Library News
Week 5, Term 1
Welcome to Week 5 and another great week in the library. It’s hard to believe we’re nearly halfway through the term!
This Week’s Reads
Kindergarten continues to explore stories with a friendship theme and this week are enjoying two of Alison Lester’s ‘Noni the Pony’ books. We met Coco the cat, Dave the dog, and several other animals on Noni’s farm too. Students had a lot of fun naming ways Noni was a great friend to others and they got to draw them too. Kindy also continued to learn about caring for books and the library by looking for clues on what should and should not be in the library. They spotted the cupcake pretty quickly!
Stage 1 is reading another of Pamela Allen’s books, ‘Grandpa and Thomas’, and learning about onomatopoeia, that is, words that imitate the sound associated with the object or action involved. For example, honk, beep, boom, splash, crash, or bang. It’s always lots of fun, especially learning how to say such a long word! Students will get to draw a picture of something they like to do at the beach too.
Stage 1 was hard at work last week after reading Mr McGee by Pamela Allen.
Stage 2 is travelling to France this week, when we read ‘Mr Chicken Goes to Paris’ and as in previous weeks, then compare Leigh Hobbs’ illustrations with photographs of the real places and learn a few French words too. Students loved last week’s Italian photos, especially the Colosseum, and learning about gladiators.
This week, Stage 3 is consolidating their visual literacy (VL) skills by first reading Suri's Wall by Lucy Estela and then going on a Visual Literacy Techniques scavenger hunt. Students have been given the following things to find in a collection of picture books, then they photograph them, upload them into a Google Slide, and annotate how these images demonstrate a particular technique. It will take a couple of weeks to complete, but 6T did well yesterday and I’m looking forward to seeing what other Stage 3 classes can find. The VL techniques students are searching for are salience (focal point), vectors (use of lines), offer/demand, use of colour to reflect emotions, borders and frames, modality (picture or photograph), and position.
Image Copyright Rules
Last week, I was invited to present to Year 9 Geography a lesson about copyright specifically regarding images. Students are in the process of making a documentary about a chosen biome and need to include images that are not copyrighted. Did you know that when you download an image from the internet without permission it’s a breach of Australian copyright laws? Copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and so much more! If you want to use one of these items, you need to seek permission from the creator of the image which is a lot easier said than done.
The lesson also covered rules that apply to Canva, Google images, social media, and learned what Creative Commons and the Public Doman are about too. Students used the website ‘Unsplash’ which allows users to download copyright-free images (as long as you credit the creator!). While not the most interesting of topics, it was a worthwhile reminder.
Premier’s Reading Challenge Has Started!
The PRC began yesterday, the 26th of October and will run through to Friday, the 24th of August 2024. The PRC is a voluntary initiative that encourages a love of reading for pleasure in students and enables them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge for each student to read, to read more, and to read more widely.
Last week, permission slips to participate went home with students. For those students who wish to participate, please return the signed note to your student’s teacher. For Kindergarten, your permission notes will go home this week. As in previous years, the Kindergarten teachers and I will be reading the 30 required books to your children at school so families will not have any extra work at home.
Password letters will go home hopefully later in the week, I'm waiting to do one bulk upload on Friday rather than one every day. If you have any queries, please visit the PRC website here or contact me at invlibrary@arm.catholic.edu.au .
Meet the Readers
This week it’s the boys’ turn - meet Josefa in Year 7 who was the first borrower of the newest Wings of Fire graphic novel, and Harrison, Rory, and Charlie from 6T who were also the first borrowers of a WWE wrestling book, Hot Dog 15 and The Worst Week Ever Friday. Happy reading boys!
Check out These Library Bags!
I thought I would also start taking photos of students who bring library bags to their weekly lessons. Once again, thank you to families for taking great care of our books by sending your child with them. This week, we start with Xander and Annabelle from KS.
I hope you all get to spend some time this week reading something you enjoy.
Mrs. Toni Fraser