Johnson House
Book Week 2024
Story by the Johnson House team
This week has been all about books in Johnson House as we celebrate Book Week 2024! We all headed out onto the lawn where a number of our centres had set up some very exciting learning stations. We in Johnson House had the opportunity to spend time at each of them.
The ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ station had several things that immediately took our attention—a book, puppets, a painting, a bushy backdrop and a large vine-printed mat to welcome us.
First, we looked at the book ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, and discussed the author who was incredibly, also the story’s illustrator! We spoke about what art mediums he might have used to create the illustrations. Once we had finished discussing the story, children were invited to incorporate puppetry into the retelling of the story as a group. It was wonderful to see the children’s knowledge of drama and storytelling, which has been part of our current exploration of drama, puppetry and reenacting story narratives.
Other Book Week stations included a dinosaur area, a station exploring space-themed books, complete with its own rocket ship, and spaces linked to current areas of focus in the program such as feelings and imaginative play. We also had the opportunity to revisit some of our favourite books including ‘Zog’, ‘Room on the Broom’ and ‘ Tiddler’, by Julia Donaldson.
Picture books facilitate the development of children’s early reading skills. As they share stories, children are building their understanding, fluency, vocabulary and other foundational literacy skills. The imagery in the books’ illustrations helps to bring the pages to life, serving as a road map for the story. Children also learn concepts around the ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’ of a story.
Gathering in small groups on our big lawn area was a great opportunity for the children to embrace a range of literacy experiences in a fun and creative way
Book Week, Cooking and Wellbeing!
Story by Educator Sarah
This week in Johnson House Waratah room we extended our curriculum, linking Book Week to our cooking and wellbeing learning journey.
We started to read the book ‘The Three little Pigs’. This brought up conversations around mathematics, creativity and how to use our imaginations to create the houses for the pigs with food. We also discussed helping others, being included and our basic rights like shelter, food and belonging.
Taking these discussions further to encourage the children’s critical thought processes, the children were provided a range of food such as crackers, fruit, veggies, cheese, sliced bread and butter. With some helpful tips on how to connect and construct their houses with the food, the children set to work. It was wonderful watching how the children carefully worked on their designs with persistence and determination, adding a range of foods and exploring and experimenting with the mathematical concepts of 2D and 3D shapes. There was a lot of trial and error, experimenting and testing using engineering to create designs.
The designing and creating process embedded creativity, language, literacy and STEM. It was then decided to extend our creativity by making puppets, and we were then ready to be directors and to make our own version of the story of The Three Little Pigs. The children used a range of craft materials to make their puppets to re-enact the story.
It was evident in this wonderful collaborative learning that pure excitement and determination encouraged fun amongst the children. It was one of the many examples of the children and educators experiencing the wonder, magic, and delight of Book Week, and how literacy and books take us on a creative, imaginative adventure of fun, excitement and learning.
Family Day Care Sydney Wide
Story by Educator Support Officer Alix
This winter our educational leadership team at Family Day Care Sydney Wide have been focussing on unpacking the Early Years Learning Framework’s (EYLF) new principle of ‘Sustainability’, and what this can look like in everyday practice with children.
A great example of how this can be demonstrated was shared with us during Book Week at Ilana’s Family Day Care in Kingsford. Instead of children coming to care dressed in newly purchased costumes for Book Week, the challenge was posed for the children to come in more environmentally friendly attire as their favourite characters from a book of their choice. This could be done by either using clothing, materials or resources sourced from items found around the house or in op-shops or made using materials that would otherwise be disposed of or recycled.
One family went all out and created a brilliant dinosaur costume, made from a cardboard box, to accompany their child’s favourite book, ‘The Dinosaur Who Lost its Roar’, by Russell Punter. Not only did this experience model sustainable practices for the children, but it was also an exemplary way of involving families in children’s learning to build that stronger connection between home and care and make learning that much more meaningful.
