Book Week Workshops
With 'Book Week' in August, Betty conducted workshops in a variety of educational facilities. Betty has programs adapted to needs of children from Kindergarten to Grade 4 level, plus a program for ESL students.
Workshops in Bookweek 2012 included:
- Grade 3 [3 classes] at a private Brisbane School - empahasis on illustrating the narratives that the children are writing for 'Book Week' [July 24]
- Kindergarten group at Epping, Sydney [31 July; 2 August] - book reading and interactive program including puppets and singing; related craft
- Caboolture Library Hub - workshops for 5-6 year olds; book reading and interactive activities [puppets and singing] with the characters in the book. [August 23]
- Prep - Grade 2 [12 classes] at a local State Primary School - book reading, interactive activities, and basic science - life cycles of some of our amazing Australian animals. [3- 5 September]
Children are always fascinated to meet a 'real author' AND 'illustrator' of the book. They love to see the original artwork for the book, and to know how a book is created from an idea to the printed page.
The program for P-3 includes finger puppets, singing, (AND making up their own songs about the animals encountered in the story) as well as some basic animal science - usually the life cycle of the echidna plus loads of interesting facts about all the other animals they meet in the story.
With the older children (Year 3 and up) we look at how the illustrations were produced, and how they match the text; we also talk about the writing process.
Wow, you have to be brave to enlarge your embroidery to this size! However, it helps with a large group of children if they can see the pictures as I tell them the story.