Our Library Monitors

At SHR, we have library monitors who volunteer to spend breaks and lunches in the library working. These junior school students in Y4-Y6 (grades 3-5) submit applications. Some are then interviewed, and from the interviews our LMs are chosen. It's a great way for students to give back to the school through volunteer time as well as gain some leadership responsibilities.

Usually we have three rounds of LMs, one per term. However, we did not open until half-way through the first term. As a result, we only have two rounds this year. Our first group of 26 students are finishing their service at the end of this week so we threw a thank you party for them!

Food, fun, and games were on the agenda, and our Junior School administrators handed out certificates of appreciation. (My librarian and I spent a day in Chinatown last month, shopping for goodies for this party. The library team has been making decorations and games for over a month! We appreciate these students and their hard work a lot!)

 



Here are some highlights from the party:

I am sorry, but we were having too much fun during the games portion for me to remember to take pictures!

Today has started the interviews for the new LMs who start after our half-term break next week.

Only One Month Left

...until Fully Booked Week arrives! (Technically, it's slightly longer, but we do have half-term break in the middle so we'll call it a month and be done with it!)

What is Fully Booked Week? Traditionally planned around the UK's celebration of World Book Day (first Thursday of March) which is similar to Read Across America Day in the US (but not to be confused with World Book Day by UNESCO which is on Shakespeare's birthday, April 22), FBW is a week-long celebration of reading and books! So when is this glorious week full of books and reading and everything librarians love? Ordinarily, we would hold it the first week of March. However, to avoid interfering with the spring musical, School of Rock, we moved FBW to the middle of March. After all, the date is not what matters...the meaning of the event is what's important!

This is one of our school's big events, and the biggest for the library team. We have been working on our plans since early November. This "late" start was due to opening the library in October and still unpacking as we circulated books. We have a lot of events planned plus costume days for Junior and Senior school. (The library team will wear costumes four of the five days.)

Here is our rough draft of the plans:

Of course, there are things that have changed, even this week, but here are the plans for Junior School:

Every day:

• story tent for pre-prep students with teachers and staff reading stories at break-time.
• after-school story-time with members of staff and the parents association reading stories
• the last period of the day is "Read Around the Corridor" where students can visit any class on their hall for a story and rotate classrooms
• book fair
• book swap

The crafts corner in the library will have three different crafts during the week:

• character sticks
• redesigning book covers
• character masks

Of course, we couldn't have a celebration like this without a few contests:

• book trailer contest (junior and senior school) done before FBW and shown on screens during the week
• bookmark design contest where the winning designs are made into bookmarks for the library to hand out next year
• door decorating contest for teachers (individual classes in junior school and by departments in senior school)
• "Eyes of a Reader" to guess which picture like this matches which staff member (and yes, the pictures will all be in B/W!)

• "Once Upon a Time and Other First Lines" contest with the most popular books in each library (different selections for junior and senior contests)

But this isn't all! We will have displays, Y8 English classes will have a library GooseChase, Senior School students will read to Pre-Prep classes, and we have the Random Acts of Kindness books...given away by our library monitors!

And then there are the costumes...oh, the costumes...

• Monday: We have all chosen a Rainbow Fairy from the Daisy Meadows books. (Did you know there are almost 300 fairies in this collection? It was difficult to choose.)
• Tuesday: Fantasy Characters: I will be Malificent (original, not Angelina Jolie...I don't think I can pull off her look and do it justice).  We will also have a hobbit, Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy, Hansel and Gretel, and a few yet to be named fantasy characters.
• Wednesday is the "we need a day without a costume" day...but we will still have reading as a theme! We will be wearing, along with other staff members, stickers about the books we are currently reading.
• Thursday is Senior School character dress day...finally we won't be the only ones in costume! This is our anime/ghibli character day. I'm a character called Sophie Hatter.
• Friday is the Junior School character dress day. We will have a character parade and assembly for best costumes and more. The library staff? We will be Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. For those who know me, you would know I would pick the Evil Queen/Stepmother/Witch. If unable to do that...I choose Grumpy! Nonetheless, I was outvoted by my team. Everyone now gets to see how "well" Snow White has aged through the years...

So how did we get the dwarf costumes? Well, after we ordered the hats, we went shopping in Chinatown for t-shirts. Then I used this:

And this:

Of course, getting the names on the shirts took a few steps:

(Don't worry, I haven't forgotten Sleepy. Once I have the t-shirt, Sleepy will be done as well.)

What are you doing to celebrate reading and books this year?