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.