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ALISON LESTER

Nominated for: Book of the year: Picture Book

Reading age: 4 – 8+ years

Themes: Australia, holidays, travel

MAKE A TRAVEL BROCHURE

You will need:

A4 card or paper with tri-fold, coloured pencils and/or collage material, scissors, glue.

Ask the children to consider which of the places they like best in Are We There Yet? and to

create a travel brochure for that place. They need to have lots of colour and pictures, and

(if age appropriate) some text relating to their chosen place. Ideas for text include:

What is it?

Why is it interesting / why would you go there?

How do you get there?

What can you do there?

Is there a cost?

Children's Book Week 2005

Theme: Reading Rocks! Date: 20th - 26th August

AARREE WWEE TTHHEERREE YYEETT??

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Alternative 1

Make a postcard using drawings or collage. Publisher software has a postcard format,

which creates great double sided cards. Scanned images of the children’s art can easily be

inserted and the kids get to take away four of their very own, personalised postcards. (A

good idea for promotion of library activities too.)

Alternative 2

In a small group, design a travel poster for a particular destination or group of destinations,

including illustrations and bright, bold lettering.

Alternative 3

Glue together several A3 sheets of paper and draw a rough map of Australia on it. Then,

pin it to the wall and have the children add pictures, collage, drawings, text etc to illustrate

or mark places from the book. When it’s finished, cut it into large pieces to make a giant

sized jigsaw puzzle for the children to complete.

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THE ARMCHAIR TRAVELLER

Depending on the size of the group, form small groups of children (between 1 and 3) and

ask them to choose a place or landmark from the book “Are We There Yet?” Each group

must then find a way to describe their landmark to passing tourists. This can be in the form

of mime, show and tell, interesting facts or any format you choose (dependant on age of

children). The tableau format works well with mixed-age groups, where they physically

form “a picture” of the place or landmark they have chosen.

Older children may choose to dig deeper in the JNF section in order to collect interesting

facts about their location, or to prepare a quiz for the tourists to guess their identity.

When the groups have completed their planning, a rough shape of Australia is to be formed

on the floor, with the various groups placed in the corresponding spot for their chosen

landmark. An adult (librarian or parent) then boards their travelling armchair (any chair with

wheels) and travels around Australia, guessing or hearing about the various locations.

With older children, this can be turned into a “board game” to be played by 2 to 4 people. A

simple way to create the path for the game is to cut a number of 40cm circles of paper or

fabric, and lay them out on the floor, leading from one group to another, ending at the place

you started. The first one “home” wins. A giant cardboard dice can be made to roll for each

play. A number of “chance cards” can be made up by each group of children, containing

messages similar to: Cyclone causes flood - Go back 2 places OR You’ve won a free flight

– go forward 1 space and so on. If using the quiz method, cards can be handed out when a

question is answered incorrectly. If playing by dice only, the cards can be handed out to

every second person who lands on their spot. The variations are endless, and most

children enjoy the fun of a game come to life.