I saw 2 boys perched on a beanbag, trying to read the words of the picture book. I offered my help to read to them, hoping that they could make linkages between words and pictures. I read with expression, my intonation rising and falling, to bring excitement and suspense to every sentence.

 

Midway through the book, we encountered the word ‘plight’. I asked them if they knew what it meant. One of the boys responded, “Yes, it is polite, I know what it means.”

 

This reminded me of when I myself was a child and in my early years, I was reading ‘palace’ as ‘place’, thinking they had the same meaning.

 

So we started to unpack the word plight, going through similar words (synonyms) such as problem, issue, trouble, difficulty, and moved on.

 

They had a lot of commentary throughout the book, mostly hypothesising on why dinosaurs were extinct. Was it the volcanoes? Was it the lava? As an educator, I tried to progress the conversation by following the lack of instruction and more question-led approach as shown in the Observing Practice Series Fishing video (ECA Learning Hub, 2012).

 

They were then fixated on the volcanoes, and this led us to looking at a book on their layers.

 

I thought that this was an appropriate exercise in intentional teaching with the use of open questioning and engaging in shared thinking (Department of Education, 2022).

When the thunder forms

I bend my knees and 

Become so still

 

I listen to the water

I am made whole

Respect is everlasting

From me to all

 

In prayer, in speech

My senses are opened

I’ll tune in to this world

I can give and receive

 

From when I was young

I blabbed and I cried

But now I am older

I will pass down my knowledge

 

In space, and in silence

Our stories exist

We know we are present

We listen and learn

 

An ode to our ancestors

Those who have come before us

And to us now, and in the future

May stillness make us wiser

Reflection: 
In my pedagogy, I think it would be beneficial for children if we could allocate a few minutes to be still and show respect to our thoughts, our heritage, and our stories. We could also embed deep listening in a sensory corner, for instance, when children are trying to emotionally regulate and are needing to have their time away from the class/group.

 

I looked through 4 picture books:

Shapes of Australia by Bronwyn Bancroft

The Truth About Dragons by Jaime Zollars

The Day We Built The Bridge by Samantha Tidy and Fiona Burrows

I Don’t Like Koala by Sean Ferrell

 

Through the following books, the illustrations were robust and highly descriptive of the words on the page. Each book has a unique concept of illustration. The book ‘I Don’t Like Koala’, for instance, focuses on more white space and only about the koala, and the little boy. This book specifically talks about having a night routine, not liking the koala such that he wants to go 'away’ (and this concept is very well illustrated by showing how the little boy hides the koala in many different places). Additionally, the illustration shows clearly what ‘don’t like’ means, with many negative emotions portrayed on the boy’s face. The colours on the book are muted, and grey, further adding to the negative connotation of not liking koala.

 

The Day We Built The Bridge had a very interesting infusion of colours, showing mostly sketches in black and white, however, where the environment, children, books, are present, those illustrations are vibrant and colourful. It explains the history of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and has time stamps of when each event occurred, and hindrances to building the bridge. The perspective of the illustration was mostly third person. At the end of the story, when the bridge was built and they celebrated, all the illustrations were colorful. Most of all, the characters and the situation look real and allows children to reflect on their family. 

 

The book Shapes of Australia embeds many brilliant concepts such as the use of simile and personification to bring the elements of land to life. This very colourful book consists of shapes and patterns inspired by Aboriginal culture and describes how natural elements such as mountains and boulders are an integral part of our land. Although it has little text, the verbs are well described in the illustrations. On the page where Bronwyn writes ‘Big boulders withstand the fast-flowing creek’, we see that there are blue lines with dots flowing through the oval shapes meant to be boulders.

 

Finally, the book The Truth About Dragons carries a mystical aura with its character groups, which are the children and the dragons. It initially describes dragons as fierce, loud, and illustrations support each of the sounds they make, with curled lines enveloping the dragon’s mouth as it mentions them roaring. It is unique how they blend the children and the dragons together such that readers can slowly come to the realisation that children and dragons have similarities, which was what the author had intended, as revealed at the end of the book. There was a specific illustration whereby a dragon and a child are on opposite ends of the bridge, holding a fighting stance. On the next page, the dragon has turned into the child, and vice versa, their apparel and colour tone indicating they are the same entity/character.

 

Picture books provide beautiful context and encourage readers to build on existing connections and meanings of the real world.