Yesterday, our school participated in ALIA’s National Simultaneous Storytime. Each Stage gathered in groups around the school at 11am (simultaneously with schools all over Australia) to share the picture book, The Brothers Quibble by Aaron Blabey!
The Brothers Quibble
The Brothers Quibble [Auslan version]
Aaron Blabey – Picture book maker [Story Box Library]
Our previous links are HERE.
Each year, our school’s community (K-6, and often the preschool) has participated in the annual ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime. Each Stage gathers in groups around the school and the library to read a specified picture book together at 11am, simultaneously with schools all over Australia.
This year’s book is The Brothers Quibble by Aaron Blabey! The event occurs on Wednesday 27th May.
A message from Aaron Blabey NSS 2015 author
The Brothers Quibble read by author Aaron Blabey [Story Box Library]
On Sunday, the choir attended the Celebration Concert at Sydney Town Hall.
During the evening meal break, we visited the David Jones’ Christmas windows, this year based upon a new picture book, especially commissioned from Ursula Dubosarsky and illustrated by Sue deGennaro.
Click HERE to see a slideshow.
Christmas windows – Reindeer’s Christmas surprise
One more elephant squeezes in!
Here’s a great book trailer for the picture book:
The elephant’s child
UPDATE:
Just before 11.00 this morning, the school library at Penrith Public School was invaded by a herd of tiny elephants, to help celebrate National Simultaneous Storytime 2014:
Class 3/4L recently had an extra session in the school library, so we decided to create a digital slideshow, inspired by the powerful cover art of the new picture book, One red shoe, by Karin Gruss & Tobias Krejtschi (Wikins Farago, 2014). The book, set in the war-torn Gaza Strip, features black and white illustrations through, with the dramatic use of spot colour on a US-style, Chuck Taylor All-Stars red canvas shoe, to persuade the readers and viewers with symbolism.
Surrounded by RED
The resulting, jointly-constructed text of this digital slideshow, created during a Circle Time brainstorming session, is quite reminiscent of the colour poems featured in the now-classic book, Hailstones and halibut bones by Mary O’Neill (1961), although the students were not exposed to that particular work. Yet. Red objects featured in the images came mainly from the school library environment, but also a few from my personal digital albums.
Download free Teachers’ notes for One red shoe.
Gingerbread house from 2010, made by Ms Stockton’s mother!
Two versions of Grimm’s fairytale of Hansel and Gretel will be used this week with Stage 1 and Early Stage 1 students. Picture books are by Tony Ross (from Arrow, 1989) and Lucy M George & Rachel Swirles (Koala, 2010).
A school made resource, a digital slideshow in PowerPoint from 2010, will also be used: Handsome & Gentle, a fractured fairy tale by Class 2FR, based on “Hansel & Gretel”.
Today, our whole school participated in the annual ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime with a reading of Nick Bland’s “The very cranky bear”.
The hearing support unit used a Youtube presentation in Auslan. It was so well done that, after I’d read the book to the Stage 1 group who’d used the school library as their venue today, we decided to play the Auslan performance as well.
National Simultaneous Storytime is an eagerly-anticipated annual event!
“The very cranky bear” by Nick Bland
I saw these at Christmas, but the picture book has been announced as this year’s ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime title. Just had to have me a Cranky Bear. Found him today in Dymocks, in the CBD.
See you on 23rd May, Cranky Bear!
The resident library puppets greet the Cranky Bear.
To help us celebrate Children’s Book Week, award-winning illustrator Frané Lessac came to talk about her career with students in K-2. We had prepared for her visit by looking at several of her picture books, including “Simpson and his donkey”, which was written by her husband, author Mark Greenwood.
Frané enthralled us with anecdotes about the pet monkey she had as a child in New Jersey, USA, and her time living on a tiny island which was almost totally destroyed when its volcano erupted. She painted a picture of Duffy, Simpson’s donkey, and showed a slideshow of her other picture books, including several about Australian bushrangers.
We had a great time! Thank you, Frané – and Lateral Learning!
Frané’s volcano
Frané completed artwork of Duffy
Above: Frané’s pet cat usually drinks the contents of her paint-water cup, which is one reason she tries to always use non toxic paints, but her cat lives in Fremantle, Western Australia. (Maybe we could sell this exclusive souvenir on eBay?)
