Wednesday 29 February 2012

Book Week March 5-9


The theme for this year's Book Week is.....

Reading is my superpower!


Below is info about the week. Feel free to do more in your class or grade.

New to UWC? Or just can't remember anything from last year? Here's a link to General Info and other ideas.

Daily Events:

Reading Magic Monday- Choose any activity to celebrate reading to kick off the week: pair a book with a cooking activity, invite a surprise guest reader, extra DEAR time outside your regular reading time, etc...You might want to use this poem, by Michael Rosen. It was written for the 2008 Book Week in the UK. The link also includes activity ideas that you might want to use to kick off the week.

Poem in your Pocket Tuesday- everyone comes to school prepared to share a poem -- either in their pocket to be read or in their head to be recited.

WOW Book Wednesday- a WOW book on this day could be a a great book to read aloud since it is World Read Aloud Day or it could be Red Dot book because voting begins today.

Thinking Thursday- focus on books that really make you think (or learn something new) like nonfiction, a how-to book, a mystery...

Dress Up Friday- come to school dressed as a character from a story. Click here for costume ideas.

Click here for a timetable of other special events during the week.

Week Long Events:

Book Nooks- Be on the look out for special reading areas with bean bags and pillows

around campus for reading books before school and throughout Morning Break and Lunch Break.



Books We Love Wall- during your class check out time in the library, have your students add to their favorite books to the display- we will have a Michael Rosen poem on a large murual for kids to right on graffiti-style.



Tuesday 7 February 2012

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!


While Green Eggs and Ham is my absolute favorite Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax is a close second. I always worry a bit when my favorite children's books are made into movies. There's quite a lot of online promotion of the new Lorax movie which will be released in the US on March 2 (on Dr. Seuss' birthday!) Definitely check out the movie trailer. Fingers crossed that it will be in theaters in Singapore soon and that it will be worthy of the Dr. Seuss name.

I wonder what Dr. Seuss would think of the movie and all that goes with it.

Even add The Lorax 'Stache to your photos!





Besides being fun for kids, hopefully, all of this will raise awareness with about environmental concerns.

Here's a link to Seussville, a site for kids dedicated to all things Seuss!

Update- Red Dot Awards

Voting will take place from March 7-14.



As the Red Dots are a "children's choice" award, only students may vote.

Students may vote for ONE book in each category (Early Years, Younger Readers, Older Readers, and Mature Readers).  

There is no minimum number of books that must be read.  

Simply one vote per student per category.
Votes are collected for one week.


Infant classes will vote for the Early Years category in the library during regular library check out time. A voting table will be set up in the round, yellow room. Students will be given one bean to vote for their favorite book.  Miss Kalimah will have the beans.


Junior classes will vote online via Survey Monkey. Our voting code is UWCEAST.

Important Dates:

Voting: March 7-14
Winners announced: March 17
Readers' Cup Activity: Session 4
Readers' Cup: May 10

Join the discussion! Encourage your students to write book reviews. Click the links below, then choose a book cover to write a review and discover book recommendations for similar titles.



Mother Language Day


February 21 is the 12th annual International Mother Language Day. The UN began celebrating this day to raise awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to increase multilingualism.

As this United Nations link explains, the February 21st date honors the anniversary of a 1952 attack on students in Dhaka who were “demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages.”

Check out these websites for resources:

The LingEducator Blog- activity ideas

Tumble Books- ebooks in Spanish, French, and Chinese

Book Flix- ebooks in Spanish

International Children's Digital Library- ebook collection includes over 4500 books in 61 languages.


Thursday 2 February 2012

Big Book Babble



Big Book Babble is a new online show by Scholastic UK and Red House bringing popular children's authors to your classroom via a live broadcast on the Internet. While most of these shows do not occur during our school hours, the shows are available on-demand after the live broadcast. Shows available now feature Charlie Higson and Andy Stanton. Future authors will include Jacqueline Wilson, Cressida Cowell, Anthony Horrowitz, and Nick Sharratt.

The site also includes free resources for teachers to download.