Session 7 – Making Books – Tues Sept 6th

Imaginary Leaps at the State Library of Western Australia

Better Beginnings in partnership with Early Years artist Rachel Riggs

Illustrations – The Great Riding Hall by Alison Lester

Book Readings  – Running with the Horses by Alison Lester

Meet and greet in The Place Gallery area and after Teddy ‘Hello’ rhymes, we looked closely at the featured illustration

For ‘The Great Riding Hall ‘by Alison Lester, we sang rhymes ‘Horsey Horsey Don’t you stop!’ and ‘Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross’  with parents suggesting  ‘Im a yankee doodle dandy’. Then we used the percussion instruments to make rhythms to the rhymes.

 I showed the children how to loop a piece of cloth around the waist to be a horse and carriage and we talked a little about how people travelled by horse in the past compared to cars now. The children seemed unsure, so Myself and Carmela demonstrated the game and then everyone got the idea , with parents/carers being horses.

We talked about how this was another kind of illustration with painting/drawing and photo montage, linked it to the collage technique last week.

I then told a very edited version of the story ‘Running with the Horses’  by Alison Lester, as the other book by her ‘Noni the Pony’ more specific for this age range, had disappeared in the library. The other thing that had disappeared was Teddy who turned up at lost property!

Then Margaret talked about books and how they were made and showed the Hot dog books made by children before at Better Beginnings sessions. There were lots of papers, and decorative scraps for inspiration. The children and parents/carers could select any theme, and many of them picked up on their learning journeys from the sessions, with particular favourites.

Marley loved the frogs and that was her little theme for her hotdog book, when she saw her picture, she said ‘That’s me, that’s mine’ .Cadence drew her favourite little monsters from last weeks theme and didn’t scribble over them immediately as in the past. She told me about last week ‘ It was very funny, playing with messy’

Georgia  told me about her book ‘Journey to the Jungle’ and the changes she was making in the collage. Joseph made a book with his mum about his journey toFrance and up the Eiffel Tower.  Lucinda made a book about what she likes and said ‘I love music, I love to play piano’.

The books were photocopied and given to the parents/carers. After, that we listened to relaxing music and lay down under the star cloth, and the ‘Goodbye rhyme’.  Everyone enjoyed the session with feedback including ‘I like having the memento of the book to keep, I cant believe next week is the last session, hes really enjoyed this, we are really going to miss it!’