SLA NSW Awards Celebration, 2012

SLA NSW Awards Celebration
Ian McLean, Stacey Taylor, guest speaker Maurice Saxby, Paul Macdonald and Alinda Sheerman at the School Libraries Association, NSW Awards at The Children’s Bookshop, Beecroft, last night. Paul is the proprietor of the shop… and so much more! He was receiving the inaugural Maurice Saxby Award.

Ian McLean
The John H Lee Memorial Award is for a teacher-librarian who demonstrates “excellence in leadership in innovative and collaborative teaching practice through the integration of learning technologies”. Presented to yours truly. Many thanks to Linda Gibson-Langford who nominated me! This is a joint award presented by SLA NSW and Charles Sturt University. Ashley Freeman presented me with the award.

SLA NSW Awards Celebration
Uncle Al Cameron, Ian McLean, Aunty Pat Cameron and my special guest, Janette Mercer, who was my inspirational primary school teacher-librarian at Arncliffe Public School in the 1960s.

Maurice Saxby
Maurice Saxby is sharing a poem, chosen at random, from a well-loved book he received at age five. Captivating! (Even the bear was mesmerised.) Maurice described that magic moment where a child is immersed in reading and suddenly gets a cold chill at the back of the neck. CS Lewis called this unique sensation “Surprise by joy.”

SLA NSW Awards Celebration
Teacher-librarian Jenny Scheffers (Caddies Creek Public School), Ian McLean and the School Libraries & Information Literacy Unit’s Colleen Foley at The Children’s Bookshop. Book rappers extraordinaire!

More puppets! It’s an obsession!

Puppets 1

Bargain basement animal puppets at $3 each from The Reject Shop, Penrith Plaza. Not sure why the Dalmatian has a yellow nose. I originally rejected these four puppets as my least favourites, but at just $3 each they made a hard bargain to pass up.

Puppets 2

More cute animal puppets, this time from the online Sunshine Markets, Queensland. The parcel arrived today! These were an irresistible Internet find: crocodile, leopard and (what the online catalogue called) “the Big Good Wolf”. Really? With those eyes?

Humpty was pushed?

Humpty on the wooden block wall

Our school has had a Humpty Dumpty mural on a classroom wall for many years now. It’s amazing how fast Humpty falls again when the three-year cyclic plan for K-2 comes around again.

As is traditional, the “Chicks R Us” and their incubator turned up this week. Only one egg to hatch now!

Chicks R Us

Chicks R Us 2

Chicks R Us 3

Meanwhile, the students suggested that a PowerPoint show about the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme, made three years ago, needed one more image to make it more interesting. So, this year, Easter egg Humpty shows some leakage after falling off his wall:

Humpty

Imagine your own adventure

I have been invited to present at the 2012 MANTLE Conference in June, speaking on two topics: “Engaging students through Guided Inquiry” and “How to promote your school library on a shoestring budget”.

Both topics will have some added tweaks to presentations I’ve done before, so I’m really looking forward to the challenge of the conference, and meeting teacher librarians of the Newcastle, Maitland, Taree, Lake Macquarie and Central Coast districts.

The giraffe neck project

New puppets

It’s an obsession! Despite resisting the urge to keep buying new puppets for the library. I found myself in need of a sheep puppet for next term at school, and yesterday I went back to find their last one. The bargain shop also had giraffes. The galah (it squawks!) and spotted quoll puppets were more expensive, from the local ABC Shop.

Giraffe project

The bargain shop had two no-necked giraffes left, so I have just combined two into one, to give my giraffe an appropriately long neck. A bargain-priced wooden paper-towel holder was disassembled and the stick glued inside the giraffe’s head. The original body “glove” was glued and wrapped around the wooden stick, then the beheaded body was sewn to the base of the resulting long neck.

Puppets 3

(Above left) Customised puppet-to-be: I hope to create a bat puppet from the spare giraffe’s head on a $3 spotty Dalmation dog puppet’s body. Yet to be dyed brown or grey. I’ll need some felt for the wings, and some sharp white teeth.
(Above right) Another dog puppet from the $6 range.

What’s new in the library?

I haven’t had a chance to post pics of the new items that have recently taken residence in the school library to kick off the 2012 school year:

Blue chair
A chair that is a perfect match for the deep teal colour of our fabric-covered walls. I inherited this from my parents’ place.

Study chair
An old study chair that someone tossed out for recycling.

Quick reads
Newly-stickered (with ubiquitous round yellow dots on the spine) “Quick read” books on the old spinner rack.

Footstool
A footstool from my parents’ place that is proving popular with K-2 browsers.

Jokes in a basket
A little recycled hamper basket now keeps the ever-popular Jokes & Riddles books from cluttering the Non Fiction shelves.

Co-teacher chairs
My ergonomic chair has now been joined by a co-teacher chair for team-teaching.

Curio frames
These stackable photo frame cubes also hold little artifacts (currently holding some small plastic animals and a few wayward Smurfs).

Paddington Bear
Paddington Bear, donated by Mrs Newbold. Found in a second hand store at a bargain price!

Enter Cranky Bear, Stage right

Cranky Bear
“The very cranky bear” by Nick Bland

I saw these at Christmas, but the picture book has been announced as this year’s ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime title. Just had to have me a Cranky Bear. Found him today in Dymocks, in the CBD.

See you on 23rd May, Cranky Bear!

Cast of The very cranky bear
The resident library puppets greet the Cranky Bear.