This week we have celebrated The Children’s Book Council of Australia Book Week.
Each year since 1945 the CBCA has brought children and books together across Australia through CBCA Book Week. During this time schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children's authors and illustrators. Classroom teachers, teacher librarians and public librarians create colourful displays, develop activities, run competitions and tell stories relating to a theme to highlight the importance of reading.
This year, the Book Week theme is ‘CURIOUS CREATURES AND WILD MINDS’. The children in Year 1 Red have been very excited about the shortlisted books and activities, as well as the parade where they (and parents) used their creativity to design wonderful costumes to wear of their favourite book character.
In our class we read the delightful story by Maurice Sendak, ‘WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.’ This book was first released in 1963 and has been a favourite story to many children, parents and Grandparents.
This story is full of rich language and wonderful quotes which stay with the reader long after the book is closed, such as;
"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!”
“Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!”
“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”
The entry to our class has transformed into the main character, Max’s bedroom.
Together, we have created a forest surrounding Max’s bed.
The students have participated in various activities about this book.
With character puppets, they re-told the story with a group of friends.
They designed and created their own ‘Wild Thing’ detailing how it looked and why it is ‘wild’!
We completed a Book Review about the story and rated it out of 10…with most students giving it a high score of 9 or 10!
Kelly Stevens
1RED Classroom Teacher
