If you’ve got a few minutes spare at school pick-up time, pop into the library to see the Prep work on display.
Thank you to Ruth Woolven for this week’s post –
Each week in Library lessons we read a picture story book together. Sometimes we follow up with an activity. Continue reading
Thank you to Ruth Woolven for this week’s blog post –
Recently some classes have completed a library survey sharing what they have enjoyed in library this year. Many students stated they liked reading and borrowing books with Eva in 34K explaining further:
“That you are not forced to read a particular book.” Continue reading
The Book Week parade… Every year it thrills kids but sends a ripple of fear through parents, when elaborate costume plans are announced the night before the parade!
Despite the costume-making-mayhem that no doubt goes on, our Book Week parade is always brilliant and 2017 was no exception. Ruth Woolven recaps –
When I was in primary school, we would work on a project each term. The project topics varied – natural disasters, animals, medieval history, flags of the world, weather patterns, the Olympics and so on. Regardless of the topic, the projects all followed the same format: weeks of furious research in the library, followed by the painstaking process of ruling lines on your poster, creating a spectacular heading using The Lettering Book, inexpert use of tracing paper to press maps and pictures onto your masterpiece and finally, the addition of your text.
My memories of these projects are a mix of satisfaction and frustration – the right layout or a misspelt heading or once, a spectacularly bad portrait of Captain Cook, seemed to separate the great projects from the ordinary. But what of the actual content? Continue reading
Thank you to our librarian, Ruth Woolven* for her thoughts on sharing the reading experience –
A couple of weeks ago the Library opened after school for a Family Reading Afternoon. This was an opportunity for families to visit the Library and read together. It was wonderful to see parents and grandparents sharing stories and exploring the library collection with our students. Continue reading
When my kids were at kindergarten, the most popular corner of the kinder room was the ‘tinkering’ corner. Anyone who had something that could be taken apart (bits of computers, old VCR players etc) would donate it to the kinder, where the kids would spend hours managing screwdrivers, pliers and nuts and bolts (just look at the tiny screws in something like your computer keyboard to know what removing them does for the fine motor skills of a four-year-old!).
For all sorts of reasons, when kids get to school, time for unstructured play and ‘tinkering’ is often reduced. Happily, KPS provides opportunities for kids who like to learn in this way – the Makerspace program and Play for Life are two examples. This week, Ruth Woolven tells us about Makerspace –
For your child, tinkering and making is a powerful and fun form of learning by doing. It provides an opportunity to explore and express creativity. Continue reading
Many things come to mind when I think about my primary school librarian – she was the first port of call when we had a project to do; she was recommender of new books that I might like (hello Judy Blume); she was maker of amazing displays (I never knew I wanted to learn so much about the solar system until I saw her arrangement of books, foam balls hanging from the ceiling to represent the planets and a paper black hole); she was auditor of the MS Read-a-thon; she was driver of the microfiche; and she was also keeper of Where Did I Come From? (a book that only the grade six students were allowed free access to!). Continue reading
