National Simultaneous Storytime at Don College #NSS2018

Don College (Years 11 & 12) students studying for their Certificate II in Community Services (Focus on Children’s Services) used National Simultaneous Storytime as a focus for their playgroup, under the guidance of their teacher Renee Chettle.

On the 23^rd of May 2018, the children’s services class from Don College participated in the National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS). NSS is an annual program organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA). This program has been running for 18 consecutive years and all have been successful. Each year, a selected book is read at the same time on the same day in libraries, schools, pre-schools, child-care centres, family homes, bookshops and other places around the country. This program aims to promote reading and literacy. To date, NSS has had 686,324 participants and it has been run in over 6,129 locations.

The book chosen for this year Hickory Dickory Dash is an adaptation of the classic nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. The themes in the book were the cat, mouse, and clocks and on Monday we brainstormed ideas on how we could use these themes to decorate our playgroup and come up with creative and fun activities for the children at playgroup.

At Don College, the Children’s Services class has been prepping for NSS for a few days prior. The Little Links Terrapin was decked out with displays and activities that were related to the book. On Wednesday the 16th, the class focused on creating the display and finding any activities that could be used in playgroup. The display was made with a large clock and coloured mice, and there was an area allocated to the ‘Play Room’ page of the book as we thought it would be appropriate to involve this page in our playgroup. The activities that were carried out on the May 25 included a treasure hunt, where the children had to find different objects and images drawn from the books around the playgroup yard. There was a 'pin the tail on the cat' activity that allowed the children to work together and help each other pin the tail on. Another activity was the creation of masks of cats and/or mice, there was the colour-in page of the black and white outdoor page, Hickory Dickory Dash puzzle, cat and mouse painting and bathtub slime.

The children had a heap of fun and it was a big turnout for our playgroup, keeping us educators busy at all times.  When it came to 11am everyone sat outside in the beautiful hot sun on chairs, bean bags and rugs and our three readers read the book “simultaneously” along with the rest of the thousands of Australians joining in. 

 

Taylah Lucado-Wells & Ava King

Don College Devonport (Years 11 & 12)

Certificate II in Community Services (Focus on Children’s Services)