Bookweek in Australia has just passed – It was always my favourite week at school as a kid because I got to dress up as my favourite book character and celebrate kids books at school and sometimes have authors visit the school .

( This is me circa 1981 dressed very convincely as a clown for bookweek – not sure what book character I’m meant to be , but whoever it’s meant to be ,I apologise , as it is slightly scary )

However , for this years Bookweek, I stayed away from freaky clown costumes( fortunately some would say) , as I didn’t want to scare the children when I did my first ever bookweek presentation for the grade 3’s and 5’s at my daughters school – Good News Lutheran School .

Can I just say

I HAD SO MUCH FUN

And learnt so much myself from these gorgeous short people .

So , today in my blog post , I thought I’d share my list of…

“Some things I learnt doing my first ever Bookweek presentation”

1. Kids are the best because they laugh at my jokes – very poor jokes , but attempts at humour nevertheless .

2. The kids in grade 3 and grade 5 at Good News Lutheran school have  especially  AMAAAZING  extremely good taste in humour , as they laughed at ALL  my jokes .

3. Some kids  these days still sometimes don’t think they are very good at drawing  (insert SAD face here)

4.  BUT, all kids still like drawing – especially silly stuff , like the Kung Rabbits we drew together and Donald Trump , turned into a unicorn , on a rainbow , singing old MacDonald Had a Farm

4. Kids get a little less gullible by grade 5 . I mean , the grade 5ers just didn’t believe me that my friend Anita and I were the actual original creators of this famous artwork , as they were (politely , as they are well mannered students at Good News Lutheran School) yelling out ” You did not paint that  !” I still do not understand why they didn’t believe this was true , whereas grade 3 kids were like ” Really ?? You painted that ? WOOOOOWWW!”

See below and you’ll get my drift

5. And finally the BEST thing I learnt was that with the right encouragement, kids, just like grown ups ,  will believe in themselves that they can be creative through drawing – whatever form that takes . My 2 mottos i taught the kids that day were..

ANYONE CAN DRAW!

and

Practice,  practice  , PRACTICE !

This seemed to really resonate with the kids

And  , by far the BEST thing I experienced in Bookweek was this exchange I had with a little grade 3 boy who had joined the cue for take home colouring in pages , bookmarks and my AUTOGRAPH !!( yes , I was a celebrity in grade 3 for 15 minutes).

Grade 3 boy: Sandy , thank you for doing your talk

Me : I’m so glad you liked it ! What did you like the best ?

Grade 3 boy : Well, I didn’t think I was able to draw at all  …. but I DO NOW !

Me: ( speechless and melting to the floor with happiness )

Bookweek,

its da best .

Check out these awesome digital drawings by the grade 5s on display for Bookweek, drawn after another presentation I did for them on digital art. I just loved seeing the colours , their designs and most of all , their imaginations at work . Well done grade 5 !

And also check out the video of the process of drawing a Kung fu Bunny or Rainbow unicorn on my video links page .

Love to you all !

Sandy