International Women's Day 2010

One of the advantages of banners and bookmarks and signs is that, when Annual Occasions roll around (eg. International Women's Day) you can do Same Song, Next Verse.

So we have our purple/green banners and bookmarks back in action, with women/girls able to sign the banners on Friday lunchtime.  This year's Year 7 students have been reading them over, and students here last year who signed them then have had fun finding their names again.

The signs (love that cornucopia of language about women) are back on the noticeboard.  I meant to do put up some ribbonry or some such, but you know, time has got away.

Our ever-useful bookcase has books about famous/heroic/achieving women, with some pictures of fine Australian women across the top.  This is one of the times when we do one face-out book per 'box' rather than lots for browsing.  Always good to change things around, make them look different, encourage a second look.

For more resources, try the International Women's Day site.

Cheers

Ruth

TGIF.  Gosh I'm tired.  Must be the mad pace of this term so far, the heat and humidity, the way it's felt a tad relentless...some days it feels like you're trying to run in glue, and the goal you're after keeps receding as you scoot from task to task to question to find to help to question to task to phone call to....  So many kids are so terrific - when they tell you about a book they've enjoyed, or you help them understand something that puzzled them, or tell you a story about their life that makes you chuckle, or like yesterday when one boy quite out of the blue got four strikes in a row at sport/tenpin and it was fabulous to see his achievement.  I've got so many great colleagues.  Plenty to be grateful for.  But right now, this morning, it's exhausting rather than invigorating.  TGIF! (Thank goodness it's Friday).

International Women's Day (March 8)

A friend's idea for a poster for International Women's Day has morphed into an idea for here (we share ideas all the time, it's great to be inspired!).

I've sent a pdf of this to the nswtl list, but for those who aren't on it, the poster consists of a whole bunch of words used to describe women.

Here's the list, in case it's useful for others. If you have any other suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Adventuress Amazon Aphrodite Aunt Babe Bird Bitch Blonde Bluestocking Bra-burner Bride Broad Brunette Chick Crone Dame Daughter Debutante The Distaff Side Doll Donna Dowager Duchess Dyke Empress Eve Fairer Sex Female Feminine Feminist Femme Filly Frau Fraulein Gal Gentle Sex Girl Girlfriend Girlie Goddess Godmother Goodwife Gran Grandmother Granny Hag Harridan Hen Her Indoors Heroine Housekeeper Kitten Lady Lass Lassie Lesbian Little Woman Luv Ma Madam Mademoiselle Madonna Ma’am Maid Maiden Mama Mater Matriarch Matron Mem-Sahib Midwife Milady Miss The Missus Missy Mistress Moll Mom Mother Mrs Ms Mum Nan Nanna Niece Nun Nymph Old Maid Petticoat Pollyanna Priestess Princess Queen Redhead Senora Sheila Shrew Signora Signorina Siren Sis Sister Skirt Spinster Squaw Suffragette Sweetheart Venus Virago Wench Wife Witch
Woman
International Women’s Day March 8

I used DesertDogHmk font (from the font library at scrapvillage.com) in 21 point for the synonyms and 36 point for Woman. Printed on pink paper (rather than suffragette purple/green) because we're dealing with clichés, among other things, here, and hey, it amused me.

Added later: find the nominee list for NSW Woman of the Year here.

Good ideas for school libraries: 7. International Women's Day (including a banner)

I know it's past for this year, but it will come around next year...
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We had bookmarks, because as you know if you read this blog, bookmarks are something we do:
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The colours of IWD are the suffragette colours, green and purple.  Quote burgled from the IWD 2009 page for the front, link and library name on the back.

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Banners, with a twist.  Plain purple homespun cotton fabric ($6/metre from Spotlight).  Made as described yesterday.

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This is the foyer, including our lovely foyer bookcase/showcase, with various books about women.

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What's the writing?  As announced on the whole-school assembly, all the girls and women of our school were invited to sign the banners.  Interactivity!  We had lots of takers, as you can see - a busy lunchtime, and quite a few requests since then to be allowed to add names/messages.  And lots of people reading them.  We asked the signers to write something positive about girls/women.  Like I did:

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And I would like to report that it almost worked.  Some people slip in ads anywhere, don't they?

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What you need: Bookmarks: three colours of green paper, bookmark created in Microsoft Publisher using a fancy font from scrapvillage.com.

Banners: plain lilac homespun cotton, banner stuff as outlined in yesterday's blog entry, green marker pens (and whip out some black ones if two green ones aren't enough), old newspaper to put under the banner while it's being signed (the pen goes through), a slot on the school assembly...

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The girls liked signing.  The boys often wanted to know when International Men's Day was going to be (same month as Movember).  I know I could have let them sign too, but I guess a point was being made...

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Skerricks in the world (thank you, thank you very much)

A couple of nice mentions of this blog recently - thank you!

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The Feminist Peace Network liked our International Women's Day activities. (And I learned a new webbreviation, h/t meaning hat tip!)

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Moonlightquill liked our Harmony Day ideas (more of those coming later this week, to show what we did this year).

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International Women's Day 2011

We put up the banners and signs - it's great to have resources from previous years.  Check out the entries here to see what they are!

Cheers

Ruth (who wore green today)