Mother Language Story Telling during Book Week

So many books, so many languages...story time in mother languages. 

Following another successful Mother Language Day, we'd like to establish a tradition of parents reading stories to native/fluent speakers in the Junior School during Book Week.

We are looking for parent volunteers to share stories in mother languages. If you're interested, please bring your children's favourite picture book and novel to read to children in Grades 2-5 in the Primary Library at lunch time. This would be a half hour commitment on a day of your choice - 25 February–1 March, 11.45am-12.15pm.

Please click here to sign up. For more information, contact Sharon Tymms.

Reading Rocks! Book Week February 25 - March 1

Below is info about the week. 

Feel free to do more in your class or grade.

Our theme for the week is:

Reading Rocks!

Print the posters here.

New to UWC? Or just can't remember anything from last year? 

Here's a link to General Info and other ideas.

Daily Events:

Math Monday- Kick off the week by using a picture book to help teach a math lesson. Need ideas? Ask Tilson! or check out the selection of books in the math resource room or stop by the library.

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. Don't forget to ask students to share their poems!

Rock Your Reading Shoes Wednesday- This day is inspired by "Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes", a Red Dot book. Students can wear shoes other than their school shoes today. For example: Converse or high tops like Pete's, slippers, trainers, sandals, rain boots, or any fun shoes. (If your class has PE, remind kids to bring in appropriate shoes.) Make sure to read the book and watch the video.  

Thinking Thursday- focus on nonfiction. Jan Latta, an Australian author/photographer will present to K2-Gr 5.

Dress Up Friday- Come to school dressed as a favorite book character. Click here for costume ideas. Infant/Junior assembly at 8:30.

Click here for a timetable of 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. Thanks in advance to Grade 3 for organizing this!

Bookmark Competition- Each class will be given blank bookmarks to decorate to celebrate our theme, Reading Rocks! There will be a winner in each grade. Copies of the winning bookmarks will be available in the library a couple of weeks later. Bookmarks are due to the library by Friday March 1. For more info, click here.

Guest Readers- Sign up with your available times on the google doc. A guest reader will contact you.

Red Dot Award- Voting will be March 6-13 so encourage students to read these books so they will be able to vote for their favorite.  

Want more ideas? Pair a book with a cooking activity, invite a parent in as a  guest reader, extra DropEvereythingAndRead time outside your regular reading time, etc...Click here for even more ideas.

Season's Readings! What to read over the holiday

A few people have asked for recommendations of what to read during the holidays. Here are some lists with many titles to choose from.

Common Sense Media has a bunch of lists. Most of which you can search by age range.

Check out this MentorMob playlist for links to a variety of lists. This is my first time using MentorMob to put together resources. Let me know what you think.

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Season's Readings!

Image courtesy of santathing, http://www.librarything.com/blogs/librarything/2007/12/santathing-about-to-close/

The Red Dot Award 2013

The Red Dot Award is a children's choice award where the shortlisted titles are chosen by a committee of teacher librarians in Singapore from recent children's literature (first published in English within the past four years), with the goal of offering a range of books from around the world. Students will vote for their favorite books in March. 

The Red Dot books are divided into four categories:

Early Years (ages 3-7)

Younger Readers (ages 7-10)

Older Readers (ages 10-14)

Mature Readers (ages 14-adult) - these books will be in the secondary library.

Stop by the library to check out the books or browse these resources to find out more.  

Early Years

Younger Readers

Older Readers

The Red Dot Youtube Playlist 

The Red Dot Diigo group

Here's a MentorMob playlist of resources including book trailers, author interviews, and activities for some of the books. 

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

Voting will take place early March and the Reader's Cup will take place in May. 

Getting Serious about Series

Has this happened to you? You finished reading an amazing book, you know it's the first in a series but you're not sure which book to read next.  Don't you hate it when you can't figure out which title is next in a series?

Check out this website. 

You can search by series title, series subject, book title, or author. It's easy! If you search by author, you might find another series by the same author that you might like too.

We don't have all of these titles yet, but if you see something you think we should have in our library, let me know!

Writing Competition- A Martian Christmas

 Attention UWCSEA writers! Australian author, Sarah Brennan, is sponsoring a writing competition about Christmas on Mars.

Hmm…Christmas on Mars…I wonder what that would be like? Would there be Christmas trees…or Christmas rocks? Christmas crackers … or Christmas craters? Would there be a jolly old man in a red suit called Santa…or a grumpy little green man with a name more like Splorrg or Grrrmph! What would Martians eat at Christmas time? What would they give for presents? Would they sing Christmas carols? It’s entirely up to you and your amazing imagination!

There will be two age groups: grades 1-3 and grade 4-6. 

Entries due by midnight January 18, 2013. 

For more information go to Sarah's blog.  

WebPath Express- a new online resource

WebPath Express is a search tool that provides K-12 students with safe, fun and familiar searches that integrate over 70,000 trustworthy, relevant websites into our library catalog.

Here’s how to use it; the steps are quite simple.

1.    http://catalog.uwcsea.edu.sg/   OR   UWCSEA East-Primary Library

2.    Click on the WebPath Express tab on the left. 

3.    There are 3 ways to search:

• Search
• Browse
• Visual Search 

4. Choose the correct grade level.