A classic school tale

'I'm not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten. I am very happy when people have worn out my books, or that they're held together by Scotch tape.'
Richard Scarry

Richard Scarry is a writer and illustrator from my childhood, and his books are definitely classics to keep. His annotated pictures offer plenty of opportunities for young readers to pore over the details and to make the connection between the pictures and the words.

'Great Big Schoolhouse', another school story for my school series like this one and this one, tells the story of Huckle, a young cat. Huckle rides the school bus, learns something new every day from Miss Honey, his teacher, plays in the playground with his friends (remember Lowly Worm, anyone?), learns the alphabet, counts to ten, learns how to tell the time and the months of the year, among many other things.

This book is fabulous for encouraging kids to look at books by themselves, as the labels for all the different objects make it easy for 'pretend' reading aloud. There's also lots of humour in the story and illustrations.

Alphabet Glue and Monet

I recently came across an art and literature magazine for kids - via BIG Kids magazine - which just made my heart sing! Alphabet Glue is created by Annie Riechmann, of Bird and Little Bird blog. It's an affordable, downloadable magazine which you can print out - there are two issues available now. We made three activities within three days of reading them!

Alphabet Glue includes suggested reading lists for kids, print-outs for library catalogue cards, bookmarks, reading records and story cards, as well as instructions for book-making projects and detective activities.

Our story lanterns were based on Laurence Anholt's "The Magical Garden of Claude Monet". We loved the idea of a circular studio room. Monet tells Julie, his young visitor that he is trying to paint the most enormous water garden in the world. When you stand in the middle, you will feel as if you have dived into a pool. 

There is factual information about Monet at the end of the book. Annalise's favourite page - below - opens out to present Monet's pond. The brush marks glowed like flowers in a garden. This picture book is quite long - more for younger primary school students than kinder kids - you might need to turn it into a "chapter" book and read it in two or three sections for small ones.

Laurence Anholt has written a series about famous artists and his books tell a lovely story, while giving seemingly incidental snippets about the artists. Anholt illustrated all of these artist books - imagine being able to imitate the artistic style of not only Monet but Picasso, van Gogh, Degas and Matisse as well!

Tom used a jungle theme for his lantern, Annalise a garden. Annie's instructions were simple to follow, and the kids feel really proud of their lanterns, especially as we leave them on the table and light them for dinner.

Thinking these might make fabulous Christmas gifts for those special grandparents and teachers ...

How to make an alphabet tree

This is another fabulous library find - "The alphabet tree" by Leo Lionni. An oldie - published in 1968 - but a goodie.

The alphabet tree is full of letters, living a happy life, hopping from leaf to leaf on the highest twigs. However, when the wind blows, some letters are blown away and the remaining letters are frightened.

Luckily, the word-bug visits and explains that if the letters stick together and form words, they will be strong enough to resist the wind's force. He is right, and the letters, or words, are safe.

A wandering caterpillar sees the words and is confused by their apparent randomness. "Why don't you get together and make sentences - and mean something?"

The caterpillar is pleased with the sentences formed by the letters but encourages them further. "You must say something important." said the caterpillar. Their message - I won't spoil it for you! - is one that is still relevant today.

I love the gentle teaching philosophy behind this book, the slow beginning of understanding letters, then words, then sentences, all building up to the importance of communication and making your words count. This book lends itself beautifully to teaching the alphabet, as well as all the wonderful artwork it could inspire.

So we just had to make our own alphabet tree! And after creating our small version, I've decided that when Annalise is ready to learn the alphabet, I am going to make a huge, moveable one that will not only inspire her learning but be a thing of beauty and joy! Stay tuned, my friends!

Meanwhile, to make our small tree, I painted a cheap canvas with a blue sky and brown earth and added a tree. Then I used a white wax crayon on watercolour paper to draw tiny leaf veins, painted over them with green paint in rough leaf shapes and cut them out. (Note the use of "I" - we were going to do it together but then the kids' distraction grew in direct correlation to my focus!). However, Annalise was back at my side to help stamp the letters. She stamped random letters on the leaves but contributed the word 'peace' to our ideas. We used a spray adhesive to attach the leaves, and added the word-bug and caterpillar as well.

Here's hoping the letters on our alphabet tree live a happy life too!