12th July Paper Bag Day

Millions of people use paper bags every day. Readily recyclable, paper bags have been around for many years.  American inventor, Francis Wolle, received credit for his patent of the first paper bag machine in 1852. Margaret E. Knight became known as “the mother of the grocery bag” after she designed the square, flat bottomed bag and the machine that would fold and paste them in 1870.

Margaret E. Knight invented many things and had 27 patents to her name. Her obituary called her a 'woman Edison',  high praise maybe but not necessary as if you read about her she certainly was a pioneer in a field commonly thought of at the time as a male domain. There is a wonderful picture book biography called Marvellous Mattie by Emily Arnold McCully, which certainly creates some wonderful discussion among my students. Read it for growth mindset, Girls and STEM, to highlight themes of resilience, perseverance and creativity.

If you plan a craft activity or just want to talk about uses for paper bags, read Baghead by Jarrett J Krosoczka.

3rd July Plastic Bag Free Day

There has been so much talk about going without plastic bags that even the five year olds I teach can tell you why we should. We live near the water, so these children spend a lot of time at the beach, on boats and in the water. They know about the damage they cause in the ocean especially to turtles, but it is always a topic that needs revisiting, so when I saw this new book at the bookshop I purchased it for the library. Someone Swallowed Stanley by animal behaviourist and wildlife expert Sarah Roberts reiterates this important message about turtles and plastic bags and it has a child as the wildlife hero. It also has fun illustrations by Hannah Peck who seems to have enjoyed giving all the sea animals anthropomorphic mannerisms. If you are looking for other books about plastic bags see this earlier entry in my blog.

21st May World Meditation Day

This year World Meditation Day is being celebrated today the 21st May. It was Open Day at school with masses of visitors and very hard to keep students focussed. However, I bravely tried out  Meditate With Me and My Magic Breath with a preschool class and was pleasantly surprised. It is a large group of children and they can be quite noisy. We breathed in and out. We scrunched up our bodies, wiggled our fingers and used our magic breath beautifully. I would happily use these two books again.

The library has a large collection of books on mindfulness. See here.

25th May International Tap Dancing Day

Recently, a friend, a fellow-teacher who has taken up dancing classes since she retired told me that as well as the ballet class she was taking, she had decided to do a tap class as well. I thought about how many of the small children I taught went to dancing lessons. We have a large collection of books about ballet, a few on dance but what did we have about tap dancing?  I went looking and found only four.
* Tallulah's Tap Shoes by Marilyn Singer. This lovely picture book is part of a series about Tallulah and her love of dancing.
* The Impossible Shoelaces  by Ed Allen and Nathaniel Ekstrom. Here Caterpillar really wants to learn to tie his shoelaces so that he can tap dance!
* The Tip-Tap Dancing Cat by Joanna Boyle

* Don't Tap-Dance on Your Teacher Book 5 in a series of beginning chapter books Roscoe Riley Rules by Katherine Applegate.

Held annually, International TAP Dancing Day is on the 25th May each year.

24th May Escargot Day

Escargot Day is observed each year on May 24th. This day is in honour of the famous French dish of cooked land snails. Escargot is French for edible snails, an acquired taste that was popular in French restaurants in the past, but not so much now. I couldn't find when Snail Day was celebrated so decided to put together a display of 'snail' books to honour the 24th. The students at my school learn French and we have an abundance of wonderful books which feature snails, so why not?

If you are doing this too, start with these picture books:
• Escargot by Dashka Slater & Sydney Hansen. This is such fun and can be found here on Youtube if you don't have a copy of the book.
• Snails Legs by Damian Harvey and Korky Paul
• Super Snail by Elys Dolan
• Snails Are Just My Speed by Kevin McCloskey
• Snail Trail by Ruth Brown
• The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman
• The Biggest House in the World by Leo Lionni
• Snail and Turtle Are Friends and Snail and Turtle Rainy Days  by Stephen Michael King
• Matisse's Magical Trail by Tim Hopgood and Sam Boughton 
• Snippet the Early Riser by Bethanie Deeney Murguia
• Clementine by Sebastian Loth
• Sylvia  by Christine Sharp


Just a few information books:
• Watch Out Snail! by Gail Hay
• Let's Look at Snails by Michelle Levine
• Snail-Snaily-Snails by Bonnie Bader
' Here are some chapter books worth looking for:
• Snail and Worm by Tina Kugler (this is a series)
• Annie's Snails by Dianne Wolfer
• The Adventurous Snail by Dick King Smith
• Sophie's Snail by Dick King Smith (this is one of six Sophie adventures)
• The Worst Child I Ever Had  by Anne Fine
• The Story of a Snail Who Discovered the Importance of Being Slow by Luis Sepulveda



And for fun look for these two art books
• Snail Trail: A Journey through Modern Art by Jo Saxton
• How the Snail Found It's Colours by Jeong-Yi Kee

18th May International Learn to Swim Day

International Learn to Swim Day is the perfect opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of teaching children to 

International Learn to Swim Day in May is designed to draw attention to the fact that every child needs to know how to swim and it aims to  heighten awareness of the importance of learning to swim and be water-safe.

In Australia we are heading into Winter not Summer.  Though to be fair, many Australian children swim all year round as swimming squads do run through Winter and often occur in indoor pools. Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children.

Teaching children to swim is high on the list of things my parents ask for books on, especially the ones with preschoolers who don't like the water or those of children who are not careful around water. 

Lottie and Walter by Anna Walker  is a new book, but perfect for reading with a child who is reticent about swimming and or giving it a go.  Heather Fell in the Water by Doug MacLeod is perfect for the other extreme. Heather is continually falling in water and her parents decide she will need to wear waterings (floaties) all the time.

Below is a list of books  in the library which will help encourage learning to swim.
Two factual books
* Learning Swimming by Katrin Barth
* Swimming  by Nick Rebman, and then lots of stories where children can see themselves, laugh at others and explore what to do next.

* The Magic Moment  by Niall Breslin
* George Goes Swimming by Nicola Smee
* Peppa Goes Swimming
* Topsy and Tim Learn to Swim by Jean Adamson
* Maisie Learns to Swim by Lucy Cousins
* Edward's First Swimming Party by Rosemary Wells
* Froggy Learns to Swim by Jonathan London
* Grug Learns to Swim  by Ted Prior
* Ruby Learns to Swim by Phillip Gwynne



* A Swim in the Sea by Sue Whiting
* Echidna Jim Went for a Swim by Phil Cummings
* Saturday is Swimming Day by Hyewon Yum
* Little by Little by Amber Stewart
* The Deep End  by Rebecca Patterson

* Clem Always Could by Sarah Watt
* Lollipop and Grandpa Go Swimming by Penelope Harper
* Grandpa's Big Adventure by Paul Newman
* The Deep by Tim Winton
* Mona the Champion by Sonia Holleyman







And some short chapter books to keep the swimmers interested
* Horrid Henry's Swimming Lesson  by Francesca Simon
* The Deep End by Ursula Dubosarsky
* Ella and Olivia Little Lifesavers by Yvette Poshoglian
* Diary of a Super Swimmer by Shamini Flint
* Sporty Kids: Swimming by Felice Arena

4th May International Respect for Chickens Day

I read about this day online and thought how appropriate as it is a subject I have needed to source books on over the years. The preschoolers and Year 2 at school often have eggs in incubators as part of project based learning or a unit of inquiry that studies life cycles.  see my pinterest page for some of the myriad of books on this topic. Year 1 does a unit on fairy tales and to accompany this in the library we look at chicken and fox stereotypes in narratives.

Chickens are common characters in children's stories and they usually behave in common ways so they are easy to study and make generalisations about. The classic Rosie's Walk is well known to most children and because it is humorous they are very willing to come up with adjectives to describe the hen and the fox. It is the perfect book to start with. Then we look at the traditional story Chicken Licken, (also known as Henny Penny and Chicken Little). You must look at the Emberley's Chicken Little. The illustrations and language will make you smile all day. Which adjectives on our lists apply to the chicken and fox here? Then we compare this chicken with the chicken in The Cock the Mouse and the Little Red Hen. The illustrations and language in this story make the stereotypes very obvious and tap into how fairytales are about good versus evil. These stories also allow for discussion of why sometimes the hen dies and sometimes it doesn't and the same with the fox in the second story. The rich vocabulary allows for discussion of why sometimes the fox lives in a den, sometimes a lair or even a cave. Next I look at the story of Chaunticleer from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by using Helen Ward's beautiful The Cockerel and the Fox. From here there are so many other stories where a gullible or enterprising chicken takes on a cunning fox.

See:

 


• Henry and the Fox by Chris Wormell
• Hattie and the Fox by Mem Fox
• Albert and Lila  by Rafik Schami
• A Very Proper Fox by Jan Fearnley
• The Chicken Thief by Beatrice Rodriguez