Library News
In Prep Library students enjoyed reading books about unicorns. They loved reading Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey. Mrs Luke was impressed by how well Prep listened to the lesson goal to watch the book and pictures as Mrs Luke reads. Prep are amazing story listeners. Students then had a wonderful time making unicorn puppets, playing and decorate our horses with playdough and gems, playing with rainbows and borrowing new books for the week.
In Kindergarten Library students have been exploring that the library is a place of stories. Students have been discovering different types of stories we can read and enjoy. They looked at funny stories and the characters that make us giggle. Students read Rodney Loses It! And The Duckling Gets a Cookie?! together and laughed at these very silly characters. They really loved the pigeon character and created our own pigeon artworks.
In Stage Two they are exploring how we can learn factual information. Students have been reading Matt Chun’s book Australian Sea Life. In pairs students selected an animal from the book to research more deeply. Using the information from the book and searching online students wrote summary notes about our sea creature. Stage Two talked about the importance of using images to enhance our written work. Students each used Matt Chun’s illustration to inspire their own artwork based on the creatures researched. Stage Two carefully observed the illustrations and concentrated on getting the shape of the animal before adding details using oil pastel and water colour. The final artworks are going to make an impressive display in the library.
Mrs Helen Luke – Junior School Teacher Librarian
Teacher librarians are the ultimate matchmakers. We listen to our students, get to know their interests, set them up with a book, and hope they hit it off. If we do our jobs effectively, our students will fall in love with multiple books. And they will keep coming back for more.
February is often referred to as the month of Love. This is the month that the SAC Senior School Library highlights books about love, relationships, kindness and friendship. It is a timely opportunity to encourage our students to keep the love and curiosity of reading books through the “Blind Date With a Book” initiative.
“Blind Date with a Book” is an opportunity to showcase to our students our diverse and inclusive library collection. We select a large range of books, wrap them up, and highlight their appealing factors in a fun way on the cover. In terms of providing advice or suggestions for the reader, the more information we can put on the cover without giving away the book, the better. Looking at a “Blind Date with a Book” display, the students have to ask themselves: what type of story am I in the mood for? What type of books do I want to avoid? What makes me like the books that I like?
Throughout the month of February our books have flown off the display shelves and the librarians have not only been busy replenishing these but have also noticed the students taking the time to seriously consider the different options available to them. “Blind Date with a Book” is a cute and cheeky display that surprises and delights our students.
Finally we like to add an interactive element to your program by asking participants to Rate Their Date! We include a bookmark in each wrapped book that asks the borrower to describe their experience. We ask the following:
First Impression?
Ugh So-so Interested Love at First Sight
How Was It?
Total Disaster Boring Ok Better than expected Wonderful
Would you date this kind of book again?
No Way Doubt It Maybe I Think So Definitely
What’s your overall rating for this book?
1 2 3 4 5
