-4. The task encourages students to engage with a book they have enjoyed reading and write a Postcard imagining they are in the story. This activity aims to get the student inside the book, experience an event with the character and reflect on where else they could go within the story.

Steps to promote this activity:

Choose a book you have really enjoyed reading – it could be a picture book or chapter book.

Make a list of ideas, the questions below will help get you started – remember a postcard aims to capture where you are, what you are doing.

  • Who is the character(s) you are with?
  • Where are you? What you can see.
  • What activities are you doing?
  • Where might you be going?
  • Address you postcard to your class and remember to write your name and class
  • Draw a stamp for your postcard
  • Draw a picture that is connected to the book
  • Write the book title and author on your drawing so we all know what great book we can read next

I am planning on introducing this as a competition for students in Grades 3-4 to be done at lunch in the library, one entry per student to be entered. If you decide to run this at your school I would love to hear how it goes.

The guide and a postcard template is available for download.

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/07/Postcard-from-a-book-12vojpj-1wjwoeq.pdf” width=”50%” height=”300px” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/07/postcard_template-1rk2ase-27g7fqt.pdf” width=”50%” height=”300px” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

by School Library Owl

Missing Book Characters

I am looking forward to Term 3 to share and explore the Children’s Book Week Short list books and exploring the theme Escape to Everywhere. A few weeks ago I wrote about a rabbit visiting the school library and a missing rabbit poster I spotted which inspired an idea! This idea has now come to a reality and we will be promoting a Missing Book Character poster competition for students in P-2.

Steps to promote this activity:

  • Promote Children’s Book Week – Escape to Everywhere to the school community
  • Introduce the Missing Book Character Poster to students in the selected grade(s)
  • Instruct students to select a book they have read and enjoyed
  • Follow the writing format Heading – Missing; Name of character; Last seen – choose a place in the book the character visits – a setting, Likes – think about what the character likes; If found – child’s name and class
  • Provide copies of the template – available for download below

I am planning on introducing this as a competition for students in P-2 to be done at lunch in the library, one entry per student to be entered. If you decide to run this at your school I would love to hear how it goes.

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/06/Missing-Book-Character-Guidelines-154qliy-1bxnyju.pdf” width=”50%” height=”300px” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/06/Missing-Template-18z0j4a-29w98jp.docx” width=”70%” height=”200px” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

by School Library Owl

Book Week – Escape to Everywhere QR Code Treasure Hunt

Inspired by a QR Code Treasure Hunt at EduTECH, with the prize a new car (no I did not win even though I spent time hunting for codes) I have created a Book Week – Escape to Everywhere QR Code Treasure Hunt linked to the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Shortlist Younger Readers and Picture Book books.

Sample

This Treasure Hunt is aimed at Years 3-6 and due to students needing to know a little bit about each book, it would take a few lessons. Students will need a QR Code reader to scan the codes.

To set this task up I suggest the following:

  • Introduce/read the CBCA Shortlist Younger Readers and Picture Books
  • Print, cut out and stick the QR codes around the library or school (do not cut off the header or question numbers)
  • Print out the answer sheets for each student
  • Introduce the task, demonstrate how to scan and fill in the answer sheet
  • Plan when students can do the Treasure Hunt and for how long it will run
  • Have a special box for the answer sheets (one for Younger Readers and one for Picture Books)
  • Draw an answer sheet from the box, the first one with the correct answers wins a prize

I would like to thank The PE Geek who’s guide How to make a QR Treasure Hunt provided a step by step guide and link to Classtools.net QR Treasure Hunt Generator which enabled me to create this QR Treasure Hunt.

by School Library Owl

Missing Rabbit inspiration for Book Week

Earlier this week a Year 4 class entered the library extra quietly with a new class member – a rabbit. The gorgeous rabbit had been found on the road outside the school, lucky for him he was promptly adopted by Year 4 and spent the day at school. During his library visit he was very inquisitive and wondered around the library checking out each nook and cranny. The next few days this delightful rabbit spent his time resting at the teacher’s home.

This morning while walking my dog I stopped to read a missing rabbit sign, well it seemed to me this must be the lost rabbit at school – it does have white and caramel patches, it ate fruit and vegetables but I am not sure if banana was on the menu. Shame the lesson did not involve Latin and Jazz music – it would have been something extra special. I forwarded the information to the teacher who is taking care of the rabbit.

Besides all that excitement of a rabbit in the school library, this superb missing poster has provided me with the inspiration to run a competition for Children’s Book Week. The Book Week theme is ‘Escape to Everywhere’ the task will be to create a missing poster for a book character that has escaped from their book. A few days ago I was lost for ideas, after a visit to Tristan Bancks Book Week 2017 ideas post and this crafty poster I am starting to set the scene for another exciting Children’s Book Week in 2017.

It turns out the school rabbit is male and now lives with the Year 4 teacher who has informed me Mrs Lettuce was found – the Vet knew Mrs Lettuce was lost and assured her that she was found and safe back home.

by School Library Owl

Story Elements – Read, Think, Collaborate, Create

Diorama based on the book Perfect by Danny Parker

This post showcases the amazing dioramas Year 2 created for the CBCA Shortlist Early Childhood Books.

In summary, after reading each of the shortlist books small groups worked on specific questions related to elements of the story:

  • Who is the main character? Are they human, an animal or an imagined character?
  • Are there supporting characters? Are they human, an animal or imagined characters?
  • Where is the story set? Is the setting realistic, magical, set in the past, present time or future?
  • Identify a message or a lesson from the story.
  • Identify a symbol (object, action, or expression) in the story.
  • The story made a connection with me, it made me think about…

Once we had finalised the reading and summarising lessons students were placed in small groups and provided with a shortlisted book to focus on. The first task was to answer questions about the book and then allocate a job for each student before they could start with the design and construction of the dioramas each group had a conference to ensure all were on task and had appropriate roles. A diorama guide planning sheet was used to help plan work. To make life easier (I had four Year 2 classes complete this activity, 24 dioramas in total) I purchased diorama boxes from Clever Patch. Crepe and tissue paper, cellophane, pipe cleaners, glue are required, as are pencils and textas, watercolour paints – whatever you have in supply will work, a glue gun was very handy (teacher use only).

Below are work in progress samples and completed dioramas.

Additional information can be found in the lesson sequence. The response and planning sheets will help guide students through the stories and plan their dioramas.

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/01/Early-Childhood-Shortlist-Story-elements-2hopugt-1pdbd0c.docx” width=”70%” height=”200px” download=”all” viewer=”google” ]

[embeddoc url=”https://libraryowl.edublogs.org/files/2017/01/Examining-picture-books-response-sheet-16nbstw-29f11kq.docx” width=”70%” height=”200px” download=”all” viewer=”google” cache=”off”]

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by School Library Owl

Read, Step Inside, Create

Step Inside ‘Flight’ by Nadia Wheatley

In this post I would like to share how Year 4 explored the Children’s Book Council of Australia shortlist Picture books. Each book was read and responded to using the Step Inside Visible Thinking Routine, for our purpose we stepped inside the main character. The Step Inside routine focuses on ‘getting inside viewpoints’ using three core questions to guide students:

  1. What can the person or thing perceive?
  2. What might the person or thing know about or believe?
  3. What might the person or thing care about?

Source: Visible Thinking Step Inside: Perceive, Know about, Care about

Sharing each picture with the class promoted Children’s Book Week and provided the students with the opportunity to compare and review a superb selection of sophisticated picture books. As some of the books were available though Story Box Library it was wonderful to have the story read to us and view the illustrations on the IWB.

By repetitively using the routine for the six picture books it became evident that students were able to provide deeper responses. Once we had reviewed each book students selected one of the books to respond to in more depth using illustration, written response and technology. Continue reading →