Sunday, September 23, 2012

Little Book Adventure: Create a Book Tableau

The My Little Bookcase challenge for the month of September is a really great one for both families and teachers! This month, the challenge is to Create a Picture Book Tableau - complete with costumes, artwork and photography.

My Little Bookcase defines a tableau as "the motionless staging of a group of costumed people and props to represent a picture or  an idea." In this challenge, readers are invited to choose a favorite picture book, create a scene using real people to duplicate and/or illustrate the book cover, take a photo of the tableau and upload it to the My Little Bookcase Facebook page.

Three prizes - copies of A Family of Readers - will be awarded to Australian entrants - but even if you aren't eligible for a prize, this is a great activity to use at home or in school.

This activity has many possibilities for in-school use. Teachers may want to break the class into small groups and have each group select a book, brainstorm ideas, and create a tableau; or it could be a whole-class project as well. Tableaus could be presented to other classes or at a small grade level assembly to spark interest in the chosen great books. Older students could participate as well by creating tableaus illustrating chapters of a longer book - or cover tableaus could be created as well. School or public librarians might want to use this as a library activity to promote a book of the month or a genre of favorite books school or library-wide.

There are many suggestions for how to complete this challenge at the Create a Picture Book Tableau website. Whether you enter to win a prize, or just use this as an activity in your home school, preschool or classroom - it will give your children a new and different way to think about favorite books.

Just remember, all entries must be received by 9pm (AEDT) on September 30, 2012 to be eligible.

Original copyright 2012 Irene Taylor. Permission to republish Little Book Adventure: Create a Book Tableau in print or online must be granted by the author of this blog in writing.