The Pet Project

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Lana

The Pet Project-Cute and Cuddly Vicious Verses by Lisa Wheeler (2013)

I enjoyed The Pet Project because I like rhyming verse, I also appreciate the many ways I could use it in a classroom, whether it be through science; looking at inquiry, or in language arts; exploring persuasive writing or poetry. I enjoyed these first-person poems and appreciate that kids will really get the jokes and parents will appreciate the book as it fosters an interest in science. Lisa’s blog is also a great resource for the many books she has written, with many reviews, guides and classroom activities. http://www.lisawheelerbooks.com/home.html

The Boy and The Airplane

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Lana

The Boy and The Airplane by Mark Pett (2013)

It is hard to know where to put our SAS stamp on this wonderful new picture book, as it is so aesthetically lovely; another example of a wordless picture book with limited, subtle coloring. Pett’s story is a mentor text for teachers and parents who want their child to understand the concept of patience and perseverance. http://www.markpett.com/authorstrator/

I enjoyed reading Mark Pett’s blog as he shares the history of how he began to draw his cartoons wordlessly, and how that lead him to writing a wordless picture book. But even more than Mark’s blog, I enjoyed the sophisticated and detailed review given by Laura Hudock, as she writes about an amazing lesson she had with a first grade class, when using The Boy and The Airplane as a read-aloud. Laura was obviously blown away by the post read-aloud discussions of her students and commented “The complexities of student’s visual meaning-making are evident in these responses that range from subversiveness, empathy, and inferences to personal and text-to-text connections” It’s pretty amazing how much learning happens when you start with a great text.

!

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Lana

! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld (2013)

This book is such a fun way to share punctuation with children. Exclamation mark is confused, deflated and flummoxed because he is not like everyone else. It’s a great day for him when he meets another special punctuation mark…can you guess who? http://www.whoisamy.com/

The Invisible Boy

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Lana

The Invisible Boy by Trudy Barton (2013)

Complete with questions for discussion, a recommended reading list for adults and a recommended reading list for kids, this is one of several new books that will be used by counselors and classroom teachers this year. Cleverly illustrated by Patrice Barton who uses the lack of color to depict the isolation of the main character, this story shares the heartbreaking journey of a student we all know, the invisible boy. http://www.randomhouse.ca/books/212027/the-invisible-boy-by-trudy-ludwig-illustrated-by-patrice-barton

Library Guidelines

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Lana

WELCOME teachers, students and parents to our amazing Elementary Library…

This really is one of the best libraries you may ever enter… in the world. We have a huge collection for you, of over 30,000 titles, and our ES Library in Pudong is the smallest of the four libraries at Shanghai American School, which by the way, contains THE largest English book collection in ALL of China. So you will never have to say you can’t find something to read while you are a student at SAS.

Our technology resources are growing all the time; we currently have 60 kindles, 60 ipod nano’s and 11 ipads all loaded with books, (some kindles have over 150 books on them) so there is no shortage of new reading material available. If there is a book you want to read, and we don’t have it in our Pudong Elementary library, check destiny to see if we have it somewhere else, like Middle School, or Puxi Campus. If you can’t find it there, let me know and I’ll order it for next year, as well as buying on kindle, audio or ibooks if it is available.

Teachers, please come with your class for their scheduled library check-out time. Please line your students up outside the front door of the library. Joji, Stella or I will always greet them there, and we’ll lead them in to the workspace we’ll be using that day.

Students, please return your library books AS you finish them; do not wait until your library day to return books. Please return your books to your classroom library basket, OR to the plastic tub that will be in the main hallway as you enter school in the morning, by the back library door. We are NOT allowing you into the library before school at all. You are allowed 14 days for each book checked out, and one library cycle for technology, however, if you finish early, please return your item.

Teachers, please allocate a student/group of students in your class to return the library book basket at the START of each school day after most/all of your students have arrived, and had a chance to return their finished books to the library basket. Please make this part of your new morning routine, as it will help us exponentially in our library check out period.

Students, this year we are making a real effort to use shelf markers in the library. You must pick up a shelf marker as soon as my mini-lesson is over, you must keep it in your hand as you walk through the library, using it to mark the place where you choose books from the shelf. You are not allowed to check out your books unless you have your shelf marker in your hand to return to Ms Stella and Ms Joji.

VOICES OFF IN THE LOFT

Students, when you go upstairs to the reading loft, you need your shoes, and your voices OFF up there… remember it is for the students who just HAVE to read RIGHT NOW, and FINISH their AMAZING book… or they won’t be able to stand it!

Guidelines for Check Out

EVERY student in Elementary must check out at least ONE non-fiction book each check out period.

Pre K-1st Grade you are to check out up to 5 books at a time. We’d like you to always check out ONE non-fiction book (at least). You are also allowed to check out one magazine or one DVD too, as well as fiction books in the Primary Library.

Grade 2-Grade 5 students, you guys can have UNLIMITED check-out privileges; so use your common sense and make sure you don’t check out more books than you can read.

Grade 2-Grade 5 students, like I said, your check out is unlimited, within that, you can check out a maximum of:

1 Graphic Novel

2 DVD’s

3 Books in a Series

Lunch Recess Time Library Visits

Monday and Wednesday-Grades 2 and 4 are allowed to check out in the library during their lunch recess time. If the day is too hot/wet/polluted you are welcome to stay and read. If the day is fine, we’ll send you out to play once you’ve checked out your books.

Tuesday and Thursday-Grades 3 and 5 are allowed to check out in the library during their lunch recess time. If the day is too hot/wet/polluted you are welcome to stay and read. If the day is fine, we’ll send you out to play once you’ve checked out your books.

Books to Eat 2013

I can’t wait to greet you all in the library, with over 1,000 new books, bringing our collection to over 30,000 items, there really is something in our library for everyone!

It’s YOUR Destiny!

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Lana

Destiny is the name of our Library Catalog. It is an online Catalog with the name and details of everything in our library.

A Library Catalog is very useful, as you can find your way around the library, from your classroom, your home, or anywhere else in the world just by going to one website. You will use it to find books you like, keep check on what books you have out and when they are due and hold books you can’t wait to read. How do you do all that? I’ll show you how.

Click on this short video to show you how to log in to the destiny.saschina.org library catalog…

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D8638%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

And so it begins…

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Lana

School year 2014-2015 is upon us…

As an Aussie, we only really had one start to the year… January 1st was New Years Day, and at the end of that month, we started school, a year, was a year, was a year. For the last ten years working in American International Schools, it’s been a learning curve hearing people discussing last year; in October, and realising they are referring to March. I feel like I get to have a fresh start twice a year now.

So, with a new year on the doorstep, what are my plans, hopes and dreams for this third year as a teacher librarian at Shanghai American School?

I plan to: Blog more regularly, improving my blog to be a trusted, current resource for students, teachers and parents by providing reviews of new and old books, and links to great book-lists.

I hope to: Be more decisive about how I run the library so that people have a consistent model to rely on. I tend to vacillate between wanting structured lessons and providing a flexible schedule; I need to be clear on what I want, so that others know what to expect from me, and what I expect from them.

I dream of: The library being the favourite place in the school for all types of students, of it being a creative, maker space, fluid and energetic, with nooks for silence, and nooks for play, sharing, and solitude. I want students to remember my library long after they leave; I dream of it being a highlight of their childhood.

What are your plans, hopes and dreams for the coming school year?

*photo taken by my husband Simon Power. Nanpu Bridge at sunset, Shanghai, China.

It’s the final countdown…

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Lana

Sing it with me!!!

With less than four weeks to go, the students are getting excited, and emotional, with many new experiences just around the corner for them. They aren’t the only ones either; with over 40 teachers leaving the Pudong Campus, some who have been here longer than my nine years, there are mixed emotions all around. It’s a good time to lay low, keep your head down and focus one by one on the tasks ahead. One of these tasks for me is to try and reign in the 2700 items currently checked out of our Elementary Library.

Please do what you can to adhere to our timeline in the library please:

Last Parent CheckOut Date – May 16
Last Student CheckOut Date – May 30
All Student Materials Return Date Date by June 3
All Teacher Materials Return Date by June 9
Note – Students, Parents, and Teachers/Staff that are leaving SAS need to have their Leave form Signed by library staff

Remember, if you’ve lost an item, e mail me immediately, kimbra.power@saschina.org and we can discuss finalizing the payment, and as I’ve said many times, the item often turns up, and then your money is reimbursed in full; I promise!

Stay calm, stay focused, stay kind x

What a Classic… or is it?

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Lana

“Wow…what a classic!” is something you may have heard before regarding a good book or film. But what is it exactly that makes something a classic? In regard to books, there are a HUGE amount of differing opinions on the subject once you start searching.

Each year our third graders at SAS do a unit on ‘the classics’ and while I could easily just head to destiny and select the usual suspects… it got me thinking. I did a lesson with students where I shared a book I’d read as a 5th grader, Nicholas, and had loved it, lost it, and rediscovered it again in my late 30’s… School Library Journal claim: “This classic book about a mischievous schoolboy and his friends, originally published in French in 1959, is now available in English.” Did you see it? Did you see the word classic? I read this in the 80’s, searched for it in the 90’s, finally found it in the ‘naughties’ and introduced it to my students in the mmmmm, 2010! But had I thought of it as a classic? Never.

Is Nicholas a classic because it “expresses some artistic quality–an expression of life, truth, and beauty” which is one of the definitions given by About.com here. Well… not really; although Nicholas does hark back to a simpler time, a more honest time perhaps?

“It seems to help if the author is dead ” says Laura Miller writing for Salon.com in January this year. Indeed, author of not only Nicholas, but the wonderful Asterix books, Rene Goscinny passed away in 1977, yet his legacy lives on. Miller goes on to say “It has stood the test of time…It captures the essence and flavor of its own age and had a significant effect on that age.” I certainly feel that the latter is the case, the students I’ve been reading to are laughing hysterically about kids running around with guns, smoking cigarettes, calling each other fat, idiots, stupid etc… Our kids cannot get enough of this ‘forbidden fruit-so Un-PC’ As for the test of time… is 55 years long enough? One commenter on this Goodreads thread suggests that 30 years is long enough…I think not.

So, what do you think? What do you think makes a book a classic?

Which of these books, listed by Jim Trelease here, would you term a classic?

MIKE MULLIGAN & HIS STEAM SHOVEL

MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS

RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI

SYLVESTER AND THE MAGIC PEBBLE

TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO

THE UGLY DUCKLING

AESOP’S FABLES

THE BIGGEST BEAR

BRAVE IRENE

THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT

IF I RAN THE ZOO

IRA SLEEPS OVER

THE ISLAND OF THE SKOG

THE LITTLE HOUSE

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

the barefoot librarian

Kimbra Power

Category Archives: library