Read & Recycle @ UWCSEA East

Need something to read over the spring break? 


Feel free to take a book from the "Read & Recycle" bookshelves outside the Kishore Mahbubani Library on the main plaza.  

We have books for all ages -- board books for babies, picture books, early readers, beginning chapter books, novels, nonfiction, travel guides,  business & economics textbooks, cookbooks, old Readers Digest magazines, etc.

The shelves outside the secondary library are part of a new service activity for handling second-hand book donations and supporting literacy.  High school students will be supervising primary school students in managing the process and keeping the shelves in order.

We only ask that you return the books that we have labeled specifically "Read & Recycle" (see photo below of the label) when you are done reading them so others may enjoy them.  But if you don't, we'll never know.  This is a total honor system.  We just want books to circulate.

NB:  Books with NO label are free for the taking.  You can take them home for good or read and pass on to others. 

How it works

Deliver your book donations to one of the libraries -- or place in the secondary library's Return Box outside the front door.

Books will be sorted into four categories.

• Suitable for the school library;
• Suitable for a global concern;'
• Likely to be of interest to several people -- these books will get a "Read & Recycle" sticker and we expect people to return them after reading -- or pass them on to someone else;
• Unlikely to be that popular -- these books will not get a sticker and will be free for the taking.  (These books are ones that need a good home.)

Money donations in appreciation of this service will be accepted, with proceeds going towards new books for children in Cambodia and Indonesia.  Twice a year there will be a book sale when all "Read & Recycle" books will be cleared.

Questions?  Contact Ms. Katie Day in the secondary library (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg / 8233-2922).

And the Red Dot Book Award winners are....

With 14 schools participating in the voting and over 7,000 votes cast in total, the winners for the Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore as a whole are:

Early Years

Younger Readers

Older Readers

Mature Readers

Within our campus, the winners were almost identical to the Singapore-wide ones.  The only difference was in the Younger Readers category, our students liked "Lunch Lady" better:

and in the Mature Readers category, "Stitches" was tied with "Ship Breaker".

The Readers Cup competition will be held on May 10, 2012, at our campus.

Titles (a subset of the shortlists for Younger, Older, and Mature readers) for the Readers Cup event will be announced within the next few days (as we know you're all anxious to start working).  Watch for more details about how the teams will be selected.

What about next year's Red Dot shortlists?  Well, we've already set up Goodreads Listopia lists to collect suggestions.  And our goal is to collect and consider these long lists by June -- and announce the shortlists BEFORE the June/July break.  So you can be reading over the summer.

NB:  To put a book on the suggestion list, you do have to have a Goodreads account.

Click below to access each of the lists -- and add whatever books you want.  I've populated the lists -- to start with -- with books from the Panda Book Awards (the China equivalent of the Red Dot awards) and the Sakura Medal (the Japanese equivalent).  Books should have been published in English in 2009, 2010, 2011, or 2012.

• Early Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Younger Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Older Readers 2013 - LONG LIST
• Mature Readers 2013 - LONG LIST

Questions?  Come ask Ms. Day in the secondary library -- or email me (kda@uwcsea.edu.sg).

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.

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.

Follow Dr Seuss' The Lorax on Facebook.

The Lorax Project

The app

The Lorax Daily Activity

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.

Early Years

Younger Readers

Older Readers

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 21^st 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.

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.