LCS ES Media Blog

Thank you to everyone for the support you have shown us in the library this year. We hope you all keep on reading during the holidays. You can find great resources and recommendations on our summer reading wiki:

LCS Summer Fun

See you back in August!

Ms. Tanja

During this week, I will introduce the wiki on which to find the resources for our summer reading program. It is still a work in progress that will only be completed when school ends on Thursday, June 17, 2010. However, you will already get a chance to have a look at some of the pages and to get a better understanding on how to participate. To make sure that you know what to do when the holidays start, your task for this week is to make two entries into your journal (if you don’t have one yet, you will get one during class time):
 
(1)    Write down the URL of the LCS Summer Fun Wiki (http://lcssummerfun.wikispaces.com)
(2)    Explain in your own words how you can participate in our summer reading fun.
 
I am looking forward to hearing from you what you think about the wiki!
 
Ms. Tanja

During the past week, the library turned into a second art room and I am impressed with the many beautiful and extremely creative journals you have already designed. Even though you are having a different task this week, you can also continue decorating your journal. Ms. Judith has given us some additional art supplies.

Your task for this week is to create a title page for your journal. Now let’s think what we usually find on a book’s title page: title, author, illustrator, place of publication and publisher – and on the back of the title page the copyright date. Often a title page includes a photograph or illustration as well. Okay – now it’s your turn to transfer that information to your summer journal. I am sure you might even think of additional information or features to add. Maybe a short poem, a favorite quote, a picture of yourself – it’s all up to you to decide.

Have a great week!

Ms. Tanja

I am excited to see so many of you showing interest for our summer reading program this year. Our world map is a busy place and LCS students basically cover the whole world with their wide range of holiday destinations. If you haven’t told us yet where you will be going to, it is not too late yet.

Your task for this week is to start personalizing your summer reading journal. Thanks to Ms. Judith, we have a wide variety of crafts materials which will allow you to decorate your journal and to make it really yours. Come in at any time before school, during recess or lunch time to start working on your journal. Please, make sure you leave your journal in the library for the time being so that you can work on it whenever you have time. You will of course take it home on the last day of school.

 Looking forward to seeing your creative designs!

Ms. Tanja

Our school’s long break is just about a month away and the excitement about summer starts kicking in. As every year, the library will organize a fun reading program for you, which you can follow from whereever you go. Wondering how we are going to do this? Of course, via Internet! We are in the process of setting up a Summer Fun Wiki, just for you, with many wonderful resources, activities and ideas.   But don’t worry, you will be taken care of, even if you don’t have easy Internet access. We are beginning this week to get you started, so that by June 18, when school is out, you can jump right into the summer fun. Give yourself and your classmates a head start with your summer reading! Why? Because summer reading is important and fun – and because you might win an invitation for your class to the library’s end-of-year party! Just follow the announcements on the bulletin board and on our blog closely, to follow each week’s activity. We are starting off really easy: just tell us where you will be spending your vacations and have it marked on our world map.

 Have fun! 

Ms. Tanja

Our poetry competition for April came to an end last Friday and over the weekend I had the challenge to select the winners. Participation was low – I know, everybody is really busy at this time of the year – so I decided to honor the effort of every single student participating. You will all join me for lunch on Tuesday, May 11, 2010, from 12:00-1:00pm. Congratulations Eelke, Xoai, Kayla, Tae-In, Natalie, Hyunho, Svenja, Carlotta, Nana Ama and Keziah.

While I don’t have enough space to share all poems with you here (but they will remain up on our bulletin board for another week), I want to present two that touched me in particular (of course, they are about libraries):

Library

A cozy place to sit, relax and learn new things.

A lot of books you can enjoy.

The Dewey Decimal System is one of the things we learn and use every day.

Reading books how fun is that.

The library is full of adventures; well it’s all in the books.

There is no noise all day long peace and quiet.

(Keziah & Nana Ama)

My Librarian

My librarian has led me

To places I never knew

Where butterflies

Wear buttered toast

(Or eaten in a stew)

I’ve been to Mr. Wonka’s glorious place

And saw Vervca get trash all over her face

I’ve met a witch with button eyes

A couple turtles (pretty wise)

I also met one or two spies

Who saved the world and risked their lives!

 

I’ve been on many adventures and witnessed people die

Felt so many feelings that made me want to cry.

I’ve drunken many potions that have chilled me to the bone

Felt the happy feeling of finally arriving home

I’ve battled against evil

And protected all the kind

Defeated many heartless

Gave sight to all the blind

 

My librarian has led me

To places I never knew

And I’m here to say

THANK YOU!

(Xoai)

Wishing you all a great week!

Ms. Tanja

Our bulletin board that I was hoping to cover with many wonderful and creative poems is still rather empty. Where are all of our poets? This is our last week of poetry month – and your last chance to shine as a poet and get invited to a lunch in the library. Maybe the following poem can inspire you to grab a pen or pencil and put down your own ideas:

Good Books, Good Times!

 

Good books.

Good times.

Good stories.

Good rhymes.

Good beginnings.

Good ends.

Good people.

Good friends.

Good fiction.

Good facts.

Good adventures.

Good acts.

Good stories.

Good rhymes.

Good books.

Good times.

(From: Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Good Rhymes, Good Times. [New York]: Harper Collins, 1995.)

Deadline for submission of poems is Friday 3:30pm.

Happy Monday!

Ms. Tanja

We have finally been able to hand over a whole box of books to representatives from the Ghana Health and Education Initiative (GHEI) for their community library in Humjibre. The money was raised during our read-a-thon at the end of last year. However, the program was interrupted by the school’s closure due to H1N1 and the December break. Then there had been a change in personnel at GHEI which delayed our handing-over of the books. But now the books are finally in Humjibre. A big thank you to all the participants of the read-a-thon, in particular Camilla, Mariaelisa, Alara, Svenja, Nikita, Finn, and Nathalie!

On a different note: do you already know about this month’s library activity? During the month of April, libraries and schools all over the United States celebrate Poetry Month. We decided to follow their motto, focusing on a part of our collection that is sometimes overlooked: the 811s. There are lots of great poetry books for you to explore. If you come across a poem you particularly like, why don’t you share it on our bulletin board (including a citation of the author and book you found it in)? Or write your own poem? We will display every entry on our bulletin board and select the best five at the end of the month. The winners will be invited to a special lunch in the elementary library.

Have a wonderful week!

Ms. Tanja

I hope you all had a wonderful relaxing spring break with lots of fun and quality time with family and friends. I had a few relaxing days, spending time with my family and reading some great books (no surprises here, I guess). While I usually put my reading recommendations on the other blog, I want to briefly list the titles here. All books are part of our collection and back on the shelves for you to check out and enjoy.

Gooney Bird Greene (Lois Lowry). I had heard a lot about this book since it seems to be a popular read-aloud at our school but had never read it before. Gooney Bird Greene is not your average second grader, not only because she just moved from China to Watertower Elementary School and has a very particular style of clothes, but most importantly because she can tell the most amazing stories – and as she says, she tells “only absolutely true stories”. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure about that in the beginning when she told about the diamond earrings she had received from a prince or when she said she had directed an orchestra on a day she was late for school. Let yourself be convinced and pulled into her stories – they are so much fun and at the same time might give you some great ideas for your own stories!

Judy Moody Predicts the Future (Megan McDonald). Another popular book at our library that has never been long enough on our shelves for me to get a chance to read it… but now I finally know what all the excitement about the Judy Moody and Stink (Judy’s brother) books is about. They are definitely fun to read; maybe because as in this particular book, we all sometimes feel like Judy, hoping to have control over our moods with a magic ring or being able to predict the future and figuring out in the end that we need to take our future into our own hands.

Angel on the Square (Gloria Whelan). This book is a real treat for those among you who enjoy historical fiction as I do. The time period is the First World War, the setting Russia. Twelve-year-old Katya becomes the companion of Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. While first excited about the move to the palace, she becomes more critical of her environment as she learns about the dark sides of war and revolution and the hardship it brings for the majority of people through the eyes of her cousin Misha. I have always been fascinated by the mystery surrounding the life and death of Anastasia. If you enjoy reading the book, you might want to read more about Anastasia on My Name is Anastasia

The Little Gentleman (Philippa Pearce). Now who would expect a grumpy old man, an even older mole with a very special gift, a young girl left behind by her mother, and witchcraft in a book with such a title? I definitely did not but then I had mentioned that in other posts before that titles can be very deceiving. This is a book for those (I guess like me) who go through life hoping to find some magic along the way.

I hope you feel inspired to check out one (or all) of these wonderful books.

Wishing you a great start,

Ms. Tanja

P.S. April is poetry month – check out our bulletin board to discover this month’s library activity!

It was such a joy to see so many of you bring your parents to the library during conferences on Friday – and even more to observe you while you gave your parents knowledgeable tours around the library. I think many parents were impressed by your OPAC skills and here I need to mention in particular our young OPAC experts from grades KG-1. It was so impressive with which confidence you searched for books and explained the procedure to your parents using the right terminology. Well done! I hope you keep on practicing and making good use of this great program to explore and discover the many wonderful books our library has to offer.

This will be a short week with just four more days before Spring break. If you are not traveling, make sure to get good books from the library to read over the holidays. If you have forgotten or misplaced your Tumble Book Library log in, see me before Friday for a new bookmark with the necessary information, to make sure you have access to many great e-books, no matter whether you remain in Ghana or travel abroad.

Wishing you a wonderful week,

Ms. Tanja