A Wish Finally Granted

 Have you ever wanted to do something, planned it, and never executed it? I have. Let me backtrack a bit.

When I was in the classroom, some of my favorite projects in science and social studies was to have students create their own "School House Rock" videos covering some of the topics we were studying in class. How can I ever forget the parody of Toby Keith's "I Wanna Talk about Me:" "I Wanna Talk about D"...as in DNA. And ubiquitous "For Those about to Breathe" set to AC/DC's "For Those about to Rock." 

When I moved into the library, there was no opportunity for music videos, especially since the daily broadcast took a great deal of time. Then I moved to a high school and had everything planned multiple times only to have hurricanes, ice storms, student absences and more delay production. While I was able to create some animated videos that always included a bit of parody to teach copyright guidelines to staff, I never could manage to get an actual music video from planning to completion.

But finally, after much planning, we have "produced" a music video for the library! Yes, you read correctly! A library music video! Written, produced, directed, and (I apologize now) featuring my voice in parts of it. Starring the most wonderful library team in existence, who bore with my strange directions and then participated by suggesting other ideas as well as dancing and singing....

We hope you enjoy "Read Like a Librarian"

We are only limited by my imagination...and the equipment available. This was made with only an older iPad, the Stikbot app, and an old version of Movie Maker. (It has more features than iMovie and is easier for me to use.) No special mics, no fancy editing machines....And that's OKAY! 

Rabbit, My Guest Blogger

 (An autobiographical tale as told by Rabbit, 

who lives in the Shrewsbury International School 

Bangkok Riverside Junior Library)

A Rabbit's Tale

Once upon a time, there was a rabbit. This extraordinarily handsome fellow, with his dashing smile and superior intellect, lived in a library. Being the rather clever fellow he was, Rabbit spent much of his days reading books to himself, to other animals in the library, and even to a few students who wished to spend time with him. His favorite books, naturally, were by the outstandingly talented Ms. Beatrix Potter.

One day, however, there was such a loud commotion that Rabbit could not continue rereading his favorite book about the Fierce Bad Rabbit! With a grumble, he carried his book towards the source of the disruption.

Wolf was biting Monkey on the tail as Monkey screamed, "Help!"

"Wolf? Monkey? What on earth is going on?" asked Rabbit.

"Wolf is chasing me and trying to eat me!" wailed the little Monkey.

"I'm just playing with you like the children do with us when they are here!" Wolf defended himself.

"Well, it's not nice to try and bite and eat someone! Not even as a game!" Monkey continued to cry as she held her tail close to her.

Rabbit shook his head, his magnificent brown ears flopping forward. "Instead of playing like that, why don't we sit down and read a book?"

Unfortunately for them, Wolf and Monkey had not yet learned to read very well. Rabbit immediately knew how to help them read stories quietly. Naturally, this would also allow Rabbit to have peaceful and quiet reading time.

Carefully, he demonstrated how to read books without using the words. Wolf and Monkey were eternally grateful to Rabbit for his marvelous idea.

Along with other puppets, they then produced this video starring Rabbit.

(Imagine an interruption to a storyteller with someone whispering into one of his long  furry brown ears...)

"Wait a minute, what do you mean I am not the star?" 

As our storyteller grumbles into the pages of his book, the Shrewsbury Riverside Library would like to present to you...

A Message from the Puppets

Enjoy! (And so will Rabbit once he gets over his little tantrum.)

End of Year/Beginning of Year Reflection

 It's the beginning of 2021. We have to reflect on 2020, the year we began with great excitement, and end with not a small amount of trepidation over what might be in store for 2021. 

What have I learned during 2020?

1. Enjoy every moment of work being "normal." Don't wish for that elusive snow day...although that is definitely non-existent in Thailand! Those in cold weather climates, or in the American South which cannot deal well with snow, will understand. Every winter students (and some teachers) hope for a day in which inclement snowy weather cancels school for a day and everyone stays home to play in it. Well, we all know what's it like to have day after day of working and playing from home, and it's not ideal. 

2. Be prepared to do things a bit differently. By starting in education  teaching middle school (those wonderful pre-adolescents!) and then working with elementary and secondary students, has always shown me the need to be flexible and to try new things. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but the effort and reflection of every activity is necessary. This is how I have learned to adapt to online teaching and having the library continue to serve our students, parents, and staff when in or out of the building.

3. Have fun. Have fun. Have fun. Without some occasions to laugh, giggle, applaud, and cheer, the only thing left is to cry or scream. This is a library. No screaming, please. The rest, especially crying, should be done in moderation and with regards to those who are studying and reading. :-)

4. Don't plan too far in advance. Or maybe plan REALLY far in advance? Last year's Fully Booked Week never happened, and we had been planning events and activities for months. Same with our hoped for March and November 2020 author visits. So now we are all ready with everything planned last year for this March's FBW, and we have hopes for a Fall 2021 author visit...planned REALLY far in advance.

5. When feeling down, read a funny story. If that didn't help, read another one. Keep repeating until you smile. Then repeat more until you laugh. This is best done with an audience of children who are attacking you with puppets. Trust me, it's an experience of a laugh-time.

Working Together

 The end of the week is here, and we've had a marvelous week of lessons and activities in the library. But the end of one week always means ensuring everything is ready for the next week. The library is never "not busy!"

Now that we have finished new policies, new procedures, introducing a contest and so on, it is time to start teaching students how to help themselves. We are also busy planning a parent's tea where we can discuss ways to create lifelong readers.

First, next week will begin some lessons on library searching points for nonfiction books, how to locate the books, and how to use a nonfiction book properly. Properly? What does that mean? Well, if you think back to the last nonfiction book you read (which might be a university textbook if you don't enjoy reading nonfiction), a nonfiction book can be read differently than a fiction story. There's the table of content, index, glossary, diagrams, maps, charts, tables, captions, and so much more in nonfiction, it helps to understand these parts in order to really get the most out of what you are reading. Therefore, we will start working on decoding the secrets of the nonfiction book with some of our students.

Our parent tea is in the planning stages, but we hope to have some of our Early Years and lower grade parents come for a talk about how to encourage reading as a fun past-time. Too often, we all get caught up in numbers, statistics, and lists that tell us where a child should be, what words they should know, and other dreary things. However, the single most important factor for reading success and improvement is ENJOYING reading. That's it. When a child enjoys reading, they will increase vocabulary. Their fluency and decoding skills will develop. Their imagination can be sparked, and reading level will go up. And, most importantly, they will be on their way to becoming lifelong readers. Our goal is to have a great introduction to this topic with our parents.

We're Getting There!

 It's amazing the difference about two weeks can make!

This week has been very exciting to prepare for. First, our story time in the Early Years Garden has resumed, with Thai and English stories being read on Mondays to our youngest students. This is the first time we have had to really start to meet our EY1 students! What fun we had on Monday, and we will continue to have every Monday as we visit them in their new garden space.

Today we are welcoming our parents back to the library before and after school! This is fabulous to see once again. Younger brothers and sisters, not yet in school, accompany them as well. We have a full house this afternoon which is the best type of situation in a library!

And then tomorrow starts after-school story time in the library! I have had the books selected for this since mid-summer. (Talk about planning ahead!) After months of online story time videos, I have been looking forward to sharing stories once again with parents and children. 

What else is happening? Our Y3-6 students are now vying for copies of the Bangkok Book Award nominees in order to read them all before voting during term 2. Y1-2 are enjoying hearing each picture book nominee during their classes, and we have started the Eyes of a Reader competition...having taken a lot of the pictures myself, I cannot recognize most of the teachers! Oh, my!

This Is NOT the New Normal

 Despite the common catch-phrase "The New Normal," I refuse to accept any truth behind that name! This is not normal, although it may be new, and I have faith we will one day be fully normal again.

I have been very fortunate to start the new term at school, in-person, with all students. So what does this new year look like?

1. We have our students in Years 1 and 2 coming every week for library lessons. So far, they have learned the library rules (after all, it has been 7 months!), learned how to use a shelf marker, and been able to check out books. Next week they begin hearing the Bangkok Book Award nominees.
2. Years 3-6 come to the library once every fortnight. These students refreshed their memories on all things library related, learned about the genre stickers in Junior Fiction (completed while they were online learning), and are having book talks for the Bangkok Book Award nominees. These students are already excited for 28 September, when the books will be displayed and available for checkout!
3. Upstairs in Senior Library, the Years 7-9 English classes have started having their library class time. Year 7 students have undergone an orientation to the Senior Library and are receiving their Overdrive usernames and passwords.
4. We have 3 You-Time activities. You-Time is a student-selected after-school activity. On Mondays, we have our Battle of the Books teams (4 teams based on school houses who will compete for house points soon!) Wednesdays is Breakout Boxes, and Thursday is Stop-Motion Animation.

Wait a minute, you might be thinking. If that is what is happening, isn't that completely back to normal?

Well, unfortunately, no.

Here are the changes we hope don't last too much longer:

1. We have had to reduce the number of students allowed in the library during break and lunch. This sometimes results in a line of students waiting outside for another student to leave. With staggered lunches, the line does usually clear quickly upstairs. I always feel terrible to see students who want to come inside but can't!
2. We have had to close the Rabbit Hole reading area, mark "No Sitting" to ensure social distancing, and remove chairs to spread students apart.
3. NO STORY TIME! This is the MOST difficult one for me. Unfortunately, I cannot visit the Early Years garden for story time during the day, and I cannot have children in the library for after school story time yet. I miss my story time! (Online story time was not the same because I couldn't talk to the children as I read the book!)
4. No parents in the library. This is the SECOND most difficult change. It has always been wonderful to see parents and children sitting together before and after school reading a book. I love walking around, helping them find books, and just observing. Since parents cannot come to the library, they are once again selecting books online and picking them up outside the building. At least I know they can read together at home!
5. Masks and social distancing...all day! We do what we must to stay healthy, but it will be nice to only wear my mask when the air quality is not so good.

Summer Time!

I did it! I managed to go an ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR without missing a day of work! (I do not count the school librarian conference I went to in November since it was work-related and I was co-presenting at it. That counts as work!)

It's not that I usually miss much work, but when the children were little, I often had to miss work for their illnesses and doctor's appointments. There was that foot surgery (and subsequent surgical site infection) one year, and the year of the Swine Flu where the child infected me on the first day (and TOLD me she was contagious with it as she talked to me). This year, knowing I would not have allergy season, winter icy/rainy weather, and so forth, I set a goal: I will not get sick with ANYTHING this year.

Little did I know there would be a pandemic.

However, not even COVID stopped me from meeting my goal. Even when working online, I was working all day from home, no breaks.

Another cause for...well, I'm not sure celebration is the correct term...blog-worthiness(?) is that I finally wore my rainboots. Rain boots? What? Let me explain.

We moved to Bangkok in the rainy season. I brought my rain boots, but didn't seem to need them since it usually rained in the middle of the day, the evening, and/or overnight. Nonetheless, the one time I didn't carry them to work last fall (just in case), it stormed as school got out and we had to take a tuk-tuk home no less so I was soaked from head to toes. If I had my boots that day, I would have at least had dry feet! Flash forward to the start of the rainy season for 2020. I did not bring my boots at first. Then three days in a row...yep. Wet feet. Therefore I started bringing them every day again. It would rain BEFORE leaving for school, BEFORE leaving for home, or AFTER I was home. So by this point, I was thinking, "Why did I bring these rain boots? Why?" Finally, the next to last day of school...it rained. While it actually stopped just before I left the library, I wore those boots home!

 

Now that summer has started, is my work done? Mostly.

We are continuing our remote circulation program all summer since parents and students cannot come to the library on Wednesdays as they have always done in the past. Our Summer Click and Collect is already looking promising! We have loads of requests for books already, and the form just went out for next week's collection! Here's our commercial for the program:

 

Happy Summer, Everyone!