Saturday, April 21, 2012

Fonder hearts/temporary absence/purple & blinds

If you're a regular reader, you may well have noticed this blog tapering into comparative silence for a while.  As can happen.  I took on some extra responsibilities at school (eg. Year 7 Adviser) and then at the end of the 2011 school year suffered an injury - still not quite rid of the crutches for that.  (Kind people have pointed out that I'm not as young as I once was.  Bless!)

I don't plan to abandon Skerricks, but take a formal leave of absence (ie I'm telling you before, not after!!) till at least term 3.  I hope it makes your hearts grow fonder (!).

There's a huge resource of content and ideas here now, so lots for you to refer to and review, and I look forward to adding more in the future.

As a farewell token/giftie, here's a glimpse of some work we did recently in the library:


We painted from the left hand edge of the word wall to the corner and on the wall around the seminar room windows, so this whole corner is now uniform purple (as opposed to purple, brown brick, cream weatherboard).  With a fabulous fabric from Ikea and a curtain making book from the library (handy!) we (actually, one of my super school assistants took charge of this part of the project) made lined roman blinds, able to be raised by cords.  Not only are they fabulous, they are fabulously more fabulous than either new commercial roller blinds (which would have most likely had to have been a bland plain colour) and certainly many times more fabulously fabulous than the ratty, torn 30+ year old beige roller blinds that  were there before.  Cost was a bit less than commercially made (bland) blinds, + our time.

Don't they look super?  It's good to 'finish' this corner (those ratty blinds have been annoying me for quite some time).  Most importantly, the kids like it. I like all the faces on the fabric, and how it works in nicely with the purple word wall.  Libraries are about words and people, after all.

So things go on at the library here, and I will have more to share when I return in July/August.

All the best for a positive and happy autumn/winter in your library (if you're in this hemisphere) and yes, Skerricks will continue.

If you're attending the Cudgegong Learning Community conference in term 2 at Mudgee, or the south west Sydney region SASS conference in term 3, I look forward to seeing you at my presentation, Re-imagining your school library.  Do say hello!

Cheers

Ruth

Free Comic Book Day & Supanova

A heads-up to share with your students.  What is it?

Free Comic Book Day is a single day - the first Saturday in May each year - when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely FREE* to anyone who comes into their stores. *Check with your local shop for their participation and rules.

The Free Comic Book Day website is here, with FAQs and a locator to enable your students to find the participating shops where they can acquire their freebies.

I found out about it thanks to my delightful coterie of manga/cosplay/comic book fiends.  Use your sources, I say! (They tell me that I should go to Supanova this year....)

What is Supanova? 

Supanova Pop Culture Expo is where the adoring public comes face to face with Supa-Star celebrities and the creative talent that inspire their imaginary worlds under one big roof.


Gathered from the wonderful worlds of science-fiction, pulp TV/movies, toys, console gaming, trading cards, animation/cartoons, fantasy, comic books, entertainment technology, books, internet sites and fan-clubs, the result is an amazing celebration in an atmosphere tailor made for expessing your inner geek and where getting into cosplay (cos-tume role-play) is the obvious thing to do!

(I think I'm flattered that they think I have an inner geek.)

Cheers

Ruth

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Modern love poems

Back around the time Prince William married Kate Middleton, the Guardian newspaper published a article containing new poems - they said for a wedding, unsurprising given the timing/context - but they seemed like they could be useful for a Valentine's day resource for school. 

One of the poems, by Poet Laureate Carol Duffy, was also part of an artwork edition by Stephen Raw (click the link to see it and see if there are still copies available for sale).  Huffington Post blogger John Lundberg approves of it in this piece.




One to share with your English teachers: or maybe include in a 'public poetry' event/display at your school library.  It's not always easy to find modern poetry, beyond English texts, unless you are looking carefully/know where to look.

Cheers

Ruth