Throughout Week 5, the CBCA National Book Week was celebrated across the College.
Marcellin Campus
On the Marcellin Campus, there were a number of activities and competitions that ran throughout the week to celebrate the important role reading plays in both our lives and education.
On Tuesday 20 August, 22 students from Years 8-10 participated in the ‘Write A Book In A Day Competition’. This competition, which supports the Kids’ Cancer Project, required the students to work in groups and write / illustrate an entire book in a single school day. The students worked from 8.00am until approximately 5.00pm to construct an entirely original story, complete with matching illustrations. This was a massive achievement, in which the students really enjoyed participating.
Throughout the week, there were also a number of competitions and challenges running. Firstly, students were invited to participate in a ‘Shelfie’ quiz. A number of teachers and staff members took a ‘shelfie’ (a picture of their book shelf at home), which were then posted as a quiz, where students had to match the ‘shelfie’ with the teacher to whom it belonged. There were also a number of writing competitions including a limerick competition, a haiku competition and a short story competition, with some very entertaining entries submitted.
In addition, to encourage collaboration between the campuses, a class of Year 11 students visited the Lavalla Campus to read to the students. These students read some of the picture books that were nominated for the CBCA awards and some of their favourite picture books from their own childhoods. Overall, it was a valuable experience for all involved.
Finally, the week concluded on Friday with teachers being invited to come to school dressed up as their favourite character from literature, with 15 staff from a variety of departments, dressing up for the occasion. Although there hadn’t been a Book Week dress up day on the Marcellin Campus for a number of years, it was pleasing to see these staff get involved in promoting the importance of reading in their lives. Friday also saw the Book Quiz run in the Learning Centre, with 18 students from Years 7-11 participating. Overall, it was an eventful and enjoyable Book Week with excellent participation from both students and staff.
Marian and Lavalla Campuses
The theme for Book Week this year was “Reading is my Secret Power” and the students were challenged with the question, ‘how can reading be a secret power?’ Reading truly is amazingly powerful and all stories have exciting secrets in them. Reading does give children secret powers; the power to walk in the shoes of characters through their stories, the power to escape into other worlds and the power to increase their knowledge and imagination.
During Book Week, the students at both Marian and Lavalla loved their incursions with local award winning authors Meg McKinlay and Glenn Swift. We were very lucky to welcome Meg to our school who discussed the creative process of writing a picture book or chapter book. Glenn Swift, ‘storyteller extraordinaire’ entertained the students and staff with his humorous stories. Some were themed to the Book Week theme ‘Reading is my Secret Power’ and others were based on the social & natural history of Western Australia.
All students were very excited to participate in an exciting Book Week parade on their respective Campus, where they came to school dressed up as one of their favourite book characters.
The students at Lavalla had the opportunity to participate in two fun competitions in the Library. They were challenged to identify photographs of all the teachers who were hiding behind covers of their favourite books and also asked to create a drawing of a superhero who promotes the importance of reading. At the Marian Campus, the students participated in a creative design a bookmark competition.
In Week 7, the Kindy students will take part in the wonderful Better Beginnings incursion by Cambridge Librarian Melissa Payne at the Marian Library. Better Beginnings is a State funded program which aims to further promote literacy and reading. All the children will receive a free Better Beginnings gift bag during this incursion.
