The hobyahs!

Our Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students revisit the old German-origin folktale, “The hobyahs”, every three years in our cyclic literacy program. We use both the Cornish turnip house and little dog Turpie version, which has quite dark overtones (with the kidnapping of a little girl) and an Australian version with a bark hut and little yellow dog, Dingo, who temporarily loses his tail, legs and head.

Here’s a Youtube production of the version by Simon Stern, set in the house made of turnips:


“The hobyahs”, narrated by garagarahebe

The “What drives me crazy and how can I fix it immediately?” method

Recently, on the TL listservs, we were asked to comment on how we displayed series titles, and how we decided which series would become designated special sections and which would be interfiled with the main collection. I decided I usually use the “What drives me crazy and how can I fix it immediately?” method.

At this school, “Where’s Wally?” books are almost-always out on loan, or if they are “in”, they are all off the display and being read at lunchtimes. In the new library, I have a special, decorated shelf for “Where’s Wally?” books.

I found Wally, er, Waldo

Thanks to a bit of laminating (the cover of an old “Where’s Wally: the magnificent poster book”) and a big, blue-painted MDF “W” from Spotlight (or Lincraft), the display still looks good even if every Wally book is “out”:

Where's Wally? poster rack

“Quick Reads” are on a spinner rack and include a pot pouri of “Aussie bites”, “Aussie nibbles”, “Aussie chomps”, “Skinnys”, “Solos”, “Out of this world”, “Hotshots”, “Crazy tales” and “Billy Kool”, etc.

Displays

Our three levels of “Premier’s Reading Challenge” books are also in their own sections.

In the old library, the previous TL was driven crazy by the popularity of “Goosebumps”, so I created a dedicated shelf in Fiction for Stine’s “Goosebumps” series, mainly because otherwise the frantic rummaging for those titles made a complete mess out of the regular “S” shelf. The dedicated display was actually on an empty “G” shelf, but in the new library, “Goosebumps” (more were donated!) take up two whole shelves called “STI – Goosebumps”, situated between the “R” and “T” shelves, and decorated by a hideous, life-sized, Halloween skull.

Goosebumps skull

In my previous two libraries, we had dedicated sections for “Dr Seuss” books and “Choose-Your-Own Adventures”, because those books were extremely popular at the time.

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

What a fun day, as about 400 Penrith PS students (including the pre-schoolers in our “Play and Chat” group) joined thousands of Australian children and teachers across Australia, in schools and in public libraries, in a simultaneous reading of Rod Clement’s picture book, “Feathers for Phoebe“. Some of us watched a Youtube video clip (below), others read the book on an IWB (above, in our new school library), or using the book with buddy classes.

Here is the ALIA podcast of “Feathers For Phoebe” via Youtube:

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011
Mr McLean reads “Feathers For Phoebe” for Stage 2.

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

View our Photo Peach slideshow of the event!

UPDATE:

Here is a close-captioned, Auslan version of the ALIA Youtube podcast:

And our PhotoPeach digital story:


Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS

iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare

#242

A good news story in an attempt to counterbalance all the negative dragon-lady news articles (Sydney Morning Herald; The Age) today:

In the current “Scan”:
“iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories” in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
Stage 1 students narrate how they inquire, learn, create and share with ICT and Web 2.0 to produce online Photo Peach slideshows at Penrith Public School.

Many thanks to “Scan” editor Cath Keane. It looks great! Our students are going to be thrilled! And I look terrible in a twin-set & pearls anyway.

UPDATE: This afternoon, I returned to the library briefly after a staff meeting – and there was an urgent email telling me that ABC 702 radio commentator, Richard Glover, was seeking listeners to phone in and explain why they broke a stereotype. This segment was in response to the aforementioned newspaper articles about angry dragon-lady librarians in horn-rimmed glasses, cardigans, pearls and hair in buns. The suggestion was that I ring in myself, to explain that I broke that stereotype. I was sure I’d missed my chance, due to the meeting, but I did ring in and was put to air a few minutes later.

The call ended rather abruptly – no goodbye and thanks – so they must have only been after very brief sound bytes, like the ones I heard them playing while I was awaiting my turn. I wasn’t sure if they were wanted me for something meatier. I only hope I made some sense; it was all so fast. 15 seconds of fame, if that.

The new era of “sound byte” reporting, solidly with us these past few years, is certainly one of our biggest hurdles in getting a complex message (such as the points raised by the recent Parliamentary Enquiry) across – in any media.

Stars in the Star

A Stage 2 student from our school will be published in the “Penrith City Star” newspaper next week: with a book review of the picture book, “The Terrible Plop” by Ursula Dubosarsky & Andrew Joyner! The student gets his photograph and book review published in the newspaper (and we put the review on our school library wiki). The newspaper uploades all six reviews to their website. Another student in the six is drawn from a barrel to win a $25 book voucher from a local bookshop (Dymocks this year). That student is also photographed with his certificate.

I coordinate the reviews each year as part of my fifth day (I’m a 0.8 teacher-librarian), as a 0.2 Priority Schools Funding literacy support teacher. The Penrith Star Readers Program was developed with the DET and local principals as an annual event, rotated amongst various primary schools, modeled on a similar program in St Marys – and it gives K-6 students a great opportunity to be professionally published.

Thylacine dreams

Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

Many thanks to Paul Macdonald and his staff at The Children’s Bookshop, Beecroft, for the invitation to hear Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, this afternoon, discussing their magnificent new picture book, “The dream of the thylacine”. This moving work features “Ben”, the very last Tasmanian tiger, who died a lonely death in Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo in the 1930s. Margaret and Ron were generous with their anecdotes, words of wisdom, time and autograph-signing hands, to the appreciation of 70 teachers and teacher-librarians who travelled to hear them. The champagne flowed freely and there were plenty of bargains (and CBCA shortlisted books) for sale in the store.

The dream of the thylacine
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2011.

The students at my school have really appreciated “The dream of the thylacine”, which is a strong literary and artistic example of a persuasive text – a very timely book for the lead-up to last week’s NAPLAN test, and for our Stage 3 students studying endangered species. It was also pleasing that many of these students actually remembered seeing the old b/w footage of “Ben”in 2009, when I introduced “How WEIRD is that?” (one of that year’s Crichton Award CBCA nominees) – one of the first film clips we displayed on the old library’s then-new IWB!

Margaret spoke of being entranced by that old b/w footage during a trip to Tasmania, and the text for “The dream of the thylacine” grew from that. Ron talked of his initial reluctance to take on the project as illustrator (and designer), despite their previous successful collaboration on the award-winning “Fox” over ten years earlier. Ron had been deep into “Drawn from the heart”, his recently-published memoir, but inevitably he embraced the uniquely-Tasmanian elements of “The dream of the thylacine”.