Book Week!

In the last few weeks I've been hearing friends discussing Book Week which is an annual initiative of the Children's Book Council ofAustralia and the aim of this organisation is to promote  the enjoyment and engagement of children with Literature. At various levels in the Community, it is a week of activities promoting children's literature...most families become involved at the school, daycare, kindergarten  levels and it was this involvement that my friends were discussing...and in particular the costumes that have become part of the week's celebration. Apparently it can be a stressful time for mums, aunts, grandmas etc who have been put to work making a costume...one friend informed me that the standards and expectations of these costumes have grown exponentially from her  early memories of Book Week. 

Well in my occasional series of posts that look back at my time/career in the classroom, I am going back to Book Week 1999. 

I was team teaching with Nola on Year 1. We decided that we would visit a local Costume Hire store in our lunch break one day (yes a free lunch break; it did happen once upon a time!) and check out outfits. Hmmm, most of the costumes were in tiny sizes and we were starting to get a bit concerned about whether we would find anything suitable to wear as a character from a children's book....then Nola found the very loose witch costume. Our Year 1 class loved a book called 'Witch, Witch, Come to my Party?', so one costume had been found.

Then I found a loose nun's outfit, but the problem was, what children's book had a nun as a character?  Nola knew one! Miss Clavell in the Madeline books! So we both had costumes which we booked to collect the day before the dress up day at school. 

The photo was taken in the staffroom at morning tea...

And aren't I very pious there with my fruit for morning tea, ignoring the plates of cakes! Lol

Some background...one of the Year 1 girls would not come near Nola for the whole 2 sessions that we stayed in costume...she wouldn't believe that it was Nola under that makeup. That little girl is still in touch with me and there don't seem to be any long term ill  effects of being scared that day! Lol. 

At lunch time Nola and I walked out of the school grounds to the local shops just so Nola could buy some lunch...needless to say we did get tooted at a bit by cars on busy Kelvin Grove Rd. 

The wonders of the Internet...here is a reading of the Witch Witch book...I'd forgotten how much I liked this book as it really entranced the children!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UYXQj_bMDm8

Book Week...

Here in Australia, we are currently in 'Book Week', which this year runs from August 17-23. This event is run by the Children's Book Council of Australia and each year this group gives out awards to writers and illustrators of children's literature and of course, promotes Australian authors.

Now the reason why I know all this, is because schools and public libraries always use this week as an excuse to provide lots of fun activities. As a classroom teacher, I would be urged by the teacher librarian to organise activities ( there was always a theme for Book Week) within my classroom and to also join in whole of school fun activities as well.

One of my postings was at Kelvin Grove, and that school really knew how to have fun in Book Week! Staff and students would be encouraged each year to dress up as a favourite book character. So how about I show you some photos from Book Week 2000...
I was teaching the 1/2 composite class and this class loved a book, 'Mr Biffy's Battle', which was written by Richard Tulloch, an Australian author. Mr Biffy was a busker clown who was a bit upset when a female clown, 'Fiona the Great' stole his audience in the town square.

I discovered this book when I saw Richard Tulloch read the story at the 'Out of the Box' Festival. He read from the original storyboards that had the original illustrations which were on very large sheets of paper/card

So for Book Week in 2000 I decided to dress up as Mr Biffy, and my student teacher Andrea, offered to dress up as Fiona the Great. Nola, the Year 1 teacher did our make up...

Presenting, Mr Biffy and Fiona the Great, Brisbane style!

The wig and clown hat were hired from a local costume hire shop... Andrea lent me her tweed jacket and I carried a small suitcase that was actually a picnic set

Luckily I wasn't called upon to do acrobatics or magic like the real Mr Biffy...I just had to walk around a bit...lol

{The story behind the photo doesn't end there though...straight after our festivities, I had to attend a meeting at the university, a 5 minute walk from our school campus. I had no time to remove makeup or change back into street clothes, so I attended the meeting as Mr Biffy. I was representing our school at a meeting with faculty staff, in particular QUT's School of Early Childhood. I felt so uncomfortable but the uni staff were impressed that staff would dress up...so thought our curriculum mirrored what they thought it should be. whew! lol)

That day, my friend Sue dressed up as one of Roahl Dahl's nastier characters, Miss Trunchbull from his book, Matilda. Sue found this photo when I asked if she still had photos from this day...

Words fail me...lol But this Year 6 class didn't seem very frightened of the awful Miss Trunchbull!

So I wonder what is happening this year in schools and public libraries...hopefully all participants will have as much fun as we used to :-)
As a child I loved learning things from books...now of course, I use Google. Having said that, I love this picture and caption!

Even though it seems to suggest that I may be 'prehistoric'! lol