On Monday the 20th of August, Kindergarten – Year 4 celebrated Book Week. Each year across Australia, the CBCA (the Children's Book Council of Australia) brings children and books together celebrating CBCA Book Week.

This is a wonderful opportunity to bring children's literature to the forefront of our minds and celebrate and appreciate the rich and diverse literature that our children have at their fingertips. At the GISS, we are very privileged to be able to celebrate both Australian and German literature!

The day began with a Book Week Parade. The students and teachers came dressed as their favourite book characters. It was wonderful to see all the creative costumes! We had many parents come to see our parade.

After the parade the classes spent the day with their class teachers. Kindergarten read a book called ‘Can you find me?’ by Gordon Winch. This book is about the different ways Australian animals camouflage. The class then went on a hunt for natural materials in the school environment, which they later used to create camouflage collages. Year 1A brought blankets, torches and pillows to school and made caves for reading their books together.

Year 1B read ‘Where’s Wally?’ and went on an exciting ‘Wally’ hunt around the school. They also read ‘The Gruffalo’. Year 2 read ‘The Jungle Book’ by Rudyard Kipling and did some craft activities. Year 3 read ‘I’m Australian Too’ by Mem Fox and investigated the themes by completing a ‘see-think-wonder’ activity.

Throughout the day, all students had the opportunity to participate in a Book Swap. In the weeks leading up to Book Week, students brought in books to school and received Book Week tokens. On the day, students could redeem their tokens for a new book from the collection of books that students had brought in. Students were able to ‘find their treasure’ among the second-hand books.

 Year 4 discussed their books with a partner and then they reported back to the class about their partner’s favourite book. Then,  they did a treasure hunt and later they learnt all about Johannes Gutenberg. He was a German blacksmith, goldsmith, printer, and publisher who introduced printing to Europe with the printing press. His introduction of mechanical movable type printing to Europe started the Printing Revolution and is regarded as a milestone of the second millennium. Year 4 then experimented with their own printing.

A good day was had by all! We all felt a wonderful sense of community and belonging to our school.
 
Rachel Henning