Book Week is a magical day, yes it is a day to celebrate the hard work of talented Authors and Illustrators. A day to appreciate the characters they gift us after many creative hours labouring over the birth of a new life albeit a one confined to the page, but it is also a day were we can put aside self and live the life of our heroes of fiction. Today we can talk to animals, follow white rabbits and fly in a blue box to planets normally held captive by time and space, today is magic.

Goldilocks and her three bears (and apple)

Alice in Wonderland

The Eleventh Doctor Who

Pippi Longstocking

The best group shot of the day, Sabi was meant to be in the large gap in the middle but never mind.

One of the books we read was called My Uncle’s Donkey. It is a cute little book with very retro micky mouse style illustrations of a donkey running amuck in the uncles house. The story elicits delightful responses from the children along the lines of “That’s naughty he really shouldn’t be in the fridge, I would never do that!” And “Ahhh now he’s eating the flowers…..aren’t they Vincent Van Gough flowers?” and yes they were, the book is full of little pop culture references that you can explore in greater detail with older children.

I did love the fact that when the book inquired at the end not one of our kids thought it would be a good idea to have the Donkey come and live at their house.

For a craft we used one of the donkey drawings from the book and the starter line My uncle’s donkey……. to create our own donkey scenario using drawing and collage just like the book.

There was of course lots of free play opportunities and it was nice to see the kids inventing their own games.This one involved two sitting people and two standing ones that occasionally ran around the sitting ones like crazy then stood still. I’m not sure what the point was but I’m certain it existed after the amount of planning I witnessed before they started.

The second book we read was called The Tall Man and the Twelve Babies. This book is quirky and funny and delightfully nonsensical with a very tall man living in a very tiny apartment with six baby boys all named Alistair and six baby girls all named Charlene. And to top it off the babies aren’t very well behaved. To make the chaos come alive I hid laminated copies of the twelve babies around the Shed (School/playroom) each one had an action verb written on the back. When one was found the finder had to read the word then we all did the action such as jump, shake, cry……I think by the end of it we all felt the tall man’s pain.  At one point in the story the poor tall man is stuck in a cat flap and pulled in alternative directions by the Alistairs and Charlenes so we played a game of tall Man Tug of War with Charlenes (girls) verses Alistairs(boys). The girls knocked the boys socks off, twice, go girl power!

We finished with a colouring in of the Tall man complete with crazy hair that will be turned into a book mark.

Wet crafting hanging on the line drying oh so nicely when the weathers fine….

A glimpse of the madness involved in feeding so many, this was about half I’ll let you imagine the noise.

The theme for book week this year was One World Many Stories so we had to have a world cake to celebrate. My kids have also been looking at different stories from around the world and decorated the windows with a pulled apart sticker book on national costumes of the world so they felt that they had participated in the theme.

The last book we read, Maudie and Bear, won it’s category and looked just like it had been pulled of the shelves of history. For me this book works best as a one on one with a child where the little one you are reading with can snuggle up on your lap and pour over the delicate illustrations. I fell in love with the illustrations, their unfinished sketchiness and visible pencil lines gave the book an exquisite fragility, like it was merely a passing glimpse into a time gone by and if we weren’t careful we would loose the moment before we truly understood it. They added so much story to the book, filling in the blanks between one carefully succinct line to the next. The title character Maudie however is neither careful nor delicate and is instead the essence of every true child, self focused, hot tempered, excitable and sometimes rude but steadfast bear loves her through it all. by the end of the collection of short stories you just know Maudie with turn out well adjusted, who wouldn’t living with such strong non judging unconditional love.

For the craft for Maudie and the Bear the kids put eyes, nose and ears on and then stuffed a bear I had sewn. I’m hoping they can find the time to learn how to stich up his bottom because the poor bears left here very uncomfortable with their bottoms pined shut.     

They seemed to have fun, I hope they did I loved having them all around.

The Doctor will see you now.

May I introduce, after one mad hour of frantic costuming, Super Girl, Bat Girl, The Green Lantern and The Shadow.

Go on say I did a good job, I need the encouragement.

Yesterday afternoon was this lot’s church kid’s club Super Hero Dress Up Day. Being the organised and decisive family that we are (ha ha) only one of them had any idea of what they would like to be one hour before they were meant to leave.

This brings me to a major chunk of parental advice: Keep anything that has dress up potential. We have an old wardrobe in the garage that is full of funky old clothes, scraps of material and any costumes I’ve made over the years. That way when your darling angel, who was sure they would just go as a fairy till one hour before you leave, starts to go all red and puffy round the eyes and blubbers over a quivering bottom lip that “Fairies aren’t really heroes….and…and….they use magic not super powers….and it’s not what the form said we should dress up as……” you can simply say “That’s ok honey I’ll see what we have lying around” oh  and practice face painting, it pays to have rad face painting skills.

I’m not even sure how we got to this but I guess this is what home Schooling is all about. We are putting on a play, maybe, if Eli wants to on the day.

We have been looking at Aboriginal art and culture and as part of this unit I read Tales of My Grandmother’s Dreamtime to the kids. This book is a collection of short fables from the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Most end badly for the protagonist as all good life lessons usually do. In fact I think the majority of characters in this book get eaten by a crocodile with the exception of three vain animals who dress up in bright colours and get killed by humans. We also went to see a play in which puppetry was used and at the same time as all of this the kids have gotten totally hooked on the TV show Merlin. Ok so they don’t all fit together, or do they???

Alanah is cluey, she wont just except things she has to know why and how. So we have been bombarded with questions about how puppets are made which led to questions about Merlin and all the special effect on the show. She has become very curious about the whole production process, how they made the special effects, how they know what the character should look like. As I was reading through the book at the time I used it as an example talking to them about what we would need to do if we wanted to turn the story into a play or a movie. Then of course they wanted to do it. So I let them chose a story, Eli wanted “the one where they all end up dead” but Alanah found the only story in the whole book where no one dies and insisted we do that one.

I got them to design their costumes on paper first and think about how they would be made. Then we began our costume workshop mostly involving paint and Papier-mâché. These photos are of the creation of the costumes I’ll post some later on with them wearing the finished product.

IN OTHER NEWS: Sabrina has learnt to survive on absolutely no sleep at all. She is going to make medical history by being the only child to remain teething for the rest of her life. And I have mastered the skill of holding my hair together in a bun with the aid of a single HB pencil.

…my true love gave to me, an artistic baby.

Sabrina’s first but I’m sure not the last self portrait with textas.

She also learnt to pull herself up this month making homework time at the coffee table a thing of the past.

Her crawling became more adventurous finally having a go at getting around on that prickly tickly green stuff.

*** I swear I didn’t dress her in that top every day this month, she just happened to do all the cool things while wearing it, honest.***

Oh and the foot fetish continued. (Photo of Sabrina dressed as Thing 1 taken moments before she attacked)

Something went BUMP!

How that bump made us jump!

We looked!

Then we saw him step in on the mat!

We looked!

And we saw him!

The Cat in the Hat!

"Right here in my hat

On the top of my head!

It is good that I have him

Here with me today.

He helps me a lot.

This is Little Cat A."

They said, "How do you do?

Would you like to shake hands

With Thing one and Thing Two?"

Oh how we laugh at those Cats in their hats. Dr. Seuss books especially the two cat ones are absolute favourites in our house. The way they are written with such a cheeky and sometimes naughty abandonment of reality, so appealing to little imaginations.

School and I never really bonded. I did have some good times in primary school but I have since found out not many of them had anything to do with learning. It seems I became quite proficient at avoiding education. Most of my memories revolve around escaping class. I’d do anything, run messages, clean out the store rooms (they were actually really cool with ladder like shelves all the way up to a man hole into the attic space above the rooms. A space you could stay in all day if you were quiet enough to let the teachers forget that they had sent you in there), offer to help out in the Kindy room or just not come back from lunch. I’d convince the gardener that I had permission to spend the rest of the day with him digging holes, planting plants and all the other fun not stuck in a class room type things that gardeners do.

Some of the few memories I have that are based around actual learning are about Book Week. I probably have to thank my library teacher Mrs Fitzpatrick for her ability to read a story in such a way that you were immediately transported to another world and my Mum who read to me every night and read to herself every day. I fell in love with books, head over heels. I love immersing myself in someone else’s imagination and the chance to dress up and do that for a whole day at school was amazing. Plus and a big plus you get to meet a real Author, it felt a bit like having Superman come visit your school.

So I am understandably thrilled to be helping my own Kiddies to create their Book Week costumes. In less than a week that pile of gloves feathers and fabric will be transformed into characters from an absolute favourite book in this house at the moment, two books to be accurate but they go together. Can you guess which books?

Update: Here are the finished book week costumes