16th November World Idea Day

World Idea Day was founded because ideas are powerful tools to do good things in the world. Without ideas, we would be neither creative nor innovative. In that regard, progress would simply not happen. However, ideas have to be realised and concretised in the real world! That's when action comes in. While ideas are our guides, action is what creates change!

Read about how ideas feature in our thinking, our creativity and play here:

• What Do You Do With an Idea? by Kobi Yamada is such a popular book in our school library that I bought a second copy.  They are always on loan to a teacher and in classrooms.

• Once Upon a Big Idea  by James carter

Provides lots of discussion about ideas and where they might lead.

•  I Have an Idea!  by Herve Tullet

This book is an exploration of the creative process from the hunt for an idea to the frustration of choosing the wrong side, to the exhilaration of having just the right idea.

• The Most Magnificent Idea  by Ashley Spires

The girl in this story, with her dog at her side, loves to make things. Her brain, she says, is an "idea machine," so full of ideas that she can hardly keep up. But then one day... it isn't. All of a sudden, the girl can't come up with a single idea for what to make. She tries everything: brainstorming, gathering new supplies, even jumping up and down on one foot to shake an idea loose. But, nothing. The girl realises, with no ideas taking up space in her brain, it's filling with sad instead.                          

• The Very Important Idea  by Emma Dodson

This amusing picture book tells the story of a rat and a cat, and explores the nature of ideas. Where do they come from and how are they rated? A good idea for a cat is not necessarily the same thing as a good idea for a rat...as Rat discovers not long after being employed by Mr Fat Cat.

10th November Carl Sagan Day

November 10th is Carl Sagan Day, marking the birthday of this incredible American astronomer, scientist, and author best known for his research on extraterrestrial life.

When Carl Sagan was a young boy he went to the 1939 World's Fair and his life was changed forever. From that day on he never stopped marveling at the universe and seeking to understand it better. Star Stuff follows Carl from his days star gazing from the bedroom window of his Brooklyn apartment, through his love of speculative science fiction novels, to his work as an internationally renowned scientist who worked on the Voyager missions exploring the farthest reaches of space. This book introduces the beloved man who brought the mystery of the cosmos into homes across America to a new generation of dreamers and star gazers.

12th November Michael Rosen Day

On  Tuesday 12th  November enjoy a day of poetry, stories and creativity to celebrate 50 years since Michael Rosen's first book.

We all know We're Going on a Bear Hunt , but there are so many other resources to explore. I had fun with Year 2 recently reading and hearing Michael's poetry, but next week I plan to share with other grades too.

I have put out a display of Michael's books in readiness and am hoping many of them will be borrowed. There is something for everyone.

Popular with the preschool and illustrated by Robert Sterling

There's the books about Rover that are illustrated by Neal Layton

There's the picture books illustrated by Bob Graham

The books inspired by nursery rhymes and fairytales illustrated by Nick Sharratt and David Melling

 

Short novels for beginning readers

There's so many really good stand alone picture books:

And of course there's all the poetry anthologies. There's a new one coming in January.

8th November World Radiography Day (X-Ray Day)

World Radiography Day (X-Ray Day) is held each year on November 8th. It marks the birth of X-rays when Professor Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen of the Wuerzburg University accidentally discovered a new type of radiation that can pass through the body in 1895. X-ray is a quick and painless procedure used to produce images of the inside of the body, which can detect bone fractures, tooth problems, cancerous bone tumours, lung problems, among other conditions. This technology was considered a scientific breakthrough and is still the foundation of many medical diagnostic tools.

I last wrote about this day in 2013, so I thought I would probably find a whole lot more books this time. Not so, there's not that many. What we have is borrowed though, often when someone in the family has broken a bone.

Newer books to the library are:

Hold the magic pictures up to the light to discover all kinds of surprises. Discover what's inside a body, what's under the hood of a car and even what's inside a robot! 

Discover nature’s secret world with this amazing collection of X-ray photographs of animals and plants!

Using incredible X-ray techniques, Inside In displays creatures and their natural habitats in a never-before-seen way. Kids will learn the awesome answers to questions like: 

• What does a bee look like under its furry coat? 
• How does a seahorse protect itself with armor and a skeleton? 
• How does a tree frog use its eyes to swallow?

With X-rays, doctors detect problems human eyes can't see. X-rays are a form of invisible radiation. This powerful medical technology helps experts look inside the body and even treat illnesses. But early on, X-rays caused harm too, as people used them without enough protection.

6th November Saxophone Day

You may think that the story of the saxophone begins with Dexter Gordon or Charlie Parker, or on a street corner in New Orleans. It really began in 1840 in Belgium with a young daydreamer named Joseph-Antoine Adolphe Sax-a boy with bad luck but great ideas. The Story of the Saxophone by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome unravels the fascinating history of how Adolphe's once reviled instrument was transported across Europe and Mexico to New Orleans. Follow the saxophone's journey from Adolphe's imagination to the pawn shop window where it caught the eye of musician Sidney Bechet and became the iconic symbol of jazz music it is today. 

6th November is Saxophone Day, which coincides with the birthday of its inventor, Antoine-Joseph ‘Adolphe’ Sax. This Belgian musician conceived the saxophone in 1841, the only instrument created by one single person and the only brass instrument in the woodwind family. Before the saxophone, he created various ‘sax’ brass instruments that fell into oblivion, including the saxtuba, saxotromba, and saxhorn. Today we celebrate the fantastic contribution of the saxophone to music. With time, it became an inherent part of jazz bands, inspiring many songs and dances from classical saxophonist Marcel Mule to the famous jazz musician Charlie Parker.

There are more books than you would think about people who have played the saxophone after its invention. Most of the books are picture book biographies.

5th November Guy Fawkes Night (Bonfire Night)

Guy Fawkes Night is an annual commemoration in Great Britain that is held on November 5th every year. It all began in 1604 when Guy Fawkes, a member of a group of provincial English Catholics, was caught guarding explosives that had been placed beneath the House of Lords. This event is called the Gunpowder Plot, which intended to assassinate the Protestant King James I of England and VI of Scotland and replace him with a Catholic leader. Since then, the day celebrates the king's survival with people lighting bonfires. This day is a thanksgiving for the plot's failure.

When I was a child, here in Australia we also had Bonfire Night, but not on the 5th November. Our parents supervised us around a bonfire while letting of fireworks, but now we are unable to buy fireworks over the shop counter and we need to go to community firework nights. It is much safer. So although Guy Fawkes is not something we celebrate in Australia, we certainly have our share of celebrations that feature bonfires and fireworks and they are always popular.

As a child I learned this verse and I have no idea why. My parents weren't English. Perhaps it was like nursery rhymes and it was part of childhood's oral tradition.

Remember, remember!

The fifth of November,

Gunpowder, treason and plot;

I see no reason

Why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot! 

While reading The Owl Who is Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson to Year 1, I now need to explain so much more to the students in the first chapter where a small boy is building a bonfire in readiness for fireworks and then describe the named kinds of fireworks as students no longer have this knowledge as part of their schema. An old picture book, Barnaby and the Rocket by Lydia Pender and Judy Cowell helps. It shows what it was like in the past for Australian children.

2nd November World Numbat Day

On the first Saturday in November it is  World Numbat Day, a day to show our appreciation for this amazing mammal. It's also a day to encourage action to help conserve these endangered animals. I know it's not the 2nd of November, but I thought I'd written before about Numbat Day so didn't do it on the 2nd and now I realise I haven't and there are some books to explore.

What's a numbat? The Numbat, also called the banded anteater, is a small endangered marsupial animal native to parts of Australia. They are one of the more unusual Australian marsupials because unlike most of other native species they're active during the day, are carnivorous, have an incredibly long tongue and their diet is almost exclusively termites.

Year 2 classes and I have had some very memorable teaching moments while sharing The Two-Hearted Numbat by Indigenous author illustrators, Amberlin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. There is so much to talk about in this book and that conversation makes it easy for the students to identify the theme of the story. They love the illustrations and the glossy paper in the book too.

The Numbat by David Miller is an imaginative tale which challenges readers to wonder what would happen if animals infringed on the lives of humans. This lively picture book introduces young readers to the fragile relationship between humans and animals, as well as strong themes about respecting animal habitats and behaviours, the effect of humans encroaching on the habitats of our native animals and the place of animals in our ever-expanding built world. It too, has amazing illustrations made from paper sculptures.

Then if you look further, your library may have some of these: