Waratah preschoolers chase the blues for national story time event

The preschool participated in National Simultaneous Storytime, an annual event held since 2000 where an Australian picture book is read simultaneously in libraries, schools, pre-schools, childcare centres, family homes and bookshops.

The book for this year was Aura Parker's Bowerbird Blues, and the event included more than 2 million participants across 21,000 locations.

The students at Waratah Public School Preschool dressed up in blue to watch Parker read the book on a live-stream before heading outside to act as bowerbirds themselves and collect blue items sprawled across the playground.

Assistant principal preschool Rebecca Dodds said the school had taken part in the event for about five years, but this was their biggest involvement yet.

Bowerbird Blues is about a bird collecting blue things before discovering that another bird was the missing piece they had been searching for all along. Ms Dodds said that concept was explored by the students.

"We asked families this year to participate in a blue treasure hunt at home," Ms Dodds said.

"So we can use the things that are important to the children for preschool activities and also talk to the children at home about objects being their favourite things compared to people that are their favourite things and just looking at that friendship element.

"So they're investigating the concepts behind the important messages while also promoting reading and a love of literacy."

Ms Dodds said hearing the author read the book herself was also engaging for the students.

"I think it's great because when we talk to the children about an illustrator and an author, it's always us that is reading the stories to them," she said.

"So it's good to show them that this is the person that actually wrote it, who came up with the idea and they get a better understanding of what the book is about."