Literacy News
Book Shopping
If you find yourself needing to buy any new books, please consider supporting Readings, St. Kilda with your purchase. If you mention that you are a SKiPPS family, Readings donate a percentage of your spend for our students to select new books for their classroom libraries.
Earlier this year, some of our Year 3/4s went on an outing to Readings, St. Kilda where the staff engaged the students with a presentation about the process of books being published and then prepared for sale. The students asked super questions about how the staff know what books are most popular at the time and how long they stay on the shelves for.
The money that had been accrued from SKiPPS family purchases meant that every student at the shop that day was able to choose a new book for the Year 3/4 Classroom Libraries.
Book Contacting
It may seem hard to believe, but we still have books on our shelves that require contacting. If you are interested in taking a bag of books, please see Jac or Wendy. The contact will be provided. If you would like a refresher on 'bubble free contacting', here is a link to a quick You Tube clip.
We are so grateful to the amazing parents who have given up so much of their time already this year to help us get through this process. Naturally, contacted books means they have a much longer life and so many children get to enjoy them year after year. We are so proud of our classroom libraries, thank you for being a part of the journey.
A 'stunning' delivery of brand new books were generously donated by one of our amazing school families. I have added them to the pile 'to be contacted' and then will proudly deliver them to our classroom libraries.
Pen Pals at Scared Heart
Late last term we delivered a new batch of letters to the Sacred Heart Community (thanks Nicky). Once we have received some responses, I will let students know and we will ask for a new batch of letters. If anyone in your family would like to write a letter to a member of the SHC, please address it, 'Dear Pen Pal' and I will ensure it is shared in the next delivery. The purpose of these letters is to share kindness and build on our already fabulous community.
Book Reviews
Picture Story Book : Anemone is not the Enemy by Anna McGregor
This book is one of the donations that kindly landed on my desk this week. It is a beautiful story with stunning illustrations about the challenges of making friends. This would be a good story to start a conversation with anyone who is feeling lonely and how we can look at some of our behaviours that perhaps have hindered our friendship making in the past. It is about a lonely anemone who lives in a tide pool and cannot make friends as she keeps stinging everyone, but eventually does so with a clown fish.
Middle Fiction : Landovel by Emily Rodda
From the legendary Emily Rodda comes an epic adventure unlike any you've read before.
Derry knows no other life than that of a captive on Cram's Rock, shunned by the other young prisoners for being Cram's poison taster. Until the day everything changes, when a traveller arrives, on the run from the sinister El executioners. She leaves Derry with a magical notebook full of secrets, secrets that might hold the key to Derry's destiny - and his past.
If any students have read a book that they would like to review for me, please encourage them to come and talk to me at school.
Teacher Book Reviews
Jess Allender - Year 1/2 Teacher
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
What is the story about?
Set in 1978 at Florida State University. A serial killer who terrorises women, enters a sorority house and commits murder. Ultimately the story is about Womens' Rights. There is one sorority sister who cared for these women and was traumatised as she is put through a gruelling trial.
The two main females at the centre of helping with the investigation are never taken seriously and they are challenged with the assumed innocence of the criminal as he is deemed a 'charismatic, attractive person. A thriller that grips you from the beginning, I could not put it down.
Jessica Knoll is the author of bestselling book Luckiest Girl Alive which has since been released as a movie on Netflix.
Would you recommend this book?
Absolutely, I read it in 3 days.