Australia's largest interactive classroom, the Littlescribe Mini-Writers Festival, will return in 2021, with close to 60,000 students from across the country expected to take part.
Alongside them will be 15 of the country's most well-known children's book authors, from Jackie French to Andrew Daddo, who will collaborate with the students to help them create their own storybooks, becoming authors themselves.
"Watching students, teachers, authors, and illustrators collaborate live-building skills as a community is one of the most inspirational moments I have seen," Littlescribe founder Jenny Atkinson said.
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The festival is a live virtual event, allowing all schools to take part no matter their location, from a classroom in the Sydney suburbs, to micro-schools in country NSW, to at-home-learning during a COVID lockdown.
Country NSW schools including Cumnock Public School, West Wylong Public School and Cooma Public School have already signed up to the festival.
The festival also partners with the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) and CBCA national chair Wendy Rapee said it was the perfect warm-up event for Book Week, with the 2021 theme 'Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds' being woven into workshops across the week.
The event kicks off on Monday 26th July and runs for five days.
There will be three separate author workshops daily, catering for students five to 14 years. Each session will focus on developing a writing skill and writing challenge set by the author and all will be connected to the curriculum.
Littlescribe Head of Education Jo Edwards said in response to teacher feedback from the 2020 festival, this year the daily workshops will all be connected to build a memorable and complete piece of writing at the end of the week. "There's also the option to share student's work on our Story Starter Wall," Ms Edwards said.
"Anything they create in response to the Mini-Writing Festival or any work that comes following that, we want to see it and provide an audience for students' work."
For six months following the festival, participating schools will have access to the online Resource Kit to review and reinforce skills learnt during the week.
The early bird cost of joining the festival is $6 (+GST) per student or $5 (+GST) per student for the whole school, until June 24.
The Land is a media partner for the festival and code, The Land, will allow schools to sign up at the discounted price of $4.00 (+GST) per student.
- For more information and to register, visit www.littlescribe.com
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