Diary of a Wombat

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This is one of my favourite picture books, ever since it first came out, and it's taken me seven years to finally get a copy - but the wait is worth it. Continue reading - give students a purpose. i.e. ask students to look for and explain the things that we know, but Mothball doesn’t. Evening: Have decided that humans are easily trained and make quite good pets. Night: Dug new hole to be closer to them. Slept” Since our main character a wombat she is unable to communicate what she wants to the humans. This is one of the reasons animals are so common in picture books. They are like young children, also unable to communicate what they need in words. Unusually for a children’s book, the wombat is female yet has not been given any typically feminine markers, such as a big pink bow. This is partly to do with the realistic style of art. (There is no obvious sexual dimorphism in wombats — you can’t easily tell the sex of a wombat unless you’re an expert.) I wonder if you assumed the wombat was male until “For Pete’s sake! Give her some carrots!” A study by Janet McCabe told us that unless animal characters are given obvious female markers then we tend to read them as male.

Before you commence - ask the students to look at the pictures to see what Wombats like to do and what they like to eat. Ask students to create a list oftheirmorning routine before school - incorporating the use of a colon. single work picture book The Children's Book Council of Australia Annual Awards 2003 2003 single work column The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) administers the oldest national prize for children’s literature in Australia. Each year, the CBCA confers “Book of the Year” awards to literature for young people in five categories: Older Readers, Younger Readers, Early Childhood, Picture Books and Information Books. In recent years the Picture Book category has emerged as a highly visible space within which the CBCA can contest discourses of cultural marginalization which construct Australian (‘colonial’) literature as inferior or adjunct to the major Anglophone literary traditions, and children’s literature as lesser than its adult counterpart. The CBCA has moved from asserting its authority by withholding judgment in the award’s early years towards asserting expertise via overtly politicized selections in the twenty-first century. Reading across the CBCA’s selections of picture books allows for insights into wider trends in Australian children’s literature and culture, and suggests a conscious engagement with social as well as literary values on the part of the CBCA in the twenty-first century.' What Are We Feeding Our Children When We Read Them a Book? Depictions of Mothers and Food in Contemporary Australian Picture Books Laurel Cohn,They will research their pet (animal) andfind out about it's daily activities and habits,(what it likes to do), it's diet (what it eats) and how it lives with humans. Notes: Books and information about domestic animals are available in the classroom for students to use in their research. They can choose whatever pet they like, andmust refer to the criteria sheet when completing their diary writing. (see below) Q. What do you notice about diary writing? Reponses: days of the week and moments in time like ‘Monday’ and ‘Morning’. We can extrapolate that things will continue as they did before, but this time the wombat’s life is even more convenient as she doesn’t even have to walk up the garden path to get fed. COMPARE AND CONTRAST Responses should indicate that Mothball's main focus is finding carrots to eat and he does this by digging for carrots in the vegetable garden, bashing up the rubbish bin until he is given carrots, finding carrots in the shopping bags in the car etc. Explain Task: Students are going to imagine they were a family pet. (of their choice) and write a diary account of one day in the life of this pet.

By the way, comic characters often have insatiable appetites. In a comedy ensemble you’ll usually get one who is obsessed with food. Activity9 - Explicit teaching/Joint Construction (The 'colon' and 'lists') Reviewthe use of punctuation in the story, i.e.capital letters, colons and full-stops. A standout feature of the wombat is the distinctive round bottom, which may be why Bruce Whatley chose to depict the wombat from behind in a number of illustrations. This is surprisingly uncommon for picture books, in which we’re more likely to see ‘ posed for a photo‘ characters. Bruce Whatley doesn’t vary the top-bottom angle of the wombat, keeping to one-point perspective throughout, without making use of high/low angles. This allows the reader to remain right alongside the wombat as an equal at all times. His choice to depict the wombat in various cardinal directions may partly be to do with the need to vary each illustration from the others. But when wombat sits and stars at the boarded-up door, we really feel her petulant patience for carrots, even though we can’t see her face.

I really like this book and I can see many way that can be incorporated in students learning. The book also has expressive emotions, when the wombat is expressive that he liked carrots. This is promoting good emotional development in children to be expressive of their feelings and behaviour. Q. What is Mothball describing as a ‘flat, hairy creature?’ Response: The doormat. (Text participant) Okay, so until now I’ve been saying the same things, which are general rules but rules can be broken. So far I’ve told you that in a story with mythic structure the big struggles increase in intensity until one massive life-and-death big struggle. This is seen clearly in the Solla Sollew picture book by Dr. Seuss, which is why I included it in this series. Activity 7. Guided Reading - read the story a second time. This time pausing at various points to ask questions.