15th May International Day of Families 15th - 21st May National Families Week

Each year, over a hundred thousand people and hundreds of organisations celebrate National Families Week, Australia’s annual celebration of families.

National Families Week has been run by Families Australia, with Australian Government support, every year since 2003.

National Families Week is a time to celebrate with family, make contact with extended family and friends, and share in the enjoyment of family activities within the wider community. It is a time to celebrate the meaning of family and to make the most of family life.

National Families Week is held between 15 and 21 May to coincide with the United Nations International Day of Families which is on the 15th May. The United Nations General Assembly, in its resolution 47/237 of 20 September 1993, proclaimed that 15 May of every year shall be observed as the International Day of Families.

The United Nations states that “this annual observance reflects the importance which the international community attaches to families as basic units of society as well as its concern regarding their situation around the world..."

Over the time I have been teaching, the structure of the family unit has changed greatly, but family is still an important constant in children's lives. The picture books available for young children now reflect this well. Look for these which are general in nature, not specific. There are some very good books where the family has two mothers, two fathers, an extended family household etc, but these are not listed here.

• The Family Book by Todd Parr

• The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman & Ros Asquith

• Who is in My Family? by Robie H. Harris & Nadine Bernard Westcott

• A  Family is a Family is a Family by Sara O'Leary & Qin Leng

• Love Makes a Family by Sophie Beer

• Family Tree by Josh Pyke & Ronojoy Ghosh                               

• All About Families by Felicity Brooks & Mar Ferrero

• We Are Family  by Patricia Hegarty & Ryan Wheatcroft

• Family Forest  by Kim Kane & Lucia Masciullo

• Isla's Family Tree by Katrina McKelvey & Prue Pittock

• Big Book of Families by Catherine & Laurence Anholt

What better way is there to celebrate Families Week than to read together as a family? Any books, not books about other people's families but ones you enjoy!

SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

Goal 16 Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and  inclusive institutions at all levels.

The number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 70 million in 2018, the highest level recorded by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) in almost 70 years. 

Choose a book from here.

Where to start here? Peace, Justice or Institutions? Do students realise there is more to 'peace' than 'silence and no fighting'? Do they know what 'justice' is and when it is needed? Do they realise a school is an 'institution'? Do they understand what makes someone a refugee? All very big questions when you are under eight years old?

Maybe a good place to start with very young children is to look at the rights of a child and there are several picture books that you can use for this. In fact this could be a good place to start all the reading on the Sustainable Development Goals as there is no rule that says you have to start at Goal 1.

Our library has 

• I Have the Right to be a Child by Alain Serres and Aurelia Fronty

• We Are All Born Free by Amnesty International 

• For Every Child  by UNICEF

If you don't have these there is a short film clip that is good called 

I Have the Right to be a Child

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOsq5MVXZzk

I would then read a book about a refugee child who is dealing with a situation which means that some of his/her rights have been denied. Fortunately, now there are so many really good picture books to choose from for this age group. You could use any of these to ask what right is the child being denied and /or how is this child being shown kindness or given hope?

• My Name is Not Refuge by Kate Milner

• Hello! a Counting Book of Kindnesses by Hollis Kurman and Stephane Barroux

• The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman and Karin Littlewood

• A Child's Garden by Michael Foreman

And if you feel that your students are troubled by this, finish on a high note with 

Good People Everwhere by Lynea Gillen and Kristina Swarner.

Here's the blurb:

A colorful picture book that will warm the hearts of children and adults alike, each of its pages contain endearing examples and vibrant illustrations to inspire children to grow into grateful, caring, and giving people. It provides a wonderful way to calm children before sleep, ease their fears, and help them develop an appreciation for good work. Also included are activity pages to help children practice skills for creating gratitude, compassion, and beauty in daily life. 

From the booklet:

Ask • Do you think you are free? What makes you think that?

 

• We read...

• This story made me think that being free and safe means...

 

10th October World Mental Health Day

This week is Mental Health Week. Yesterday was World Mental Health Day and mental health is certainly something that teachers need to be more aware of than we were in the past. Every class has children who struggle with anxiety, who worry excessively, who have anger issues and who appear especially despondent or unengaged, but the good thing is that because teachers now worry about emotional intelligence as well as academic and social intelligences, they plan for the teaching of it and have much better protocols for identifying and remedying these concerns.

Teachers program for and conduct Circle Time in their classrooms. They encourage students to talk about their feelings, to express their feelings through play, drama and art. They read and discuss wonderful stories that highlight feelings and strategies for overcoming feelings.

In the last couple of years four books have been published about feelings which allow for children to understand that everyone feels a gambit of emotions and that this is normal. These are:




















* Feelings: Inside My Heart and in My Head...
 by Libby Walden and Richard Jones.
* In My Heart A Book of Feelings  by Jo Witek
* The Great Big Book of Feelings by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith
* A Book of Feelings by Amanda McCardie and Salvatore Rubbino


While these are certainly not the only books that may be useful, these do cover more than one feeling in one book. There is a myriad of purpose written series about emotions with one emotion per book.

With the young children I teach I like to look at the expressions a fish can have in Mies Van Hout's illustrations in her book Happy and then discuss the emotion illustrated by connecting it back to themselves and when they have felt this way.


Another approach is to read a picture book where a character is having a particularly sad time and look at what happens to the character before discussing this situation. Two recent books that do this are:
* Mr Huff by Anna Walker,    and
* Willy and the Cloud by Anthony Browne.


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5th August Christina Balit (1961)

I know it isn't the 5th August, but as a result of Momo's comment on my last entry I tried to come up with my list of top ten illustrators and came up with top 9 fairly quickly and then couldn't decide about who to put as number 10. I had about 10 on my list to choose from for that spot and British illustrator, Christina Balit was one of those ten. When I started reading up on her I learned that her birthday was 5th August and that I had not already included her on my calendar. Thus, this entry. Our library has many of Christina's books...  Atlantis, Hercules and Odysseus  are well used by Year 2 when they do their unit on Greek Mythology. The ones about the solar system are used by Year 1 when they do a unit on Space. Many of these are written by astronomer, Jacqueline Mitton. The Studies of Religion teacher often borrows bible stories, many written by Mary Hoffman, Lois Rock and Mary Joslin. I have a lovely ceramic plate based on one of her illustrations in My Sister Shahrazad that a parent at school did for me because she loved that book. Whatever Christina chooses to illustrate, her style is distinctive, colourful, detailed and memorable. Escape From Pompeii and Atlantis: the Legend of a Lost City, two of my favourites, both written and illustrated by Christina are a good place to start if you don't know her work.

5th June Caroline Binch (1947) World Environment Day

Caroline Binch is a British author illustrator who is probably best known in my library because of her illustrations for Mary Hoffman's series of books about Grace, a young girl whose mother and grandmother are from Trinidad. She loves stories and has a flair for dramatic play. Caroline likes to illustrate children from Carribean and African families, thus giving young readers an insight into the lives of children who look different from themselves. On her website Caroline explains why when she says that she gets 'inspiration from the people and places around her, and hopes that her stories and pictures will stop and make people think of the world around them (and to see the positives in life instead of the negatives).'

There are always so many books that could be recommended for World Environment Day, but two recent additions to the library that are ideal are from a new series about Maggie and Rose, by Maggie Bolger. Maggie and Rose are two friends who feature with Oscar and Bentley as well, in hours of creative environmental fun. In This Book is Totally Rubbish the children use recycled objects to create art and in This Book Totally Makes Things Grow they grow things and discover there is more to soil than mud pies.

23rd June

I haven't got a birthday listed for today so instead I need to tell you about a book that I shared with my Year 1 classes today. What a huge success it was! The book was Lousy Rotten Stinkin' Grapes by Margie Palatini and Barry Moser. I don't have either of their birthdays so I can't feature it at another time. As well as its predictable plot this wonderful story which supports the sour grape fable is humorous, has very rich language and vocabulary, has characters with distinct voices and personalities, expressive dialogue, onomatopoeia, repetition and illustrations that show the characters personalities and mannerisms so acutely. Yes, a perfect book. The children laughed as I hammed up the fox's dialogue, joined in with the 'voila' with exaggerated hand gestures, giggled as the beaver said 'indeedy', commented upon the number of different words used for 'friend', asked about 'tantalizing' and 'scooch' and just loved the facial expressions on the porcupine and bear in particular. This book would make a wonderful reader's theatre script. I have a Folkmanis fox puppet and the children had fun giving fox monologues about his plan and how it was going to work. This is a 'must buy' book if you haven't got it.

Now on a much more serious note, the refugee story that I want to highlight today is The Colour of Home by Mary Hoffman and Karin Littlewood. This is the story of Hassan, a small boy from Somalia who starts a new school in a new language in England. The school environment is so different from his outdoor classes in hot, sunny Somalia. Hassan does a painting that leads his teacher to worry about Hassan and thus find a way to learn more about Hassan's experiences in Somalia and his trip to England. This story has a positive message about resettlement and being cared for in a new home.

20th April Mary Hoffman (1945)

Mary Hoffman is a very versatile author. I love Amazing Grace and the way it tackles sexism and racism sensitively. Grace is a character, that my children readily warm to, once I share the book with them. They will then borrow Grace and Her Family and Princess Grace for themselves. The children I teach have very little experience of children with very dark skin. Unlike teaching in America or Britain, in suburban Sydney where school is they would rarely meet a child who looks like Grace. All the more reason they need to read books such as those by Mary Hoffman.

Another book by Mary, The Colour of Home looks at an Islamic refugee family and what it is like for the family starting life in a new place. Once again not an experience my children have first-hand, but reading this story and sharing Hassan's experiences elicits many questions and much discussion.

Today while looking on the shelves for other books by Mary Hoffman, I was reminded that another book that I really like, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is also written by her. Like the Leonardo book I wrote about, this is a fictionalised account of Callimachus, the Royal Librarian of Alexandria who takes his apprentice, Philip on a journey around the Mediterranean to visit the seven wonders. It includes factual information embedded in the narrative, but together with M.P. Robertson's illustrations it makes an awe-inspiring read for children who are used to travelling by plane and looking at modern buildings.