Delightful December!

 Why is December so delightful? Well, for the library it's because of so much planning in the works for the new year!

What's coming soon, you might ask? (Or even if you didn't ask, you're about to find out!)

1. Tea and Topics for our parents regarding reading for pleasure and online resources from the library.

2. Another Late Night at the Library! And, yes, this will be another mystery but in a different format and with new suspects...be on the lookout for The Case of the Mysterious Messages!

3. Author visits! We have one for senior school in February planned, and the scheduling of the classes and times is underway. We have a Thai author (and the book character!) being planned for our youngest classes through their Thai class times, and then fingers crossed on another author able to come visit us from the US.

4. On top of this, we are hosting Kids' Lit Quiz Thailand this year, with 34 teams already signed up, and more possible in the next few weeks. This is a really big event since the winner goes on to Canberra Australia for the world finals!

(and no, that's not all, although all of that is happening within the first two months of the new term...)

5. We also have Fully Booked Week which is incorporating world languages into the celebration! Lots of planning beginning for this fabulous event.

Could there be more? Of course there can, but those all happen a little farther into the new year so we don't have the planning underway just yet. We are definitely looking forward to more poetry competitions as the Shrewsbury Asia Poetry Competition goes into its third year.

The Case of the Missing Minecraft Books

 Ahhh, Minecraft. That game for which we have dedicated an entire nonfiction shelf in the junior library, and about 30 e-book titles as well. 

To our surprise, one morning, all of the books were gone from the shelf! (At least 20 books showed available, but were gone!) On the shelf were: a watch, a candy wrapper, 2 different leafs, a bit of a feather, and some brown fur. Also on the shelf were a package of puzzles with a taunting message about solving them to find the thief, and a note telling everyone that we would never find the culprit!

OH, MY!

Needless to say, this case needed some alert sleuths to track down the culprit. The library staff rounded up all of the possible suspects (the 7 puppets who did not go to the "puppet spa," a.k.a. cleaners) and interrogated them. Then, with the help of 70 students who stayed for a Late Night at the Library, we solved the puzzles and found the thief!

Note to everyone: don't ignore your friends to play a video game. Always make time for your friends so they do not steal the library books in hopes of stopping your game play. 

This was a fun evening for junior school students. And it seems a new mystery is afoot.

Ooops.

 So a lot has happened, and I have been very remiss in my blog updates!

Just a quick recap of the missing months:

April: We begin the second annual Shrewsbury Asia Poetry Competition. Lots of poetry being read and written in the library, especially during our after school You-Time.

May: Joshua Siegal zoomed in with our students and then served as guest judge for the SAPC. 

June: End of the year with celebrations, the Masked Singer (in which three members of the library team successfully (?) sang "In the Jungle"), and our final book fair of the year.

After a nice holiday, the school year began again!

August: we had a huge number of applicants for the coveted library monitor positions. So many, in fact, that we already have our Term 2 library monitors in place and eager to start in January! 

September: We had full lessons in PrePrep, Junior, and Senior libraries for the entire month of September! 

Whew! Now that the update is over, here's the actual blog post.

Each year, we begin receiving interest in students working on their Duke of Edinburgh International Award (Bronze) to volunteer in the library. These volunteers work in Senior and Junior Libraries before or after school until their service hours are complete. Our senior school volunteer spots are almost all filled now! These students are a great deal of help to the library team.

We have also been busy welcoming two new team members! As always, the library is a busy place and we all have a lot of tasks to do each day. (One of the reasons I fell behind on my updates!)

Now, we are planning our 17 October visit with Scott Riley and Prasit Hemmin. Scott wrote the book, The Floating Field: How a Group of Thai Boys Built Their Own Soccer Field. This non-fiction book won the Siam Book Awards (Younger Reader category) for 2023! Prasit is featured in the book since he and his friends built the floating field in southern Thailand when they were children. 

The Junior and Senior school SLACs have had their first meeting. (So  you don't have to look back in time, SLAC = Student Library Advisory Council). The J-SLAC will be having a special activity with Scott and Prasit. The S-SLAC is working on planning the Term 1 Library Contest.

On top of that, we are planning another Late Night at the Library...a mystery game this time! We also have Fully Booked Week/World Languages Week planning underway, another author visit in February, book fairs on the calendars, and the hosting of Kids' Lit Quiz Thailand in March! 

For the library team, at least, the library is not a quiet, relaxing place to only read. Too much other things to do! (And we love it!)

Wait! What?

 It's March? Already? How did that happen? Where has the time gone, and why have there been no blog posts between November and March?

Hmmm...

December: research skills and activities continued, although we were unable to hold our Christmas Songs and Stories event this year. 

January: Fully Booked Week Planning underway, with more encompassing events, three author visits, and loads of activities throughout junior and senior school. Teaching an EPQ research/skills class each week begins with Year 12 students.

February: Year 6 students working on their academic essays, Y2 students learning how to research facts and write opinions, and attending the Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop in Singapore. (And presenting on two different days!)

And now it is March. We are in the midst of Fully Booked Week with an activity plan that looks like this (and it's too big to fit the whole day in one picture!):

Oh, and that doesn't include special activities in classrooms like the EY2 "Bedtime with a Book" day where everyone is in pajamas and reading their favorite bedtime stories!

This year, the theme is "Branch Out with a Good Book!" We have a great guessing contest, the story tent at break and lunchtimes, parent story tellers in their home languages every day after school, DEAR time in senior classes every day, a book fair, a book swap, a charity book project, and so much more!

On Monday, the library team dressed as branches of the animal kingdom. Junior School students and teachers participated in the team trivia competition, and Khun Toobpong, an award-winning Thai author, visited with students during their Thai lessons.

For Tuesday, we had author and poet Simon Mole visiting with years 1-7. This was our FBW logo shirt day.

Today, we had the senior school team trivia competition, a Tea and Topics on reading by our principal, and the library team dressed as Groot.

For Thursday, we have Khun Nampong, another award-winning Thai author, speaking with students in Years 7-10. On this day, we are branches of mighty rivers around the world! 

Friday, our culmination day, will have costume parades, an assembly, and the announcement of winners of various competitions. On this day, our library team plans special costumes as various mythological gods and goddesses of trees, mountains, fields, and rivers.

Tis the Season to Do Research!

 Tis the start of the TRUE research season! (Fa-la-la-la-la, La-la-la-la!)

How can we research? Let us count the ways! First, EPQ students are beginning this journey for the EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) that will be presented next school year. This means discussing ways to narrow topics, find sources and so forth have begun. Yesterday was a lesson with 50 students who are interested in this process!

Next is the Reading the World Fascination Papers! These students are in the Reading the World course and are finding topics of interest and completing university level research on that topic. We are exploring databases and other authoritative resources for the topics. (This year some topics include: aging and genetics, sustainable farming, probiotics, the economic effect of women in the workplace, and much more!)

Then we head down to junior school for the research process (years 5 and 6) and exploring Encyclopedia Britannica School for years 3 and 4. Now that they have all explored some web resources, students will be completing a BINGO scavenger hunt during library lessons to practice skills AND to learn how to avoid the "copy and paste" technique of note-taking. (This is also referred to as avoiding plagiarism.)

While this portion of research finishes before the term break in December, we will not be finished with research. In January, I will be teaching an EPQ skills session each week to a class of students - I am one of 6 instructors guiding students through the process of researching and writing their dissertations. Year 6 students will be doing the junior school version of the EPQ with a research essay. For this, we will look at ways to effectively use the internet for information. Research will begin for year 2 students as we use PebbleGo to determine the difference between facts and opinions. 

My overall goal through all of this is to take the fear of research away and replace it with the knowledge that, when done correctly, research is just a fun scavenger hunt for information, and putting the facts together is just like assembling a puzzle! (Every fact belongs in just the right place when you complete the project.)

Tis the season to do research

Fa-la-la-la-la, La-la-la-la!

Using Jstor and Explora

Fa-la-la-la-la, La-la-la-la!

Don't forget to cite your sources

Fa-la-la, La-la-la, La-la-la!

Write the facts, don't copy and paste them.

Fa-la-la-la-laaa, La-la-la-la!

What Changes November Brings!

 First, the concurrent events were phenomenal! Such a great turn out of parents and students! I think everyone had a great time.

Now it is November, and things are changing like the leaves of trees in colder climates. (Not so much leaf change here in Thailand!)

1: We are starting a Student Library Advisory Council. This will allow students in Years 3-9 to participate in the planning of library activities and contests, including Fully Booked Week! We are excited that students will have more of a voice in ways to encourage reading.

2: We have a new member of our team who is being "baptized by fire" or, rather, by costumes. His first day was a school wide celebration with everyone in costume, and we had his Super Librarian shirt and cape ready when he arrived! Today is the celebration of Loy Kratong so we are all in traditional Thai clothing. Friday will be our school's celebration of Diwali, and next week is Loud Socks and Ties Day to celebrate International Diversity Day! 

3: After a half-term to get used to the wonderful new PrePrep library space, we have changed our way of working with our 11 classes of "littlest ones." This change should allow for more continuity of service in that library and keep the two main libraries running smoothly.

4. Although it is not a "change" per se, we are about to host a much-awaited meeting at our school. WAAAAYYY back in 2019, our library was renovated. In order to "show off" this fabulous new space, we were supposed to host a BLISS (Bangkok Librarians in International SchoolS) meeting in May of 2020. Well, it's very difficult to host a meeting among librarians during a pandemic lockdown. Our long awaited, and often rescheduled, meeting will now occur this month. The only thing left to do is order the food...

5. And our school will be hosting a really fun event in December! We are excited to work with our houses on charity fundraising, building community spirit, and having a story time booth with stories in many languages throughout the afternoon and evening! 

Of course, many other things are happening as we are introducing research skills, working on the Siam Book Awards, writing book reviews, and more during library lessons. 

Hosting Concurrent Events

 This month the library has been planning and preparing for FOUR events during two different evenings. Yes, I said "EVENINGS!" We have divided our Junior School students into two groups based on year levels, and then are holding parent events at the same time (but different location) as the student events. Here is our ambitious plan:

On Monday, the early years through year 2 (preschool through 1st grade) students will be signed in to Late Night at the Library. While the students begin a nice, mostly healthy meal, the parents will go to a presentation area in the next building for a Tea and Topics on "Raising a Lifelong Reader." We are fortunate to have the librarian from our sister campus assisting with the Tea and Topics. (Parents will also enjoy some refreshments before the event begins since it starts at 5.00pm.)

Parents on Monday will have a session on ways to encourage reading at home, make reading fun for parents and children, etc. Then they will make a storytelling aid to take home. (Storytelling aid = sock puppet) Meanwhile the children are enjoying stories, a game, and making their own puppets (paper bag puppets).

On Wednesday evening, we repeat the event with some changes. The older students in Y3-Y6 (2nd-5th grades) will have a Dia de los muertos theme, a fun story, and some games. Their parents will be learning more about ways to help their readers at home and how to help navigate research for school projects. What games will the students play? An unusual version of Simon Says, Pass the Pumpkin, and a silent drawing relay!

So far, what have we done to prepare? We sent the forms out through our school portal on Friday at 4.18pm. By 10.16pm, one event was full and the other had less than a dozen places available. It was filled by the end of the weekend! Next...when you have almost 100 parents attending each night and 60 children each night, you first have to get the food ordered to feed everyone, keeping in mind allergies, cultural and religious restrictions, and healthiness of food options. After that time-consuming task, we had to start preparing the supplies for the activities and games. Our library became a sock puppet factory as we cut felt and glued it onto 100 socks for the inside of the mouths. (The rest of the puppet will be created by the parents. The glue for this stage takes much longer to dry.) 

We are hopeful these events go well. We have never held concurrent events before, but we think everyone will enjoy themselves.