In term three all across Australia the children unite for one massive literature themed dress up party. Just as Halloween is America’s pretend you are someone that you are not day, Book Week is ours. I kinda like that ours is focused on which character you have fallen in love with during your reading year rather than what has just crept out of the local graveyard but hey each country to their own.
My kids spend most of their lives clad in dress up clothes (I’m seriously considering only buying them one set of respectable to be seen in public clothes this season and just letting them raid the dress up box for the rest of the week, it’s pretty much what they do anyway) So it’s no huge surprise that they adore Book Week. Lani and Lilly started to take over a bit of the planning this year (Hey maybe next year I can hand it over to them and just kick back with a coffee) They created a welcome sign on our white board and drew up a chart for all the kids to add their character names to as they arrived.
I did still have to make four costumes though, it’s always fun trying to figure out how to make someone who dwells within the pages of a book come alive. Sabi wanted to be Peppa Pig of course but that was fairly easy as she already loved to wear a red dress with a pink shirt underneath as her “Pig clothes” so I just crocheted her a hat with ears on and curly tail and she was done.
Lilly has just started reading the Rainbow Fairy series and choses to be Sadie the Saxophone Fairy as she wears green, Lilly’s favourite colour. Eli has finally started getting the hang of reading, it’s been such a struggle for him, poor thing. He is liking the Zac Power series at the moment. He spent the first half of the day with a serious ‘I am a spy’ face on then gave it up in favour of his standard crazy bonkers attitude. Alanah’s choice was hard, she wanted to be Emily Windsnap a teenage mermaid so not only did I have to figure out how to make a mermaid tail she could walk around in, it had to be one that was fit for a cool teenager with no silly baby frills.
We did our standard choose three books from the Australian Book Councils short list to read aloud to all the kids. Then we had two craft tables set up with craft to do with the books we read, the kids were free to create or hang out in our yard.
Sabi is making a paper collage horse to go with the book Lightning Jack. The other table was set up with pipe cleaner people and fabric scraps so the children could make magic clothing like they heard about in the story The Coat.
Some friends brought guinea pigs around to play and our kids showed off their cats and ferrets so we had a bit of a zoo day as well.
My trampoline got very full.
Some of the kids put a lot of time and effort into their art works.
It’s interesting to watch a large group and see the different personalities emerge when there are many different activities on offer. Some darted from one thing to the next not wanting to miss anything. Others had a go at the art but weren’t really interested and were off creating a cubbyhouse up the tree happily hanging out in a corporate imaginary world. Other kids couldn’t drag themselves away from the animals and spent the day enthralled by their tiny little feet. Then the last group stayed at the craft table quietly and meticulously getting their vision down on the page just right.
When all the reading, talking about our costumes, creating and playing was finished we headed out the back to our local park for lunch and more play on the equipment. It was such a fun day I love having my house full of these amazing kids. If you feel like it you can check out Book Week 2010 Book Week 2011 and Book Week 2012
