List poem

I had all of 15 minutes with a small group of y9 students to write a poem. Given that and that they were low ability I think we did quite well. First we brainstormed and then I gave them a sample of two lines of "I hear..." They chose dogs for their first line and then as a group made suggestions for the other lines. They all contributed and found it easy to come up with the rhymes. However they did not really like their finished product as they thought it was boring to keep repeating the I hear....
I could have done with editing and second draft but for 15 mins I was pleased that they all engaged and focused on the task

Hearing Homes

I hear dogs barking


I hear Jimbo larking

I hear cats scratching

I hear Mum snatching

(the dog)

I hear the TV blaring

I hear Mum caring

I hear my brother scaring

I hear blue snake hissing

I hear my sister kissing

I hear rulers bending

I hear my Dad mending

I hear my brother reading

I hear the scouts leading

I hear beds bouncing

I hear fish pouncing

White Crow Sedgwick

The minute I started reading this book I knew it was going to be great. It is a great gothic thriller, really scary with four main characters and two parallel stories, 200 years apart. What is heaven like? what is hell like? what happens when we die?

One line particularly struck me
"Does there have to be a victim to commit a crime?" or something like that.
Thought that would be good for a discussion.

I think it might be a good book to move students on who are stuck on vampires!

SLYA 2010 Ceremony

I had a wonderful day yesterday at the 6th SLA School Librarian of the Year Award ceremony. I was one of the judges but unfortunately I did not visit either of the winners schools, each judge bar Ginette only visited two schools. However I am sure all the libraries were great and I got loads of ideas from the two I visited!

I was fortunate to be on a table with MG Harris for the event. She gave a super talk and would recommend her for a school visit. I think this would work really well if you wanted to link it with her doing a workshop on codes and code breaking.

Anyway congratulations to Duncan and Kevin and I hope we see lots of them in the media in the coming months.

Below is a picture of myself (on left) with the winners and other past winners

National poetry day lesson plan

One teacher has said that she would like to do something in part of a lesson for NPD and so I thought I would prepare something for her and hopefully others to use. The theme for this year's event is Home and as I needed something that would be quick and easy but also give good results I decided to adapt some of the ideas from The List Poem. I hope the students respond, fingers crossed.
Using list poems


These are an easy way to get students to produce a poem quickly. They also begin to show students how to write poetic lines. Everyone knows about list so they are quick to introduce.

As the theme for poetry day is Home I thought you could start with a brainstorm list of things in the home

Mum, beds, doorbell, chairs, stairs, cups, books, lights etc

Then you could give the students a format to follow. They could present their poems in a shape relating to the house or just draw the outline of a house and write the poem inside the shape

1. I hear Mum singing
I hear Mum singing

I hear the doorbell ringing

I hear the clock ticking

I hear the dog licking

I hear the stairs creaking

I hear my sister peeking

2. Thankful

My Dad is thankful for his home

My Mum is thankful for her comb

My sister’s thankful for the colour pink

My Gran is thankful for the sink

My dog is thankful for his bone

Or


The kitchen’s thankful for the sink

The marshmallow is thankful for being pink

The pie is thankful for the custard

The sausage is thankful for the mustard

3. Colours

Brown is the dining table

Brown is my Dad’s shoe

Brown is the sugar just for coffee

Brown is the truly scrumptious toffee

Brown is my brother’s curly hair

Brown is my mood when nothing’s fair

Brown is the ginger cake

Brown is the muddy rake

4. When I am alone at home

When I am alone at home I get scared because I think the bogey man will come and take me

When I am alone at home I get happy because I can go anything I want

When I am alone at home I put music on and dance and pretend I’m a star

When I am alone at home I feel like going into my sister’s room and messing it up

When I am alone at home I play Scrabble with Teddy

When I am alone at home it’s a mission to survive

Till they all come home

Retro posters

RETRO POSTER - In the Library by Enokson. Used under a Creative Commons license.



Just come across these posters through Changing the Game blog
Just want to check out the CC license to see if I can use some of them in the library.
Cant remember seeing any in the 60s?

Things are getting better all the time

After our y10 induction lesson being praised, I have now been asked to do a brief intro to USIC to all the y12 tutor groups. I am pleased and will be able to use some of the things I did for y10, which makes planning easier.

Came across this website IPL2 for teens some of the info on projects is really useful and will definitely add it to our USIC homepage. I find that our students often are given or choose a topic that is just too big eg Victorian literature and they do not seem to know how to go about narrowing down the topic. IPL2 includes a link to a page on the University of Victoria's website which explains nice and clearly how to do just that

So busy term on the lesson front at the moment. 17 lessons this coming week (out of 21) but will share them with my assistant.

First Y10 induction lesson

Did the first of 12 Y10 induction lessons, 12 groups is one of the joys of a large school, at least I have 12 chances to get it right. This is my least favourite lesson. We feel that we have to do something to introduce the students to the upper school library but only have one lesson so there is not time to give them lots of activities to do.
Anyway the teacher who brought the group said that she thought it was the best lesson I have ever done with Y10 so was dead chuffed. But still felt it was too much of me talking and not enough of them doing stuff.
I asked the students if they could remember the author and title of the last fiction book they had read. In the first group only one student could but in the second about five could. I dont think they believed me when I told them that reading impacted on their test results.

So 2 down 8 to go.