I like that each of these books has a clear moral or social issue that our young students can relate to. They provide a great opportunity for parents to discuss these issues with their child. Remember: if these books are not on display when you come to the Library, students can go online to our Library system, Oliver, through the student portal and place a reservation on one of these titles.
Our new collection of Angelina Ballerina books has been dancing out the door! These are a great read for Kindergarten to Year 2 students, although some of our older students are clearly fans of the TV show as well. Some of these titles are also on the K-2 Premier's Reading Challenge List.
I like that each of these books has a clear moral or social issue that our young students can relate to. They provide a great opportunity for parents to discuss these issues with their child. Remember: if these books are not on display when you come to the Library, students can go online to our Library system, Oliver, through the student portal and place a reservation on one of these titles.
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The NSW Premier's Reading Challenge (PRC) 2016 officially launched on Monday, 7th March. "The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature." "It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely." (Premier's Reading Challenge/Home) Students in Kindergarten, Year One and Year 2 will receive a Certificate for completing the Challenge if they read 30 books from now until the 12th August. Students in Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 need to read 20 books from the PRC lists within the same time. To celebrate the launch of the PRC our Library held a Biscuit for a Book promotion today at lunchtime. The ceremonies commenced with Mr Mead smashing our enormous biscuit and reading Too many pears, by Jackie French and Bruce Whately. This book is on the PRC Years K-2 List. Students then earned one biscuit for each PRC book that they read to a younger student or themself. It was wonderful to see our younger students connecting with the older students through books. It makes my Librarian heart sing! PRC books are easy to find in our Library. PRC Kindergarten to Year 2 books have a red spot sticker on the spine and are located in our colourful browser box and matching shelving. PRC 3-4 books have a yellow spot sticker on their spine and are all located on the central, stand-alone shelving with the PRC 5-6 books located on the other side of the same shelving. PRC 5-6 books have a green spot sticker on their spine. We also have some PRC 7-9 books with green spot stickers to allow some of our excellent readers the opportunity to extend their reading beyond primary year texts. Students will have a NSW Premier's Reading Challenge 2016 personal reading log sheet in their Library bags from this week. To enter the Challenge, students need to locate the PRC book number on the book like the one pictured here: They can add this number (make sure it is the number with PRC# ______), along with the title of the book onto their paper Student Log OR, they can enter this number directly onto the PRC website and build their record online. See the help section for more information on how to do this and watch the video at the end of this post. The Premier's Reading Challenge closes for our school on Friday,12th August. There have been some considerable changes to the layout of our Library and these will culminate very soon with the arrival of our new Circulation Desk (or Borrow Bar as we call it). This week we added some button stools to our Maker Space area for crafting, creating and tinkering. We also had some students try out our Creative Cave, formally the Library Back Room. This area was traditionally our Librarian's Office and a small section has now been sectioned off for Library storage of books that have just arrived and need to be added to our system and other essential Librarian tools like display items, mending tape and, so on. The remaining space has allowed us to create a computer area for upcoming Coding workshops and a green screen area for students to make movies. It is exciting for us to be able to provide extension activities such as these for all of our students during Library lessons. Class teachers can also access these areas to provide students a wide range of ways to respond and create in all subject areas. Why a stack, of course! And there was a large stack at our school today.
Bexley Public School Library played host to the Sydney Region Teacher Librarian Network, and what a day it was. After an inspiring welcome from our Principal, Steven Mead, a live hook up to explore the possibility of getting more e-books in our Library and exploration of a range of high quality, new books presented by Paul Macdonald from The Children's Bookshop, the final session saw young Australian Author, Yvette Poshoglian recount her journey from Publishing to teaching, then writing. Yvette writes both fiction and non-fiction, with her most popular stories being the Ella and Olivia series. She has just recently launched a new junior fiction series, Frankie Fox: Girl Spy. Her non-fiction titles include Every Minute in Australia and one of the My Australian Story series, Escape from Cockatoo Island. I particularly loved her stories about how this last novel began with an almost, eerie link to Cockatoo Island from the moment she laid foot upon it. Keep your eye out for these in our Library, and the many more that I am certain are to follow from this brilliant, Australian author. We've been busy creating classes and have all now settled in with some old and new faces at our school this year. As usual, the first few weeks of our Library lessons focus on revising our borrowing procedures, learning about how to care for our books (we had a worrying number of damaged books last year) and making sure that we're choosing books that are just right for us. Last week Kindergarten enjoyed reading 'Look, A BOOK!" by Libby Gleeson and illustrated by Freya Blackwood. Freya Blackwood is one of my favourite illustrators and her wispy, romantic lines and simple colours, with the signature red colour flowing throughout this tale, does not disappoint. As an introduction to the concept of reading, re-reading and the power of imagination, 'Look, A BOOK!' has so many avenues to explore. It's minimal text provides ample opportunity for our students to create their own interpretations. What a treasure! Kindergarten loved following up our shared story with colouring a Book Care Bookmark to keep inside their Library bag. Our Year One and Two students also explored proper use of the Library space by reading 'Library Lion' by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Stephen Hawkes. Their innovations on this text with different animals and all the ways that they could help out in the Library were just gorgeous and very sensible. I wish I had some of these little (and big!) creatures in my Library to keep the shelves dust-free and shelve the books up high and down low. Another very exciting thing has been happening in our Library - we've been undergoing a facelift. Late last year we had some new tables and chairs delivered and this has meant that we have been able to create a far more flexible, open learning space for our school. New paint, acoustic wall felting and a few more surprises to come are creating a wonderful new space for students, teachers and the wider school community to enjoy. Watch this space for more updates...
With only three more weeks of school left before Summer holidays here in NSW, Australia, we're all starting to think about road trips and breaks away.
I'm not sure if I'll be taking a road trip these holidays, but if I was I'd be picking up some audio books to take along. Essential Kids has compiled a great list of audio books for children on long (or short - maybe a day trip down the coast would be fun!) car trips. They include Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket, which are hugely popular in our library, as well as classics such as Treasure Island. See their selection here. One of my personal favourites for the younger crew is Julia Donaldson's 'Mr Birdsnest and the house next door'. Most bookshops have a great selection of children's audio books available, or you can buy them online from books stores such as Dymocks and Booktopia. If you order now, they should arrive before the school holiday break. Happy reading (er, listening!). *This is not a paid promotion for Dymocks or Booktopia. There are many options for purchasing audio books and these are just a couple of suggestions. You could also try Amazon or Book Depository. Looking for a fun and educational screen-time activity for that mid-school holiday slump? I've just started exploring ABC Splash's "Spell Block Academy" and I think that it's going to be a hit with our students and teachers alike. The Wizardry graphics and music will appeal to all ages and the Custom Word Lists facility allows teachers to add their own spelling lists to match those in class each week. Students begin by creating a Wizard name. They are then guided through the first level with an on-screen explanation of how to move blocks around to spell the required word. Moving blocks over coins earns virtual coins that can be spent on items to decorate their virtual room. But watch out! More difficult levels see more than one block moving at the same time and it's easy to move the wrong block into the vortex as you seek more coins. Spell Block Academy can be played on desktop computers, using Safari, Internet Explorer and Firefox, but does not work on Chrome. It can also be downloaded for free onto mobile devices. Also, as the Wizard Guide speaks Wizard (not English), younger students will need assistance in learning how to play if they are unable to read the speech bubbles that interpret the Guide. This app will be available on our Library iPads from Term 3, 2015. Book Week is just around the corner (August 24th - 28th) and our students have been using the Book Week theme, "Books light up the world" to investigate different countries. Kindergarten and Years One and Two started their investigations with a shared reading of "Going Home" by Margaret Wild. This story takes a sick boy on a dream adventure to a different country each evening. In response, students explored our reference books- atlases and encyclopaedias - and examined the world globe to learn more about each country that Hugo, the main character visited. They made Mayan relics and Sugar Skulls after learning about Mexican history and cultural traditions. They painted traditional Adinkra paintings, similar to those on fabrics in Africa. Some students painted double decker buses after learning about England's history and culture (and they loved listening to 'The Beatles'!). Finally, we concluded our unit with two stories about Chinese-born, Australian Fang Fang, who did not want to speak Chinese or go to Chinese New Year Celebrations. After viewing and discussing the stories behind Chinese New Year, we also made dragons. Our Library is looking very festive and we can't wait to listen to Years 3 to 6 group presentations on a country of their choice. These groups have been working very hard to produce presentations on PowerPoint, Haiku Deck and cardboard. Again, learning to use our reference books and online learning paths has been a great experience for these groups. Reconciliation Week saw students brainstorming ideas for a school photo collage with the 'Growth and Healing' theme as part of the journey of recognition of Australian Indigenous people. All classes explored significant Indigenous events throughout history and discussed the meaning of reconciliation, friendship, healing and togetherness. Using their ideas, they planned photos and/or digitally manipulated them to convey these messages. We're almost done and it's looking great. Once complete, the photos will be made into canvases and mounted as a collage for the school's office area. We're hoping to have the collage complete by early Term 3, for NAIDOC Week celebrations. Stay tuned to check out the final version soon. National Simultaneous Storytime was a resounding success, showcasing our very talented students' dramatic prowess. Congratulations to Reni, Luke, Rawan, Lily and Hassan on their very funny, professional performance of Aaron Blabey's 'The Brothers Quibble'. It was so well received that they were called on for an encore. We hope that you enjoy the dress rehearsal below as much as we enjoyed the real thing. |
AuthorHello! I am a Primary School (that's Kindergarten to Year 6) Teacher Librarian at a medium-sized school (300+) in Sydney, Australia. This blog and it's website records our learning adventures as we prepare students who are future-ready, digital savvy, productive digital citizens. Archives
October 2019
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