Avondale Herald

Bookweek

It was a most exciting week at Avondale Grammar School with the launch of bookweek (with the theme of Book Safari). The children enjoyed a plethora of wonderful educational activities from dramatic performances and writing workshops from an entertaining outside author (Roger Jenkins), to book sales in the library, to a visit from the mobile library (with an excellent arrangement of literature for the classrooms and suitable for the different grades) to finally a creative dress up on the Friday. It was tremendous to see so many children purchasing a choice of fiction and non-fiction texts from the book sales and to also hear the lively discussions amongst them on their favourite books.  I would like to wholeheartedly thank Ms Hand, Mrs King (with the support of the Library leaders) and of course all the teachers for doing such a superb job in organizing the many activities for the children and in helping promote and create a culture of reading within the school. Developing a love of reading books is something that we aim to instill within each and every child at Avondale and is an integral part of lifelong learning.

With bookweek occurring this week, here are some simple suggestions in helping your children with reading at home.

Do you spend fun times sharing reading with your child?
Children love stories and love hearing and reading them over and over again.

Before you share reading the book

Talk about the front cover, title and any illustrations.
Discuss any information or illustrations on the back cover.
Talk about the books illustrations. You can talk about their purpose and appeal.
Ask about who might enjoy reading the book.

While you and your child are reading

Listen to your child read aloud in English and in your home language.
Talk about any part of the book your child does not understand.
Discuss the meaning of any difficult words and try and use them in future conversations.

After reading together

Talk about what your child enjoyed in the book, didn’t enjoy or didn’t understand and why.
Ask your child to retell an exciting or meaningful event in the story.
Encourage your child to read anywhere and anytime. Find great Literacy ideas at:  http://www.nlnw.nsw.edu.au.au/kids.htm

After School Protocol

I would just like to remind everyone of the importance of after school protocol with children.

If children are participating in an ECA/Enrichment activity they are to meet in the school canteen at 3pm for a roll call from either Ms Hand (Deputy Head) or Ms Vernon (K to 2 Coordinator). They will be then picked up by their relevant teacher and taken to their chosen activity. Activities finish at 4pm and children are then required to promptly meet parents in front of the Parent’s Lounge or go directly to bus area. Children should not be left unattended in the Parent’s Lounge and this is the responsibility of the parent.  On Tuesday, students will move directly to their ECA as teachers have a staff meeting on this day.

Children who are not participating in any after school activities are NOT permitted to play freely in the school oval, basketball court, play equipment or any other part of the school. Parents need to attend to their children after 3pm as there is no supervision from teachers. This is a duty of care issue and the safety of the children is our number one concern. In recent weeks, there have been a number of injuries after school, due to lack of supervision after school. The children have been spoken to in regards to the correct protocol and procedures and we would appreciate you reinforcing the same message at home.

I appreciate your positive support on these important matters.

Upcoming Events

Saturday 29th September
Trivia Night
Thursday 3rd September
Swimming Carnival
Thursday 10th September
Family Concert
14th – 18th September
Parent/Teacher Interviews

Have a great weekend.

Martin Tait
Head of Avondale Grammar School

This week there were a couple of super highlights to share with you!

Adrian’s Bath

Sara’s baby brother Adrian came for a visit this week (accompanied by mum of course!) and the children had the opportunity to help bathe him. Mrs Garbellini started by asking the children what Adrian might need to have a bath and the Kingfishers came up with some great suggestions. And the bath begun!!

What do we need? - soap, towels, powder, brush, nappy, clothes...

We washed his legs, arms and even his hair!I got to give him a hairstyle!!

After the children dried him off, they tried to remember what it was like to move like a baby and even measured themlseves to see if a baby was taller or the Preschool children were taller.

Then at the end, the children all got to have a turn of holding Adrian:

“we had to be careful because he is small”

“we didn’t want to break him!”

“he felt soft and a little bit heavy”

A big THANK YOU to Mrs Garbellini for bringing Adrian and his bath into school.

Book Week

Avondale celebrated Book Week on Friday. Preschool went to the parade and were lucky enough to be presented with certificates for their fabulous costumes!

Thank you to all the parents and the children for putting in such a fantastic effort with the children’s Book Week costumes.

Swimming Carnival

Don’t forget the Swimming Carnival next Thursday and to wear your Country’s team colour. If you haven’t brought in your child’s permission note, please either send it in, or send me an email confirming they are attending and whether they will be collected from the pool or coming back to school on the bus with the teachers.

This year, we are trying to include the Preschool in the Family Concert. The Kingfishers will be appearing as the opening act for the concert and performing a song for the audience! So please mark September 10th in your diaries! More details to come.

Kalliope Coplin
Preschool Director
kcoplin@avondalegs.com.sg

Story-telling, shared reading and group artworks featured strongly in our Australian Book Council Book Week celebrations entitled, ‘Book Safari’.

On Monday, our Year 5/6 Library leaders, Demmi Papadelias, Wesley Sukh, Aprile Marangos and Bryony Pratt,  introduced the week with a short play about some lost characters and their tricky questions. Luckily the clever Avondale students were able to answer the literature-based questions allowing our ‘visitors’ to return to Storyland!

Roger Jenkins, a talented story teller who lives in Singapore, held a captive audience on Tuesday as class groups attended to hear his quirky, suspenseful and sometimes tender tales.  Utilising his well-chosen words, some silences, facial expressions and a few props, Roger took us far away from Tao Payoh into the world of scary creatures, reflective old men and clever mice.  The students were captivated and engrossed for extended lengths of time by the amazing art of good story-telling. In a busy and technological world, it was quite a change and a timely reminder of the pure joy of listening to a well-told tale.

On Monday and Wednesday all students took the time out of their busy day to go outside, find a partner from another class and read quietly together in the shade or under the pitter, patter of rain as the case was on Wednesday.  It seemed such a luxury and a pleasure to devote this time to talking about our books, reading aloud and getting to know the interests of students in other classes.

Also on Wednesday a school full of eager readers boarded  MOLLY, the Tao Payoh Public Library’s mobile van. All day students eagerlyscanned the shelves for story books, novels and non-fiction material. Our classrooms are now brimming with personally selected titles, which we will swap over when MOLLY next rolls up Tao Payoh Rise. Thank you to Miss Nithia Krishnan, our Kindy teacher, who instigated our involvement in this valuable service.

At the Book Week Assembly, our Library Leaders entertained and informed us with a play, a rap, some research statistics and a ‘question time’. Previously, the leaders visited classes and asked some delving questions. Upon tallying the results they produced Exel graphs to illustrate their findings. In a nutshell, the scariest story for Kindy’s is The Lion King, followed closely by Hansel and Gretel. The favourite hero of  Year One and Two  is, you guessed, Ben Ten, with Bugs, Hannah Montana and Little Petshop coming in equal second. Fifty percent of Year Three and Four students believe bed is the best place to read. Other popular options were reading at the pool and on the couch. In broadening their scope of reading material, Year 5/6 students were asked what they read outside school in an average week. Fiction and non-fiction books topped the list with email &  MSN just one step behind. No Year 5/6 students reported reading the newspaper or brochures.

During the assembly, some astute students were able to quote precise lines from stories, thus winning the privilege of a ‘Golden Pass’ to help order some new titles for the library with Mrs. King. Harrison Fittler, Year 1, Lachlan Selleck, Kindy, Kimberley Tait, Year 5, Joseph Coombs, Year 5, Enrique Boyd, Year 2, Max Norwood, Year 1, Ben Bylykbashi, Year 3 and Bailey Castle in Kindy were quick enough to shoot their hands in the air and come up with the direct quotes from such stories as Jack and the Beanstalk, Beast Quest, Snow White and  Holes. As obvious fans of books and stories, they should have a lot of fun boosting our library shelves!

The grand finale to our Book Safari celebrations was a dress-up day and parade where we saw a wide variety of characters such as a very realistic Harry Potter, Mr Wrong in a big red box and three matching Hunches in Bunches. The younger boys were very keen to come as kinghts and we even had a visit from an older Dracula! The students then joined groups consisting of nine or ten Kindy to Year Sixes for  some fun: reading a  picture story book together and carrying out an art activity. We drew and painted and sang and curled paper  in response to our shared story. We ended the week with a tricky, lunch-time Treasure Hunt,  kindly coordinated by Mrs. Bullock who tried to stump the most avid readers with some tricky literature questions. Those finding the correct clues created the words BOOK SAFARI!

Throughout the week the children obviously laboured hard at home as they prepared a book cover for the Dust Jacket Competition. Students were asked to imagine they were writing and publishing their very own book, thus designing the cover, a blurb, the spine and information ‘About the Author’. The Library leaders were most impressed with the depth of thought and quality of presentation in the final products. Difficult decisions were made and the winners are:

Kindy 1st Georgia Molland Georgia the baby,  2nd Finlay Tear Doctor Disaster and 3rd Bailey Castle Camping for Dinosaur

Year 1 1st Douglas Baudinette Vampire vs Devil and Alethea Abdullah The Magic Teapot, 2nd Lara Gabor Teddy Goes to Lollyland, 3rd Joshua Tait Skateboarding Amazing Tricks and Xavier Smith Lego People Fight NXT

Year 2  Equal 1st Holly Primmer The Magic Slide & Beatrice Lofthouse The Journey Through Space and Time, 2nd Izzy Thorogood The Bee Sting , 3rd Alice Bertram Our World

Year 3 1st Matthew Bridger The Hungry Anaconda, 2nd Joseph Lofthouse The Mystery of the Golden Bone, 3rd Anthony Tsougranis Super Karate Kid!

Year 4 1st Jasmine Wong The Magnetic Frog, 2nd Abbey O’Brien Animal Wonderland, 3rd Liam Thorogood Liam and the Spinning Top

Year 5/6 1s Demmi Papadelias Whispering Jungle, 2nd Callan Dwyer The Boy that Ran for President, 3rd Kimberley Tait Magical  Whale

We say a big thank you to the Avondale families for supporting us in preparing and motivating the students for the wide variety of activies throughout Book Week. A big thank you also to Mrs. Jenni King who has come in to take the reins in the library, decorating it in the safari-style and motivating students with their individual interests in reading.  Book Week proved a great success, most importantly reinforcing the joy of reading and sharing in a good story.

Preparing for Book Week: On Friday August 21 our Library leaders began to decorate our little library. The theme this year is Book Safari.

After we arranged our recently purchased plastic vine, faux fur and borrowed plastic animals (from Pre-School) we sat down to discuss what was available for purchase in the latest literature catalogues. Our ‘Wish List’ is long, extensive and hopefully covers all ages. We look forward to the added opinions of the Golden Pass winners from assembly, who have won the privilege of selecting even more texts for our shelves.

We aim to encourage all types of readers to come to the library. If you have any ideas for books or activities, please write them down and place them in our Suggestion Box.

Special thanks to Wes, Demmi, Bryony, Aprile and Ms. Hand for superb planning and preparing for Book Week.

Mrs. Jenni King

Library Support Teacher

Silver Award Winner