Book Bento Boxes

As a Bento Box in Japanese culture provides a sampling of culinary delights, presented beautifully, so too does a Book Bento Box (BBB), showcasing a sample of themes or moments from within a piece of literature (Bales & Saint-John, 2020). The premise of a BBB is to have students create a visually appealing array of items which have significance to the book which has been read. These items would be photographed or physically placed in small sections around the book or image of the book cover, which the box is being created about (Yung, 2020). By its very nature, a Bento Box is carefully and thoughtfully selected items in it, which transfers to what is required of students in a BBB.

This strategy is one which takes a creative and hands on approach to students exhibiting the knowledge which they have gained through the stories. To link and teach the skills which are set out in the Australian Curriculum for Critical and Creative Thinking, the process of creating a BBB needs to have inquiry questions and guidelines for the students to ponder so they can show how they identify and organise ideas, create possibilities, reflect on the processes in the task and show their reasoning (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), n.d.). For example, with looking at the geographical outcomes required within this unit of study where descriptions of features of places and the connections that people have with places an inquiry question of ‘What item could you choose to represent a place within this story?’ would create the opportunities for the students to show what they know and justify how they know this by their selection (NESA, n.d.).

The resources which would lend themselves to this strategy are:

• Are we there yet? – Alison Lester (2004)
• Somewhere in Australia – Marcello Pennachio (2013)
• The Great Australian Bite – Mitchell Toy (2020)
• The Gum Family Finds Home – Tania McCartney (2018)
• The River – Sally Morgan (2021) (Tisdell, n.d.)

The BBB could be started by reflecting on the sensory questions which are raised in the reading of The River by Tisdell (n.d.). The focus on seeing and hearing would be components which could be explored and as a class teacher led lesson, 6 items could be chosen to be samples to include in the BBB. Suggestions of items could be a small figurine of a turtle, a blob of mud, a frog shaped guiro and others which are collaboratively suggested by students. Teaching the focus on presentation would be necessary and this is now where collaboration with the teacher librarian could come in to play. Once an example had been established the other stories, which would have been read prior to setting the BBB task could be the literature which students create their own BBB from.

It is envisaged that the BBB would be photographed from above by students and then placed on Thinglink (n.d.)for interactive elements to be added. As this program is not one which has been used in the school before, the teacher librarian could collaboratively teach how to use the website, such as adding an annotation to an item explaining why it was chosen. The benefits of teaching the use of this online tool are that students can add sound recordings or videos of themselves explaining their choices, or text, which allows for differentiation amongst the students, catering for the wide range of literacy skills within this cohort of children.

For more information about Book Bento Boxes and the effectiveness of use see Building Beautiful Book Bentos (Valenza, 2019). For information on how to set up Bento Boxes using Thinglink see #BookBento HyperDoc (Highfill & Kloos, n.d.).

References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). Critical and creative thinking (version 8.4). https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/critical-and-creative-thinking/

Bales, J., & Saint-John, L. (2020). Book bento boxes: Creative reading response. Scan, 39. https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-39-2020/book-bento-boxes–creative-reading-response

Highfill, L., & Kloos, R. (n.d.). #BookBento hyperdoc original. docs.google.com. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1FggkSwPyKx4YW1VlD9UB1b9FbfDBdQvEz93D2JgYUl4/edit#slide=id.p

Lester, A. (2004). Are we there yet? (A. Lester, Illus.). Penguin / Viking.

McCartney, T. (2018). The Gum family finds home (C. Booth, Illus.). NLA Publishing.

NSW Education Standards Authority. (n.d.). People and places. https://educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/portal/nesa/k-10/learning-areas/hsie/geography-k-10/content/1178

Pennachio, M. (2013). Somewhere in Australia (D. Snell, Illus.). Scholastic Australia.

thinglink. (n.d.). thinklink. https://www.thinglink.com/

Tisdell, S. (n.d.). The river [Video]. Story Box Library Pty Ltd. https://storyboxlibrary.com.au/stories/the-river

Toy, M. (2020). The great Australian bite (M. Toy, Illus.). Five Mile.

Valenza, J. (2019, May 4). Building beautiful book bentos. Neverending Search. https://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2019/05/04/building-beautiful-book-bentos/

Yung, M. (2020, November 9). Book bentos: my first attempt. ELA Brave and True. https://elabraveandtrue.com/2020/11/09/book-bentos-my-first-attempt/