Last week, the students enjoyed looking at the Usborne Books during their library lesson. Many students wrote down titles on their book marks of books that they were interested in. If you would like to buy the Usborne books, remember that tomorrow (Sunday, March 21st) is the last day to order!
Click here to directly access the ordering form.
Email Yvonne with any book questions: ykenglishbooks@gmail.com
Thank you to everyone who has already placed their orders! Once all the other orders have come in, we will let you know how many free books we can choose (because of your purchases!). But we can tell you now already, that it’s been very successful so far! Thank you for building a reading culture in your home, and supporting our school library by doing so!
Next week, we will have a go at writing a poem! With the Foundation and First Grade classes, we will do that together – as a group. From PYP 2 and up, students will be encouraged to write their own poem – either with a friend, or by themselves.
There will be several tools available for the students, such as the magnetic poetry board. We will also have some templates students can use to build their poem with. The most important thing is that we have fun playing with words!
During the Reading Festival in week 13, we will share our own poems with each other! Sunday, March 21st is World Poetry Day. On the UNESCO website, you can read more about the background of this special day. I thought this was especially interesting, which connects so perfectly and beautifully with our Reading Festival, as well as the IB philosophy;
“World Poetry Day is an occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media. As poetry continues to bring people together across continents, all are invited to join in.” (Find the full article here.)
All are invited to join in! Maybe it could be fun to write a poem as a family? Our idea is to collect the poems the students (and their families!) have written and “publish” it, i.e. make it available as a book in the library to check out.
Looking ahead, Reading Festival is coming up quickly! It might be a good idea to start preparing for it!
Perhaps you could help your child with choosing a tongue twister to share on Tuesday? Or encourage your child to memorize a poem, to recite on Wednesday? The dress-up-as-a-book-character-day, is always very popular. Students are invited to dress like a book character. The idea is that it sparks a conversation between the students; Who are you? Why did you choose that character? What makes it such a good story?
Friday, April 2nd, is the first day of the Easter Holidays. On that day, which is also the International Children’s Book Day, we invite students to join in the Read-A-Thon as a way of concluding the Reading Festival.
This is how it works:
1) Ask your family, friends and neighbours to sponsor you for the Read-A-Thon. Write down the time and amount they are sponsoring you for. (For example, 15 sek for 15 minutes.)
2) Do the Read-A-Thon at home, on Friday April 2nd. Ask someone at home to time you. The idea is that you read for one long stretch of time (so not chunks spread throughout the day).
3) If you have read silently for as long as you think you can handle, ask that same person to note the time you’ve read on your sponsor sheet.
4) Your sponsor money can be swished. (Download the form for the swish number.)
5) With the money raised, we will buy books students have requested. If you have participated in the Read-A-Thon itself, you will get to suggest a book you think we should buy for in the library!
I would like to end this post with something that has nothing to do with literature, reading or stories – but with having fun! Kiumbiro, our Swedish Language and Culture teacher, invited a bunch of teachers (including Sophie and myself) to join in the Jerusalema challenge. In other words, to just have some fun during a time when it feels like so many fun things are cancelled! Click here to see the result.
Happy Dancing!
ISGRGuldLibrary 