Wednesday 07 July 2010
I might have been born in Victoria, but I am a Queenslander at heart. Just for the next few weeks though I wish I was down south! Over the coming weeks, major libraries around Melbourne will host a series of special ‘Babies Love Books’ events as part of the State Government’s $2.1 million Young Readers Program. Now in its second year, the Young Readers Program has distributed free ‘It’s Rhyme Time’ booklets and DVDs to parents of over 200,000 babies and toddlers. The program aims to reach 500,000 children by 2011, and to assist in fostering a love of books for life,...
Wednesday 02 June 2010 -
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The fifth issue of Literacy Lava is now available, and I have again contributed an article to this free publication for parents or anyone who wants kids to love reading, writing and communicating. Download Literacy Lava 5 as a pdf here.
In the fifth edition of Literacy Lava, you’ll find ideas for helping kids develop spelling skills, ways to pair fiction and non-fiction read-alouds, ideas for letter writing with...
Tuesday 30 March 2010 -
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At a recent trip to the nursery I spotted a plant I had been eyeing off for a while heavily marked down. Something had been nibbling on one of its large, ornamental leaves but apart from that it was fine. What I didn’t realise was that I would be bringing the very-hungry-something home with us! The next day I noticed the second of the plant’s large leaves eaten, and by the following day the plant was...
Friday 19 March 2010 -
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Both of my kids love playing with toy phones (or old mobiles). They obviously see me on the phone a lot because they copy my stance and mimic phrases I often use in conversation! Sometimes my daughter tells me who she is “talking” to on the other end. Sometimes I pretend I’m talking to a real person too. This week though the game went to a whole new place.
We had just finished reading her kindy...
Tuesday 09 March 2010 -
15 Comments »
As an educator I have always had two loves: music and literacy. I majored in music, but could never bring myself to become a music specialist because I knew it would mean giving up the opportunity to help children fall in love with language! As a mother, it naturally follows that there is much music in my kids’ world. We sing as we work, we sing as we play, we sing during bath time and while we’re driving...
Monday 01 March 2010 -
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If you’re a parent with young kids, and you’re interested in raising readers – you’ll definitely want to check this out. Literacy Lava is a FREE publication put together by Susan Stephensen (aka The Book Chook) and a bunch of teachers, writers, bloggers and literacy advocates. I have contributed an article on Book Loving Boys to this issue, full of practical suggestions for reading aloud with...
Saturday 20 February 2010 -
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Backyard baking is so much fun. Props required? A bowl and maybe a large spoon. Your child might need a little encouragement to get started, but after that they will run with the activity for quite some time. If you have cooked with your child they will probably take to this activity more readily. Here are some open ended questions you can use to help the activity along if necessary:
What are you baking today?
What...
Sunday 17 January 2010 -
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January might as well be called Slimming Season. Marketing campaigns for dieting companies and products go into overdrive, cashing in on our holiday guilt. I for one feel NO guilt about enjoying special foods at Christmas or about taking the pressure off myself in the kitchen during the holidays. This doesn’t mean my daughter is immune from the marketing messages though. “New year, new you” type...
Tuesday 08 December 2009 -
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I think it’s so important that we choose appropriate books for our kids. Appropriate in terms of content, length, language and more. But I also believe it’s important to stretch our kids a little. It’s easy to fall into the trap of only buying and borrowing “toddler” books right up until formal schooling starts! Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying we should read novels...
Monday 23 November 2009 -
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On the weekend my kids and I went to a wild rumpus in the park hosted by Cradle Fables. We roared our terrible roars and gnashed our terrible teeth and rolled our terrible eyes and showed our terrible claws.
The wild rumpus was of course inspired by Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book Where The Wild Things Are. The story which has enchanted generations of children is about to be released as a feature film,...
