Starting school is a BIG deal, and not just for school starters. If I am to be truly honest, I have to admit that I am finding this new transition far more difficult than Cammy. It’s not being right by her side that has me feeling anxious and a little sad.

I guess I am a bit of a helicopter parent. I have never been far away from Cammy. Always watching, guiding, helping, playing and, I’ll admit, often interfering. Now I can only hope that I have prepared her well as she spends a significant amount of her day without me. I hope that she treats people with acceptance and kindness. I hope that she participates with enthusiasm in all areas of school, eager to try and learn new things.  I hope she shows confidence and common sense in new situations. I hope she handles conflict with respect. I hope that she lets her true colours be seen by those around her. Mostly, I hope she enjoys her time at school.

I really wanted to mark this new transition with a gift- a meaningful gift for Cammy and a gift of reassurance for me.

My children usually receive books for birthdays, milestones and special occasions, but giving a book to Cammy to mark her first day of school didn’t feel right this time. We’ve been reading lots of books about preparing for school. We’ve read about Mothball’s funny school adventures (Wombat Goes to School) and Sunita’s first day (Starting School). We’ve read how Jessica made a new friend (Jessica’s Box) and about the girl who had to help her mother through their First Day. We’ve also read about the girl with The Terrible Suitcase. Cammy didn’t need a story about another child’s experience of school. What she  needs is a story about her own experiences.

Starting School Gift: A School Adventures Kit

I chose to create a School Adventures Kit for Cammy. My hope is that this gift will not only mark her first day of school but also capture her school journey. In the kit are:

• A suitcase
• A rag doll
• A journal (Titled My School Adventures)
• Two pens (One for Cammy and one for her rag doll)

About the School Adventures Kit

The School Adventures Kit really has a number of purposes.

DOLL:

• I chose a doll that I thought reflected Cammy; I was drawn to the princess tiara on this dolI. I hope that the doll, which I have named Amity (meaning friendship), will be a confidante for Cammy. Someone she can talk to at night about school once the lights go out; Someone who can give her the chance to formulate her thoughts and ideas before she is ready to talk about them with me.

• I often find that because school days are so busy children don’t even know what to begin telling their parents when they get home from school. Amity will act as a great catalyst for conversation between Cammy and myself because, until  Cammy can write independently, I will help her record her school adventures.  This helps me to stay in touch with Cammy. (I might even add some emotion stones or cards to the kit at some point to prompt thoughts for Cammy to share with Amity).

JOURNAL:

• The journal itself has a number of purposes. Its first purpose is simply as a diary to record significant school experiences and events. I’d love Cammy to keep this journal forever and read it as an adult, reflecting fondly on her school journey. (Once we have a Polaroid photo of Cammy in her school uniform, we will add it to the front page.)

• The second aim of the journal is to allow correspondence between Cammy and Amity. Cammy loves fairies and magical beings and I hope to keep that magic alive for as long as possible. I envisage Amity leaving words of encouragement and praise for Cammy on the eve of important school events.The first entry in the journal is a letter from Amity to Cammy.

• Finally, the journal provides Cammy with another avenue to write meaningfully.

Did you give a gift to your child on their first day of school?

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Celebrating and showcasing the wonderful talents and achievements of children is a strong passion of mine. I also stand by my word that kids will develop a positive attitude to writing if they are given meaningful opportunities to write. That is,  writing that has a real purpose.

Publishing a child’s work can be incredibly empowering. It shows them that people are interested in their writing and care about what they have to say; Team that with an official book launch and a child’s confidence in themselves and their work can soar.

Pulling this off is much easier than you might think.  Cammy started writing her story in April and it was just sitting on my computer. Just a few days before The Reading Hour, we decided that it would be an opportune time to share her story with family. In just a few days we printed the book and prepared for the book launch. The key is to keep the event simple but fulfilling.

Here’s a run-down of our event for you:

1. WRITING THE STORY

Proficient writers will be able to write on their own. Although a stimulus or prompt might help your child to develop a story line.

Pre and beginning writers, although not able to write legible words, are still capable of composing stories. They may just need a scribe to help them convey their thoughts. This is what I did for Cammy.

Parents can use a mentor text with pre and early writers, where children use the structure of the book as a guide for their own story. In our case, we used I’ve an Uncle Ivan. Cam wrote her story in April 2013. At the time,  I’ve an Uncle Ivan was a favourite story for Cammy, especially after attending the book launch. But Cammy thought writing a story about family would be perfect for her baby brother to introduce him to his family members. I’ve an Uncle Ivan consists of a fairly simple format; each page introduces a family member in the form of a rhyming sentence.

Cam brainstormed rhyming words for each of her family members and used those to construct sentences. At the beginning, she needed help with the number of syllables in her sentences, but quickly picked up the pattern.

2. PUBLISHING THE STORY

There is nothing wrong with using a child’s own handwriting in a published piece of work, but as Cammy is a pre-writer I acted as her scribe and chose to type her story. I used Microsoft Publisher- as it allows you to easily create a booklet using a predesigned template.

3. ILLUSTRATING THE STORY

Each page featured a rhyming sentence about a family member. I included a photo of the family member and Cammy illustrated the page, giving more meaning to her text.

4. PRINTING THE STORY

We kept the book simple and had the books photocopied at Officeworks. We bound the book (covered the staples) with washi tape. For a more professional finish, you could have your books printed by Blurb.

5. INVITING GUESTS TO THE BOOK LAUNCH

We invited Cammy’s family by sending a simple multimedia text message. Although we didn’t give much notice to family members, they were keen to come along to support Cammy.

6. PREPARING AND PLANNING A BOOK LAUNCH

We kept the party planning very simple:

• We chose to serve food that can be easily prepared with the help of children (fairy bread, cupcakes, popcorn, sausage rolls and party pies).

• We set up a book signing table at Cammy’s writing station.

• We provided and wrapped book thank you gifts for each of the children at the launch party (it was The Reading Hour after all).

• Face-painting was on the top of Cammy’s book launch list. It was something she’d seen at other book launches. Tattoo pens seemed like a simple compromise.

• We also used the event to showcase Cammy’s abundant art work. For a bit of fun, we added price tags to each piece of art.

7. BOOK LAUNCH READING AND SIGNING

Cammy practised her speaking skills by reading her book aloud to her audience. Her family was completely enthralled and blown away by her confidence. Her humorous punch lines were well-received too.

Cammy thoroughly enjoyed her night. We were both on Cloud Nine as she discussed her art and signed books.

THE FUTURE

Our most talented authors and writers surely had humble beginnings. I get quite excited about the effect this book launch may have on Cammy- on her love for writing, her desire to write, and on her confidence as a writer. A little bit of effort for a rewarding future certainly seems worth it.

I was quite moved to receive a copy of Hatched from Fremantle Press last year.  Writing competitions and awards are another way for children to showcase their love and talent for writing and the Tim Winton Award for Young Writers encourages creativity and imagination, and provides young writers with an opportunity to develop their writing skills. Hatched is a collection of the winning stories from 1993 to 2012, all written by children aged 10-16. Reading the short stories made me miss the classroom more than ever before. The stories were brilliant, but I was excited for the children that their stories had been published in this way.

So I encourage you to celebrate your child’s writing.

FURTHER IDEAS FOR ENCOURAGING WRITING:

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Tomorrow is Library Lover’s Day.

To encourage you to visit your local library tomorrow, I am re-issuing a challenge from our 2012 Little Book Adventure. The challenge to ‘spread your love of books’ received such wonderful feedback the first time around, I thought it would be a great way to show our library books some love again. You can see the original challenge here.

I often wonder too, whether the little notes and pictures we left in our library books were ever found!

LEAVE A MESSAGE IN A LIBRARY BOOK.

How to play:

• Choose your favourite book from your current library book stash

• Download and print a copy of our letter head (or use your own stationery)

• Use the letterhead to write a letter (with or without parent help) to the next borrower of the book. Examples include:

-Describing what you enjoyed about the book

-Describing your favourite part of the book or your favourite illustration

-Describing how you are similar to the book character

-Recommending another book that is similar to this one

-Drawing your favourite part of the book

-Drawng a picture to show how the book made you feel

• You don’t need to disclose your full personal details, but it would be nice to make the letter personal by writing your first name (or nickname) and age at the bottom of the letter

• Slip the letter inside the pages of the book

• Finally, make that special little trip to the library to return the book.

We’ve made a new book inspired Advent Calendar this year. I do love our Advent Calendar Book Tree, and I love that it has inspired so many other families, but the time has come to create something different. I don’t really like doing things more than once. Even if I love them, I don’t like going back to the same restaurant, I don’t like re-reading a novel, I don’t like re-watching a movie.

I felt it was time to create a new book-inspired Advent Calendar. This year we have based our calendar on a new Christmas book, My Christmas Crackers.

We have a range of wonderful children’s joke books. My hubby is a bit of a joker, and Cammy seems to be following in his footsteps. She’s memorised quite a few of the jokes from her books, and her delivery is quite exceptional.

This Christmas, Scholastic has published another book to add to its joke book series.  My Christmas Crackers features 24 Christmas themed jokes in total, which lends itself perfectly to an Advent Calendar. The jokes are presented brilliantly for young children. Each joke is supported by a bold, humorous illustration. Here are a few of our favourite pages:

Make your own book inspired ‘Christmas Cracker’ Advent Calendar

You will need:

• 24 Cardboard Rolls

• A roll of wrapping paper (we used plain brown)

• Ribbon or tinsel

• 24 joke cards (I typed the jokes from My Christmas Crackers. Unfortunately, due to copyright restrictions, I can’t offer you the template).

• A small gift to place inside each cracker (e.g. stickers, stamps, hair clips, stationery, chocolates etc.)

• Cracker snaps (optional)

• Decorative paper, stickers, washi tape etc. for further decoration (optional)

How to make a Christmas Cracker Advent Calendar

1. Start by creating joke cards using the jokes that appear in My Christmas Crackers. I typed the jokes on one side, and the answers on the opposite side of the card. I also included the name of a Christmas book on each card as a reading prompt for each day of Advent.

2. Wrap and secure each cardboard roll with wrapping paper.

3. If you are using cracker snaps, you will need to insert this before securing one end of the cracker with ribbon.

4. Once you have secured one end of the cracker, you can insert one joke and one small gift into the cardboard roll.

5. Secure the other end of the cracker with ribbon.

6. Repeat until you have 24 crackers.

We were planning on decorating our crackers with pages from a copy of Poky’s First Christmas, but decided to leave them plain because we were hanging them along our Christmas book display. You might like to further decorate your crackers with decorative paper, stickers etc.

7. Number each cracker from 1-24

8. Display your crackers. You could hang them in your Christmas tree for your children to find each day. We decided to hang ours from our Christmas book display.

9. Each day, find the corresponding cracker. Open it with a family member; share a joke and enjoy the special treat for the day. For us, it also means reading a special Christmas book from our display each day.

Visit these Christmas related posts:

Worrying is a natural behaviour of children.

Cammy is quite confident, and she’s also a problem solver. But like her mum, she is an over-thinker. The mind can be busy and easily distracted during the day; but the inner worrywart can escape when bedtime comes around and one is lying alone in a bedroom that is dark and quiet.
This is exactly what happens to my Cammy. She’s started having nightmares too (something else I seem to have passed on to her). Before she goes to sleep, she worries that her previous nightmares might return.

We recently found this book in the library, which is a few years old now. Silly Billy provides a practical strategy for children who worry. Told in a beautiful narrative, it draws on the traditional South American tradition of children sharing their worries with handcrafted worry dolls (You can read more about the book at the end of this post).

The book and the idea really worked for Cammy. We purchased a set of worry dolls from Oxfam (I have also seen them in Ishka). They are inexpensive and sales also help craft workers in Guatemala.  For Cammy, the worry dolls acted as friends for her to talk to instead of churning over negative thoughts and worries on her own.

In the story, Billy creates more worry dolls for his friends.  Cammy wanted to make some too. Worry dolls are traditionally made from scraps of fabric and small splinters of timber. I wasn’t sure that her small hands could manage working with such fine materials.

Instead, I decided to use these gorgeous peg dolls from This Heart of Mine as inspiration for our own set of worry dolls. Of course, they are not traditional but using pegs instead of splinters of wood help pre-schoolers to create their own set with ease.

How to make your own worry dolls for kids:

You will need:

• 6 pegs (Worry dolls are traditionally very colourful, so we used pre-coloured craft pegs)

• A selection of cotton thread/strands

• Scissors

• A permanent marker

• Glue

• Wrap the cotton around the peg doll.

• To stop the cotton from unwinding, I positioned the beginning of the strand vertically and secured it in place by wrapping the rest of the strand over it.

• Once the cotton was secure, Cammy was able to continue wrapping the cotton around the peg.

• Cammy discovered that lying the cotton on the table and rolling the peg was the easiest process for her.

• The end of the strand could easily be secured by a new piece of cotton (which could be a different colour)

• We placed a small amount of glue over the end of the cotton to hold it in place and stop it from unwinding during use and play

• We added a face to each peg with permanent marker

Cammy loves her new set of worry dolls. The are beautiful, useful and kid-made with love. Her traditional worry dolls have a permanent home under her pillow, but this set is used in many of ways. She plays with them, and she lets her dolls and teddies use them when they have a sleep over in her room. Sometimes they just sleep alongside her with her other worry dolls.

Children’s Book Review:

Silly Billy by Anthony Browne

ISBN: 978-1406305760

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Walker Books Ltd, November 2007

Suitable for ages: 4+

When Billy goes to bed at night, he worries about a lot of things, such as hats, shoes, clouds and big birds. Although his mum and dad try their best, they can’t help ease his worries.

While having a sleepover at his grandmother’s house, she introduces Billy to a set of worry dolls, something she had when she was a child. Grandma instructs Billy to give each of the six dolls a worry for them to take, and to place the dolls under his pillow.

But problems aren’t that easily solved for a worrier. Billy starts to worry that his worry dolls have too many worries. He thoughtfully sets about creating worry dolls for them, and for his friends.

The book is bright, beautiful and bold, and also comes with an explanation of the origin and purpose of worry dolls.

This year, The Reading Hour will be taking place around Australia between 5 and 6 p.m. on Saturday 24 August. The Reading Hour is a national event that promotes the importance of reading regularly to children, by encouraging parents to read with their children for 10 minutes each day.

We love the idea of taking part in The Reading Hour and celebrating our love of books alongside families all over the country.

To be honest though, I had no idea how I was going to top the amazing family hour we organised last year. One year on, and it is an experience that Cam still raves about.

But, you know, I think I might just have outdone myself with this year’s idea. Cammy is excited and fired up. She’s counting down the remaining sleeps, she’s practising her reading and she’s drawing up a very long wish list of party foods.

Completely inspired by the fabulous and fun book, I’ve an Uncle Ivan, Cam and I have been working all year on a family story of our own. Originally we started working on the book to introduce our huge family to Baby Ike, and The Reading Hour gave us the incentive to finish the book.

To celebrate The Reading Hour in 2013, we will be hosting our very own book launch. We’ve invited our family members to be with us, and you’re invited to follow the party on Instagram or Facebook. Just follow #cammysfirstbooklaunch (or look for the photos in my newsfeeds!).

If hosting your own book launch is not for you, here are a few other ways you could celebrate The Reading Hour:

• Attend one of the formal events being organised for The Reading Hour

• Play games based on your favourite picture books

• Cook a book-inspired meal to eat during The Reading Hour. Mums Take Five has some great ideas.

• Build a temporary reading cubby for the event

• Set some reading challenges for yourself. The Book Chook has some brilliant ideas.

• Take part Tania McCartney’s Instagram photo challenge, and post a photo of all the books you read in the hour.