Learning and Teaching
Books, Books and Books!
Book Week Author Visit Jo Dabrowski
This week we were very fortunate to have a visit from author Jo Dabrowski with all of our classes! Jo has written a wide range of books for children, and presented in a very entertaining way for our students!
With our junior students Jo presented her session titled Imagine That! outlined below:
Imagine That!
We all know authors use their imaginations when they write a story but … what is your imagination? Where do ideas come from? And how can we use our own imagination to have ideas for stories? A lively and interactive workshop that will show students how I used my imagination when I wrote ‘Dear Broccoli’ and how easily they can use their imaginations too!
With years 3-6 Jo discussed How to Write like Broccoli outlined below:
How To Write Like Broccoli
Have you ever tried to persuade Mum or Dad to let you stay up later? Or convince them to buy you an ice cream? Congratulations! You’re already being persuasive. A fun and interactive workshop that starts with reading ‘Dear Broccoli’, then takes students on a search for all the persuasive tools and tricks that Broccoli and Frank employ in their letters and ends with students writing a persuasive letter of their own.
Both of these sessions focussed on Jo's super entertaining book Dear Broccoli, where the main character Frank gets into a back and forth letter writing process with the Broccoli on his plate he is desperate not to eat! Each of our classes has read through and greatly enjoyed this book, which this year is Shortlisted for CBCA Picture Book of the Year!
Another concept of these sessions was Jo's editing process. Something we often talk to our students about is how our first draft of our writing is very rarely our final! We continue to practice the skill of editing, checking for errors and making sure what we write is clear! It was fantastic to have a published author reinforce this lesson with our students and even share how many versions of her published books she drafted!
We thank Jo for visiting our school, and wish her all the best in the CBCA Book Awards!
Competition Time!
CBCA's Book Week theme this year is 'Symphony of Stories!' and we look forward to encouraging a symphony of creative responses to our three Book Week Competitions!
We have rolled out three seperate competitions for our students to take part in to help celebrate Book Week. We have a Finish the Comic, Design the Scene and a Story Competition. Please find details of these below!
Please encourage your children to enter these competitions as many times as they like! We love seeing the creativity of our students!
Book Week 2026!
As mentioned, Book Week begins next Monday which is very exciting. The week will be full of interesting lessons and activities related to Reading.
The crown jewel of Book Week is our Parade! On Friday the 28th of August we will host our Book Week Parade!
All of our students are invited to come to school in their best book related costumes! All parents are welcome to meet in the Padua at 9.00AM. We encourage parents and little siblings to dress up too!
At the parade students will have an opportunity to parade in their costumes and we can celebrate as a community!
We will be presenting awards for the winners of our Book Week Competitions, as well as some awards for costumes which demonstrate design and effort.
Please see some examples of costumes from years past!
Looking forward to an exciting week for our school!
Happy Reading (and costume designing!)
Tim O'Mahoney
Curriculum Leader