29th April World Wish Day

World Wish Day occurs on the 29th April each year and originated because of a seven year old child who was sick with leukaemia wishing for something to happen in 1980. His wish was granted and when people heard about it the Make-A-Wish Foundation was founded. It has become a well-known world-wide children's charity but I am writing about this day because of a request I had from a preschool teacher at the end of last term for books about 'wishing'. She had been talking to her class about wishes and realised that the children didn't really know what a wish was when she asked them what they would wish for during an activity.

There are so many books I could have given her. Narrowing it down to a small number was hard. Most of the picture books with 'wish' in the title have a Christmas setting so I avoided them except for Jane Godwin and Anna Walker's beauty, What Do You Wish For? , and gave her that and these:

• Wish by Roseanne Thong and Elisa Kleven
• I Wish... by Nick Ward
• I Wish For More by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
• The Wish Giver by Roseanne Hawke and Lenore Penner
• The Wish Factory by Chris Riddell
• The Fish Who Could Wish by Korky Paul
• The Wish Tree  by Kyo Maclear and Chris Turnham
• The Wishing Boat by Amanda Tarlau and Chris Saunders



We all make wishes and these wishes differ greatly in magnitude but it was interesting to see that a concept we as adults take for granted was something the three and four year olds at an affluent school needed to be introduced to through planned intervention. The classroom now has a wish tree and they talk about wishes and wishing in their regular discourse. If you have none of the books above buy The Wish Tree  or watch it here. Danielle Davis from the blog This Picture Book Life outlines an accompany activity she has planned for the book here and there are other ideas on the web.

11th November Origami Day

Origami Day was first observed in Japan. It honours the ancient art of creating objects from square pieces of paper.

The origami crane is one of the most recognized origami models around the world.

©bigstockphoto.com/Remains

Origami, which comes from the Japanese words, ori meaning folding, and kami meaning paper, originated in Japan in the 6 century, though for a long period of time the art was preserved for religious ceremonies. By the 17th century, origami had become mainstream in Japanese society and was being used for decorative and ceremonial purposes.

Amazing objects have been made that are indeed works of art, but at school we will be celebrating by making much simpler animals and having the children who are adept at origami teach their peers. When they have made a recognisable animal there is such a sense of achievement. 

We have a large number of books in the craft section of the library which give students ideas about what is possible, but we also have books where origami is central to the story or poetry in the book. Of course we have Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes  in picture book format but there are other picture books as well. See these:

• Newspaper Boy and Origami Girl  and The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army by Michael Foreman

• Origami Heart by Binny

• The Origami Master  by  Nathaniel Lachenmeyer

• Wild Weather  by Thomas Kingsley Troupe (this is one book in a series called Origami Science Adventures)

• Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell George and Lauren Stringer

• The Paper Crane by Molly Bang
• Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells 
• Little Oh by Laura Krauss Melmed
• Tree of Cranes by Allen Say (just perfect for the run-up to Christmas)
• Peace Crane by Sheila Hamanaka
• More-igami by Dori Kieber
• Butterflies for Kiri by Cathryn Falwell
• Float  by Daniel Miyares
• The Fog by Kyo Maclear and Kennard Pak
• Mole and the Newspaper by Laurence Bourguignon

and

• Origami, Poems and Pictures  by The British Museum would make a wonderful present as it comes with the paper and it becomes a family reading, viewing and doing activity.