Dear parents and carers,
On Tuesday evening, we had the launch for our exquisite book ‘Long Tales, Short Tales, Tiger Tails and Ponytails!’ During the days leading up to it, all the students set up the Year 2 Neighbourhood by making signs and posters to welcome visitors inside and to help people know what was happening in our different spaces. All of our parents, carers, students and teachers from other neighbourhoods, relatives, and friends came to support us and celebrate this fantastic achievement. We all got our pre-ordered copies that had been expertly wrapped and labelled by Olivia, Kat and Mia a few days earlier.
- I felt excited. I flipped to my page and I started practising reading my paragraph to my parents. (Sebastien B)
- I opened it up straight away and showed my mum my page. My mum was proud and excited! (Archie M)
- The first thing I did when I opened it up was show my dad the story called ‘The Demon in the Shadow’ by Sebastien B because I knew it was a good story! (Owen L)
- I opened up the book but I looked at some other people’s stories first. (Robert)
- When I opened up the book I showed my sister Olivia’s story because when I first heard it when she read it out to the whole neighbourhood I felt really excited. (Izzy)
- The second my mum opened the book she found ‘Buffy’, my story. She asked if it was real or not. (Karl)
- I opened it to Lewis’s story and showed my brother because Luca really likes AFL and Lewis’s story is about AFL. (Sonny D)
- When I first opened the book I went to my story and I read it to my mummy, and then I went to Izzy’s page (and read it to mummy), and then I went to Maggie’s page (and read it to mummy). (Lyla)
- When I first got my hands on the book, I sniffed it! Once I saw I mum, I instantly opened the book to Abdullah’s page, and then Karl’s page, and then page by page until we got to the end. (Olivia)
- First, I went to Sebastien B’s story and read it about 15 times. And then I went to Robert’s story and read it a few times too. And then I read the rest of the stories that I hadn’t read yet. (Tao)
- My mum thought that the book would only be my story. She was surprised but she thought all of the stories were good. (Harriet)
- I opened the book and read my story to my mum, and then I read Olivia’s story to my dad. (Maggie)
- When I first took the book I passed it to my mum and then I went to the performance space to read my story. (Lewis)
- My parents picked up the book with their big, hot hands. Then they started flipping through to find my story. (Mia)
- I got the book off the table and gave it to my mum, and then I walked to the Green Room because I wanted to see the other people reading their stories. (Theo)
- When I went to dinner that night I was reading the book before my food came (Wren)
- When I first got the book I opened it straight up and I flipped onto my page (accidentally!) (Lilian)
- I felt like I had to read it straight away! I started at the first story (Ike)
- The first time I opened the book I opened it up to a random story and read that. The story I read first was Karl’s. (Harry)
- I felt excited. Edwina and Brona opened the book to my story and read it. They said they loved it. I felt happy when they said that (Tristan)
- When I got the book off the Workshop table I straight away took the wrappings off and started jumping up and down! (Franzi)
Almost everyone in the neighbourhood read out a paragraph from their story. Last week we started practising introducing our story – like telling the audience what your name is, what your story is about, and what it is called (Theo).While we were speaking aloud, we were thinking about our delivery by focusing on vocal, facial and body expression, speaking clearly, eye contact, projecting our voices in the space, and engaging with the audience.
- I am proud that I gave it a shot. (Sebastien B)
- I left my audience at a cliff hanger to make them want to read more of my story. (Robert)
- I enjoyed reading all the words in my story that started with a ‘D’, like discussing, disguising, and director. I had to laugh because I mixed them up a bit. (Maggie)
- When I read, I emphasised parts of my story like ‘blood red sword’ and ‘thick navy blue sticks’. (Tao)
- When Wren was reading, and she said ‘the dinosaur came to life’, she said it louder than the other parts. (Sebastien B)
- When Claudia was reading and about to get to the climax, she stood up and started speaking in a loud voice. (Olivia)
- Bas used lots of expression and varied the volume of his voice. (River)
- I saw Lyla reading and she was really good because she had lots of expression and she was speaking clearly. (Izzy)
- I noticed when Ozzy was read, he wasn’t reading it too fast (Felix)
- When I was reading, I felt really nervous, but when I got to the end I felt really proud of myself (Bessie)
- I noticed when Jessica was reading she was reading loud enough so people could hear her (Alessia)
- I really just wanted to get it over and done with so that I could watch everybody else. (Scarlett Hope)
- When Robert was reading, he was reading in a clear voice and everyone was laughing because his story was so funny. (Wren)
- When Robert was reading I noticed he stopped after every funny sentence. As an audience member this was a good thing for his to do (Scarlett Hont)
- When I was reading my aunt almost started to cry. Lucia said afterwards that she was really proud of me. I felt really proud of myself. (Claudia)
- When I heard Mia read she was making different sounds for different characters and she was reading very well. (Ike)
- I noticed when Owen C was reading he was saying things louder than he usually does. (Banjo)
- When I was watching Bas he was doing a lot of facial expressions and body language. I felt scared when I was reading, my mum was laughing and my sister was eating food (Hugo)
- I noticed Ozzy was speaking loudly. (Harry)
- I left my audience members hanging. I felt proud (Ozzy)
- I liked when Lewis was speaking with expression because it made the story even more interesting (Molly)
In the Art Studio people could read and review the stories in our book. Hoards of people headed in there to write their reviews on a piece of paper that had a space for the title, the author’s name and the person who wrote the review. Now our review wall is completely full and we have no more space! But don’t let that stop you from coming in and giving us more feedback …
Sincerely,
The Published Authors of the Year 2 Neighbourhood