At 11am on Wednesday, we participated in the National Simultaneous Storytime. We are so proud to be part of the 2 million plus people who participated in this event all over Australia and abroad! This year's story was the Speedy Sloth by Rebecca Young.
This story compliments our Term 1 library lessons well, as one strong message of the story was perseverance. Students were able to re-visit their friend Captain Disposition and talk about the dispositions the Speedy Sloth needed to achieve her goal.
It's no secret that children love being read at this early stage of their lives and they are such a captive and willing audience. Life is so busy and it can be hard to fit in regular reading to your child, but it is something that can help them develop their language skills greatly. We worry about getting home readers done, but using some of that precious time reading to your kids is just as important. Learning how to read words is important, but learning how to love reading is just as vital.
Children who are exposed to a wide range of rich literature start to use the vocabulary and ideas in their own conversations and play. This then starts to translate into their writing. We have been seeing many of examples of this across the school with the new English Units. You will see below some of the Year 1 comic strips inspired by the Mo Willem's 'Don't let the pigeon ..' books.
Every week we encourage the students to borrow books that can widen their reading diet. Just eating carrots would be boring and not healthy, so we eat a variety of foods. It is the same with reading. A variety of books keeps our minds healthy. Last week on Seesaw I received a gorgeous photo of Ollie in Year 2, cooking dinner for his family from a cook book that he borrowed from the library. So, please get out those library books over the weekend, talk with your child about them and even better, sit down and enjoy reading together.
If you would like to watch the Auslan recording of 'The Speedy Sloth' click here.
Enjoy!
Lisa Hughes
Principal