The book rappers at Kempsey West PS created a digital story about their library teddy, named Billy Shakesbear, on Photo Peach. They loosely based it upon the CBCA-nominated picture book, “My uncle’s donkey” by Tohby Riddle.
Tag Archives: teddy bears
There’s a bear in there!
Yesterday I found the perfect stuffed polar bear I need for a school project (for the book rap on the children’s picture book “Bear and Chook”) at a local Salvation Army “Salvo’s” charity store. I’ve been pricing toy polar bears all week, and this one was just $2. He was actually dressed for Christmas (in July?), but even his garments are worth way more than $2! (Boy, am I glad I didn’t buy the one I saw for $130 during the week!)
Even better, Bear’s the perfect scale for my battery-operated “Choke-a-Chicken” (below), who’ll be standing in for the character of Chook. (Remember “Choke-a-Chicken”? A real novelty hit several Christmases ago. He does the Chicken Dance, and squawks in agony when you pick him up by the neck!)
It was the most amazing day. I was dropped off at the station, to head into Darling Harbour and have lunch with friends at the Meat and Wine Co. I had just missed a train, so I headed off to the shops for a while, and then decided to check out the stuffed toy section of the “Salvo’s” charity store on High Street. Sure enough, there was Bear, waiting on a couch and looking resplendent in his Christmas outfit. You could have knocked me over with a feather when the woman serving me said, “$2 please”!
Of course, I then had to take Bear into the city with me – and pay an extra 95 cents for a recyclable carry-bag – but who cares when I’d just saved $128! I also managed to miss the next fast train into the city, which was also frustrating, but again – who cares when I’d just saved $127.05!
Introducing “Bear and Chook by the sea”: Emma Quay, illustrator, and Lisa Shanahan, author.
The “Bear and Chook” series book rap commences in Term 4 for students in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1! Watch this space!
Cassandra Golds – author visit
I’ve reported on my school’s very successful reading picnics before: eg. here and here, and today we scored another home run!
Recently, I happened upon a revelation that children’s author, and former member of The School Magazine‘s editorial team, Cassandra Golds, had been a former student of our school, so I went about inviting her to be our special guest at today’s reading picnic. Theme: Teddy bears. Dress: Pyjamas. What fun!
Cassandra was an excellent speaker, and comes with my highest recommendation. The students were abuzz for weeks before her visit. I fired up the kids quite a bit and they were very excited to meet a successful ex-student.
The Stage 1 students had plenty of questions about “where the library used to be” and Cassandra’s time at the school.
Our Stage 2 students are midway through “The mostly true story of Matthew & Trim”, a graphic novel illustrated by Stephen Axelson, originally serialised over two years when Cassandra was still at The School Magazine. Our students are working on the HSIE unit on Australia in class, so the graphic novel is working so well in library lessons. I’m practically doing Geoffrey McSkimming-style stand-up orations while reading them the story! (I do exaggerate, but it’s been fun.) I had the students enthralled with Trim “the demon cat” when explorer Matthew Flinders and Trim were in England. I’m looking forward to the arrival of the dodos myself. (Yes, Mauritian dodos. It’s complicated.)
The Stage 3 students were fortunate to be the very first audience to hear a rather spooky chapter from Cassandra’s new book, “The museum of Mary Child”. They were already familiar with Cassandra’s other novel titles, “Michael and the secret war” and “Clair-de-lune”.
Our now-traditional reading picnics are usually in that last hour of the day, after the lunch break. We usually gather at the podium, talk about the theme. In the past we’ve had a recipe theme, building anniversary trivia, spring, multicultural, etc – then we break up into smaller groups, or students take their parents to shady spots around the grounds, until we again gather to sum up.
At last year’s September picnic, I brought out a graph to record our Premier’s Reading Challenge results. This year we added a new annual tally and Cassandra presented certificates to the school from MSN Readathon, and another celebrating the students’ success with the PRC – up 2% on last year’s results to 80%.
We cycled groups through the hall to meet Cassandra in more intimate groups, and the afternoon was over before we knew it. A fabulous whole-community focus on literacy and the love of reading!
A big thank you to Cassandra Golds! And to teacher Kerrie Mead, who organises the picnics and does a great job promoting them in innovative ways.
An aside: Cassandra and I realised that the whole of our planning for her visit had been conducted online via Facebook. Welcome to Web 2.0!
