Book Week Report 

Read Grow Inspire

We began Book Week 2023 with a Dress up Day and Parade. It was wonderful to see so many students and teachers come dressed as their favourite book character, author or illustrator, and it was clear that many people put a lot of effort into their costumes this year. Miss Trunchbull made her way to our Book Week Parade, and she had many staff and children on edge for most of the day. Thankfully, she behaved and no child was thrown through the air or out any windows!

Our STM Book Week Book Swap was well attended with some students attending all three sessions, coming and going with arms full of books.  It was great to hear their conversations and enthusiasm for sharing and swapping books.

On Thursday we were inspired by the work of Australian author, Kim Kane, who visited our school. Kim spent time with each grade sharing her inspiration for her books and characters, reading some of her books to us and sharing how writers come up with great ideas. According to Kim, "Writers are weavers who take ideas from all different places and use these as springboards for writing.

The Preps, 1s, 2s and 3s had the chance to come up with a new title for a book in Kim's, Ginger Green series. Some suggestions were funny, thoughtful and all were very considered. 

Our Year 4/5/6 students were fortunate to participate in a creative writing workshop with Kim, and had the following advice for our young STM authors;

• Party Popper Rule - use your senses
• Be sure to use interesting/strong verbs 
• Good writing is all in the detail
• Build believable/interesting characters
• Use one detail per sentence, so you sentence sings, and
• If in doubt... exaggerate!

The students were asked to select an image of a person and write about their chosen character using Kim's suggestions for creative writing. They didn't have a lot of time to write, but we do have some keen authors who wanted to share their piece from the session. Please note these are first drafts, and Kim did explain that often authors make many drafts throughout the writing process. As I read through the drafts, I can see that we have some very gifted authors here at STM.

The Teacher - Grace

A bang came from the hallway, everyone went silent. Miss Crusty walked in with her broken cane and smelt like raw egg on burnt toast. She stood and stared with her green eyes at the students. She had an old scarf on with orange juice spilt all over it and wearing pointy rainbow coloured clown shoes that she thought were beautiful. She said she was 30 but she looked like a grumpy old lady most of the time. Her skin was like rough sandpaper with pimples all over her and a big black moustache that was ten feet long. She pointed her long crusty finger at the class and started to yell at the top of her voice. All of us could feel the green spit coming out of her mouth as we tried to run but she banged her broken cane on the table. 

“There’s no escape!” She said.

Mrs. Dim Sim - Isabella D

“Oi!’ Mrs Sim Sim called to her very quiet class. They all stared into her greyish blue eyes. Mrs Sim Sim has this thing called sedatephobia, a fear of silence. No one knew of course, she was the strictest, meanest teacher at school. Her superhero cape stuck to her bare legs. The only things on her legs were the skirt that only just covered her way too chubby bum. Everyone was talking about how hard high school maths was. “Why does she always wear poop emoji socks with raw egg on her knee?” asked Miah Doughnut, the most annoying girl who always ate watermelon gum. No one answered, only the school bully, ”Well because she’s an idiot, she is,” Scott Burger answered. That earned him a glare from Mrs Dim Sim that left him shivering with fear. Even though it was a drought and forty degrees celsius.

Mrs Yoghurt - Rose

“Mrs Yogurt!” Yelled all of her students. Then Basher Jon the school bully said in an English accent, “Wakey Wakey Mrs Yoghurt.” Mrs Yoghurt jumped up in fright from her chair. She has dribble on her face and worst thing of all, she has no pants on. Her knickers had big, red love hearts on them. The kids cracked up laughing, then Glora said, “Ha ha, you have no pants on,” in the most irritating voice ever. Glora’s voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Everybody hated Glora.

The Man with The Skin Condition - Lorelei

There was a man with unusual skin, it has teal, sky blue colours and black cracks. His face was full of wrinkles and smudged black cheeks. He smelt of sweet roses because he washes his hair with plum, rose sweet shampoo. As he was driving in his 4WD to work and his eyes were bulging out, his face smearing aggressively because someone lost his writing piece. He was a bold,  imaginative author with a magnificent mind and quirky hobbies. The man was actually infuriated because someone put his work piece in the bin on purpose. This person did it to get on his nerves. This person was mean about his skin condition and always called him an alien or a zombie. The man always dressed in suits with ties to look like a normal man but everyone could tell. He even tried makeup from myer and loreal but it didn’t help. He always felt ashamed and humiliated. He couldn't help having a skin condition. From prep to year six of year seven to twelve, everyone laughed and called him The Grinch. He always felt self conscious about his skin but today was the worst day ever. He smelt horrendous burnt toast in the back of his car. It was probably people trying to pull a joke on him again. This man was called Jeff and it was a perfectly good name but everyone called him “Jeff With The Skin Condition That Makes Him Look Like An Alien!” Jeff was a kind hearted man and never hurt anyone’s feelings on purpose. He always wondered why everyone laughed and didn’t get frightened when they saw him.

It was probably because everyone thinks you're kind, he told himself but sometimes he didn’t believe it.