LOL Librarian

Singing, collaboration and the thrill of competition is a winning combination for our international readers. Seeing students smile with pride at their accomplishments plus working with students from other schools makes all the effort of planning worthwhile. The power of the International School Librarian Network of Singapore (ISLN) made it all possible. Katie Day  and Barb Reid  hosted a session on the power of a good librarian network and an event such as the Readers Cup really highlights the level of collaboration and interaction. This year's Readers Cup Festival had a number of components: book trivia quizzes, book cover competition, viewing book trailers and, what I feel was the most enlivening component, students from different schools mixing together to work together on book-related activities. Our books are based on our ' Red Dot Books ' which are selected by teacher librarians in the ISLN and are a diverse set of books from authors from various countries as well...

After an action-packed, at least from my perspective, Book Week I began to wonder what is the value added?  My Book Week included daily mother tongue read alouds by parents in two different locations in the school, 5 local author visits so that every grade level saw someone, mystery readers hosted by the facility and the traditional Character Day.  Inside the library, there was a 'Genre Graph' to track students from K-12 favourite fiction genre and a 1 question survey to ask about genrifying them. Also in the K-3 library was a 'Wonder Wall' for questions and students could add a book recommendation to a padlet . The Gr.4-6 students could make recommendations on a padlet and use a variety of QR codes to watch student trailers and publisher created trailers. Our last big event was a competition for our book club groups in a Kahoot team showdown with about 70 kids. However, after all of this by Friday afternoon , I felt like Drew Daywalt's pink crayon, who I happe...

Browsing in a library has some similarities to browsing in a shop. Sometimes our customers want help or advice and sometimes they don't. The trick is knowing when to approach the customer and then figuring out what you can offer to help them. For the upper elementary students I encourage them to use a variety of strategies. The library catalogue is the usual first 'go to' and students know how to search by genre, theme, character or author as well as use filters to adjust the results to their interest or fountas and pinnell reading level. For students that already have 'something' in mind, this is most effective. Now for my customers that won't let that favourite series go and are lost as to what to do next I direct them to my library websites 'What to Read' tab. Under the tab I have the links listed below. Book Wizard   I really like the 'Find Similar Books' on Scholastics book wizard, it works for mainly American titles. The kids really like se...

Book Contests are not new on the library block. They are a great way to motivate kids to read books outside the genre comfort zone as well as incorporate authentic reviews that other kids will read. The students will be inquiring into what makes an award winning book. Google classroom, well that's new and I'm going to attempt to keep the kids and myself organized using Google Classroom. This contest is spread across 2 grade levels and will have approximately 40 kids. Students are expected to complete a google form that is a brief review that will help me to track which titles are being read. The brief review includes title, genre, a scale rating and a couple of sentences to inspire others to read it, or not read it. Also included in the classroom are some videos about the contest, book trailers and the contenders. Eventually, mini assignments about character, theme, plot, connections and perspective will be posted. Hopefully, this combination of old and new will inspire the stu...

Our PSA is hosting a Scholastic Book Fair next week from Tuesday (Gr. 3, 4, 5), Wednesday  (Multiage, Kindergarten, Gr. 1, Gr. 2) Friday ( 1pm - 4pm everyone). Books are set at reasonable price of 500 - 2000 HUF. This is a perfect time to expand your personal libraries. The Stacks  is a  great website sponsored by Scholastic and gives students the opportunity to browse digital books in different ways. Students can look browse through different genre tabs. The video tab has a treasure trove of goodies like book trailers, interviews with authors and features some celebrities.  Visit the site to see what Scholastic has to offer and then come to the Book Fair to see if you can find some new books!