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You’ll know, if you’ve been reading my musings for a while now, that I often talk about the wonders of audio books and podcasts – especially for car rides. For more on the power of audio books see Chapter 9 of my book ‘Raising Readers’. As an educator, I’m going…
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A few short weeks ago, author Allison Rushby, a member of the Your Kid’s Next Read admin team, mentioned she was about to start reading Thomas Taylor’s ‘Gargantis’. Well. What a flurry of excitement there was! There were definitely a lot of people in the YKNR community who’d adored ‘Malamander’…
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June is Pride month for the LGBTGI+ community and across the world the community celebrates in all manner of different ways. I celebrate most occasions with books (and cake), so I’m celebrating Pride month with 50+ books which I believe are important additions to your home and school libraries. Diverse…
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Books are one of the best ways I know for children to learn about nature, issues of the environment, and sustainability in general. While there is much to be said about learning and exploring in nature, there is also much to be gained from exploring words, images and ideas in worthy non-fiction…
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Isn’t it lovely when you meet a ‘celebrity’ in real life and they are exactly as you imagined them? ChickPea and I were fortunate enough to meet Costa Georgiadis, host of ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’ and the garden gnome on ‘Get Grubby TV’, when he came to my mum’s school recently.…
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Books which inspire young people to dream big and aim high with sport are always going to capture attention, and so it is with ‘Victress’ – a truly beautiful collection of stories and images about 35 female sporting identities which will serve as inspiration for young readers and sporting fans…
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With the weather cooling, and with more time spent at home right now, it is the perfect time to get out in the garden and plant winter crops…or read a book in the sun! This week the girls and I have planted sunflowers, separated succulents, and placed and planted a…
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Each year, we have had Dr Tobias Smith from Bee Aware Kids come to school to talk all things native bees and split our native bee hives. Native stingless bee hives are a brilliant addition to the kindergarten or school environment and while the curriculum based learning that can take…
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One of PudStar’s (12 years old) favourite books of the last few years has been ‘The Mulberry Tree’ by Allison Rushby. She’s read it a few times now and went on to read (and love) Rushby’s Turnkey series set in WWII – which of course then sent her down path…
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I think (hope!) that one of the thing readers of my appreciate about Children’s Books Daily is that I rarely recommend a product or service and I don’t do paid advertising. And so it is with Optimise Learning – individualised online tutoring for primary and secondary students. It’s a service…
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