What I did today

In preparation for this afternoon (last day of term 2), I put this list together:

Wiggle and swim
Robot
Line up - wavy arms
Walk
Sideways shuffle
Kissy hands
Stop hands
Train whistle
Wiggle
Rock climb
Walk
Slow wiggle
Guns
Thump floor
Punch down
Flap arms
Crocodile claps
Line up and link arms
Step forward
Final pose!

And no, nobody at teachers' college EVER told us about preparing lists like this.  It's a choreography list.  And before you ask, as a dancer I am a FABULOUS teacher librarian.

We have a concert on the last afternoon of term 2; performances from students and staff.  It's the finale to Spirit Week, when there are special events on each day as well as dress themes, and the kids are fundraising for charity.  So this week I have done my poor best to garb with bling, rock and roll, ninjas or pirates, and horror.  The kids have done a great job (my fave was the kid in jeans and a hoodie on the pirates or ninjas day.  I'm a software pirate, he said.  That's clever!) and enjoyed themselves.

If you look at this video, and imagine gaffer-taped stuffed animals, costumes made up of salad-cover headwear, shower-curtain dresses and headwear, balloons stapled to a garbage bag dress and, oh, a bunch more invention-of-the-moment Gaga costumery - well, you have a flavour of the part of this afternoon in which I was involved (together with one of the two faculties who did a faculty performance).



(Link: http://youtu.be/Z_bRDeY89A4 )
We finally rehearsed at lunchtime, minutes before.... we did have a colleague holding up cue cards from that list, which helped.  The students liked it, anyway!

I showed the choreography list to the dance teacher a couple of days ago.  She was very very polite; but the slight widening of her eyes was a giveaway.  Guess I haven't nailed the terminology yet....!! (but you know, it was clear enough for my equally non-dance expert colleagues, so that's what matters!)

The happy life of teacher librarians: so you think you can dance? (No.  Entertain?  More probable.)

It was fun.  And now it's hols.  YAY!

Enjoy your break, if you're having one.  See you back here next term.

Cheers

Ruth

PS The longer I teach, the more I realise about how many things they didn't tell us/teach us about in teachers' college.  Garbage bag/balloon couture, for example. 

PPS I discovered how to date myself instantly among younger teaching colleagues.  Use the term "teachers' college".

The happy life of teacher librarians: the late note

The scene: a school library.  Busyish lunchtime over, a few students in the library on study periods etc.

Polite young Year 7 boy clutching a novel: Miss?
Yup?
Miss, can I please have a late note?
Um, for what?
To get into class...
(I check the time: it's 25 minutes AFTER the end of lunch bell)
Lunch finished quite some time ago. 
I know.
So...
So I was reading in one of the seats upstairs Miss, and I didn't hear the bell.

He looks sorta apologetic, and rueful, and what the heck?  Isn't it great to know he was so comfy and happy (in the seats we have scrounged and recovered and set into a reading layout) and had so disappeared into the world of a book that the world beyond didn't register?  Yup.  It is.  A lovely compliment to the library.  He got his late note (with a cheerful explanation for the teacher).  Not that it would be good to be writing them every day, but he was genuine and it was a delightful moment.

The happy life of teacher librarians: best late note ever?

Cheers

Ruth

Quirky Book Week: It's a Book

Today's book is a book (which I can also share with you via a video) about books.

Books remain wonderful bits of technology.  The day after I bought Press Here and All My Friends are Dead (Quirky Books blogged about earlier this week), was a Friday.  Staff morning tea at recess.  I brought them with me and slid them like contraband to this person and that.  Just try it.  Go on.  It's funny.  And they did.  PE teachers and Art teachers and History teachers and English teachers and more.  Not just people with a practical teaching need for a quirky fun picture book, but colleagues and friends who would enjoy the fun of them, their gift of laughter.  I didn't need a screen or a battery or a lead.  Just the books.  Which is kinda the point of Lane Smith's book.

Here's a book trailer that covers the whole book, pretty much, and will give you a good flavour of it.



And here's the link, if that doesn't work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4BK_2VULCU

For all the things books don't do, there is so much that they do so well.

One thing is share laughter, provide a shared experience.  That's what Quirky Books can offer, and how they can add value and fun to your library, as they do here.  I've already blogged about books with legs: http://skerricks.blogspot.com/2011/06/happy-life-of-teacher-librarians-books.html and they certainly qualify as Quirky Books too.

The wonderful local independent bookshop I mentioned yesterday was the one that got me onto this book, so props to them (after I bagged them yesterday!).

Hope you've enjoyed these five Quirky Books, and I hope to learn about more candidates from your comments - do leave one!

Cheers

Ruth

Quirky Book Week: Press Here

Today's Quirky Book is deceptively simple.  You will probably say, I could have thought of that.  But you didn't.  Nor (dangit!) did I.  But hurrah and hurray that Herve Tullet did.

But what happens when you open the book and press the yellow dot?

This, for starters:

What's not to like about a book that draws a crowd?

The Amazon.com page for this book has some pictures from inside.  It also has a link so you can create this minibook version (only a few of the many fun pages in the complete book, but enough to show you how it works). 

On one of the pages, the instruction is to clap to make something change in the book.  I can track the progress and location of this book around the library by the clapping...

Another one to make the library a fun place for happy discoveries.

My wonderful local independent bookshop and I disagree on this book.  I'm enormously amused (and so are the people at school, kids and teachers, with whom I share it).  The normally smart bookshop folk say, 'meh'.  So it's lovely and gorgeous to have people say to me, Where did you get it? and I can direct traffic to the wonderful local bookshop, adding that I hope the buyer will let the bookshop know that Ruth showed them this book.... 'meh' my Aunt Fanny!

I learned about this book from friends who had learned about it from the Children's Bookshop in Beecroft NSW: Paul McDonald from there always has good recommendations (as does my wonderful local independent bookshop; just on this book, they're wrong and I'm right!!).

Tomorrow, another favourite Quirky Book.  Have you enjoyed them this week?  Do leave a comment with your own favourite Quirky Books!

Cheers

Ruth

Quirky Book Week: Cherise the Niece

After yesterday's sweet little girl, today you can meet Cherise:

A sweet wee thing.  Well, kinda.  I was going to do a blog entry about books with n@ughty little girls, until I considered what search engines and their bots might do with that particular concept...

On the Amazon.com page for this book, you can take a look inside.  You can also buy a Kindle ebook edition, and download the first chapter free.  The product description on Amazon says:

The bloody footprints leading out of Cherise’s bedroom are the first clue that perhaps the little darling with the bow in her hair is not an angel. As Cherise is shuttled from one aunt’s home to another, her aunts vanish, meeting inventive and hysterical ends. With a killer punch line on its final page, Jim Benton’s Cherise the Niece will leave readers laughing.

I myself feel that it's important to let you know that there is a note at the beginning of the book advising that no aunts were harmed in its making...

Definitely black humour; if you're not in a high school, maybe one to read before adding to the collection. 

But fun?  Heck yes!  It's caused lots of chuckling in our library.

Tomorrow's Quirky Book is one of my favourites.

Cheers

Ruth

Image from www.bookdepository.com

Quirky Book Week: Constance and Tiny

Another Quirky Book for your delectation!

Meet Constance, and her adorably sweet cat, Tiny:

Absolute angels, they are.  Take a look inside the book with this preview from the Book Depository website.

There is an utter (and very recognisable) disparity between what Constance says (in the text of the book) and what Constance (and Tiny) do.  Could be exploitable for English.  My name is Constance.  I am locked up in an evil mansion...

But mostly, it's just gorgeous fun.

Picked this up from a sale table, but it's orderable from bookshops in Australia or overseas.  Not expensive.

What are your fave quirky books?  I have three more to share this week - enjoy!  Constance and Tiny have another adventure in Constance and the great escape.

Cheers

Ruth

Quirky Book Week: All My Friends Are Dead

Welcome to Quirky Book Week on Skerricks!

Five books that are just great fun - the kids like 'em, and I like 'em, and they make the library a happy place.

Which you might start to question when you see the first book:

Cheer up.  It's a really really funny book.

You can take a look inside here (Google preview on the Book Depository website).  I rather like the pirate saying all his friends have scurvy....

Just make sure when you read the book that you read all the way to the very very last page.

It's a smallish book, gifty-sized, and not expensive.  It's making lots of friends here.  Another way to make this library a place where there is laughter, and fun to be had, and discoveries to be made.  So it's about library PR, too.

Tune in tomorrow for another Quirky Book!

Cheers

Ruth

Image from www.bookdepository.com

The happy life of teacher librarians: HI MISS!

So last Friday I spent all day at the library in the downstairs seminar room (glass walls, next to the computer area) with a group of teacher librarians for a mini-conference.

We had all brought food for recess and lunch; after recess, there was still quite a spread on the table, cake and biscuits and sandwiches and cheese and... we grazed, and talked of cabbages and kings.  Hosting this meeting, I had made sure we had peppermints on the table, because what is a seminar/conference without peppermints???

In the period before lunch, 10E8 English came to the library with their teacher for their regular fortnightly period.  Being Otherwise Engaged, I didn't spend the time with them as I usually would have done.

The boys (they're all boys in that class) are a bunch of larrikins and characters.  They were naturally curious about these unexpected goings-on right next to the computers they were working on.  And food.... (hmm, maybe a lot of their interest centred on the food...).  Being the opportunistic thinkers that they are, a couple bent their minds to exploiting this situation.

So I'm sitting facing the library, and a couple wave hello.  I smile back, and refocus on the discussion.

A couple of the boys are typing something on the computer.  They turn the screen so I can read it, big smiles on their faces:

HI MISS

I grin acknowledgement, and refocus.

More typing.  The screen is turned back towards me:

WATCHA DOIN?

Couldn't help myself, I laughed aloud.  They grinned back.  I excused myself from the meeting, picking up the bowl of Seminar Peppermints as I went, and went out for a minute or two to let those larrikins know just how obnoxious they are...and to remind them, as I offered them a peppermint (they took two, naturally) that it isn't OK to eat in the library.  They agreed, as they chewed, and I returned to the meeting. (They can do Contradiction just fine).  Thanks, miss!

I haven't had the heart to tell them that the last of the food was hoovered by the public stomachs of the same teacher's Year 7 class at the end of the day.

The happy life of teacher librarians: HI MISS

Cheers

Ruth

The Periodic Table of Storytelling

You don't believe me that there is a Periodic Table of Storytelling?  Behold!

I know, it's hard to read detail.  But it's worth it.  Toddle over to this link:
http://computersherpa.deviantart.com/art/Periodic-Table-of-Storytelling-203548951
and click on the link on the right there that says, "Download this image" to view it on your screen.

If you love it, you can buy a copy here:

http://www.deviantart.com/print/19205959/?
(the photo print is cheaper than the fine art one).



Here's the Artist's Statement:
Get a poster-size print of the Periodic Table of Storytelling! Writers, hang it up on your wall in a location where you can stare at it for inspiration and/or throw darts, if necessary. Fans and bibliophiles, keep a copy handy for easy reference so you can keep track of hairy plot twists. English Lit teachers, get one for your classroom and watch student interest soar!


These prints have a white, sciencey background (lab coat sold separately) and the box of examples at the bottom has been removed. 16-inch prints look good; 20-inch prints and larger appear truly impressive. I recommend clicking Photo Prints on the right--that'll get you a good 20-inch print at a lower price than the Fine Art prints offer.


This poster emits high quantities of Sciencium rays. These do not interact with matter in any detectable way, with the sole exception of making the person standing in front of this poster feel smarter. Bask in the tropey, sciencey, awesome-y rays!

This is but one example of the burgeoning field known as infographics.  As with any other sort of information, they can be used for good or evil; but the many good ones out there attest to their usefulness in providing a pictorial representation of information that kids can enjoy, relate to and learn from.

Share this one with your English teachers!

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: should you argue with me?

Used under a Creative Commons license. 

I was having a discussion with an argumentative Year 7 boy this afternoon about some work he needed to do. Maintaining my cool and staying amused. He didn't want to work, and kept arguing.   The word "No" was implicit in what he was saying.

I stopped a couple of seniors walking past from the senior study in the library. "Will he win if he keeps arguing with me?" I enquired cheerfully.

They turned to the boy and instantly said, "NO! You won't!".

And we all laughed, and they went on their way, and the discussion with the boy was able to become a conversation, and some progress with his work was possible.

Teaching is made up of so many small, momentary transactions, and human moments, and funny moments every day.

The happy life of teacher librarians: discussions are fine, but think carefully before you argue with me!

Cheers

Ruth

I don't own this Tshirt, but maybe it could be rather fun (until I got caught out at something I really don't know!!)

It's from this shop on Cafe Press:
http://www.cafepress.com.au/+i_am_a_librarian_womens_dark_tshirt,339317322
And there are lots more librarian T shirts you might like offered by a multitude of folks with Cafe Press shops.  Try searching on 'librarian'. 

One of the English teachers pointed me in the direction of this - said it reminded her of me.  Very kind!

The happy life of teacher librarians: the books with legs

My school assistants and I have been having a lovely giggle in the last few weeks about a couple of books that seem to mysteriously grow legs every lunchtime.  They start off innocently enough - placidly sitting on the picture book display stand, usually.  But at the end of lunchtime, they're down the side of a sofa, under a comfy chair, shoved in a shelf somewhat haphazardly - anywhere but on that picture book stand, face-out.

Any guesses as to why?

See, what's really funny is that any of us can trot up to the fiction section upstairs on a given lunchtime and find the group - and it's pretty much always a group, sometimes huddled and reading together, sometimes with a designated read-alouder, a different assortment of kids pretty much every time - enjoying these picture books.  And they don't stop and pretend to be busy and important with something else when any of us appear.  They carry right on, with half an eye on us to see if we're going to react (I just grin!).  I've had some, smirking, tell me these are appalling and rude books, and shoudn't be in the library.  I say I'm appreciative of their input, and did they enjoy them?!

Actually, they're charming and fun and convey accurate information in a friendly and accessible format.  Mummy Laid an Egg is another one in this category.  I've written about them before, here: http://skerricks.blogspot.com/2009/06/gifsl-30-naughty-books-about-sex.html. 

I love having books with legs in the library!

We used to have one with the immensely promising title, Boys & Girls & Sex, which started lunchtime on the nonfiction shelf in the 613s and rarely if ever ended lunchtime there.  Another group read, although it was drier nonfiction, with some drawn illustrations (sadly added to so often that it was one of the reasons it had to be disposed of from the library).  Its thumped condition attested to its keen readership (and they could work the catalogue and library systems well enough to find it independently, because sex isn't the first topic a kid's going to enquire about from a teacher librarian.  Besides, it's a well-known fact - ask any teenager - that no teenager's parents have EVER had sex, because the thought is just too gross and embarrassing for their kids to contemplate.  Immaculate conceptions, pretty much every kid in high school.  Remarkable, really.) but it had rarely been borrowed.  By gum it got to travel around the library though! - we'd find it tucked into all sorts of unlikely shelf locations. And reshelve it in the 613s, and wonder where we'd find it next...

Ah, the happy life of teacher librarians, enjoying the books with legs!

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: OMG is this 1995???

(Two girls with a camera walk into the library and up to my office door)

Hey miss, do you mind if we take some photos?
No, of course not.  What are you looking for?
It's for art, we're doing stuff with lines so we thought we'd take photos of books and spines.
Great idea!  Take them in different areas - the fiction book spines are different to the mixed sizes of nonfiction, and don't forget the graphic novels either.
Thanks miss. (They head off).

(Some minutes later, they're walking down the steps from fiction.)

Hey, those steps could be a good lines photo too.
We can't, miss
Oh?
We ran out of film...

(And we all laughed like loons over suddenly being in 1995, and not 2011 where one just EXPECTS that you can take, like, a gazillion photos on a digital camera, and hadn't had the 'run out of film' experience for years...)

The happy life of teacher librarians: OMG is this 1995???  The good new days and the good old days sometimes collide; and there's always something amusing in each working day.  Love a library with laughter in it.

Cheers

Ruth

12 life lessons you can learn from Jane Austen

How much fun is this???!!!

Find the whole slideshow here.  It's from Bill Deresiewicz at the Huffington Post.  Share it with your English teachers!

Cheers

Ruth

Elizabeth Bennet's email inbox

You didn't know she had email?

Think again!

Apart from the fact that it's highly amusing, it's also got fabulous potential as an English exercise.

Find it here, and the site has more famous inboxes from literature (Dickens, Harry Potter, etc) and elsewhere.

Found via Twitter.

Cheers

Ruth

Should we organise books by colour?

This is such fun...



...although perhaps it might not work for a library.

Original YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFnuP9niRUg&feature=player_embedded

Found via http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/

Cheers

Ruth

I was NOT looking for this website!

...I swear to goodness, I wasn't looking for this.  It came up quite incidentally when I was researching something else entirely.  But when, at 5.45pm after a long day at school when you tried (and failed) all day to compose and send one (long/comprehensive/program-planning) email (although a whole lot of other unplanned things were sorted out/helped with/encouraged etc); when you trip over this site, and you end up snorting Diet Coke because it's funny and sad and OMG-worthy...

...well, there's nothing to do but share it.

Click here.  Enjoy.  Be appalled (or inspired?!).  Maybe even snort Diet Coke too, as you chuckle.

Cheers

Ruth

PS One of the last examples includes Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy, in a font that's already old hat, if not old old antique hat.  But it's there forever.  I liked the accurately snarky comments about it....

Rap: I'm reading a book

Forwarded to me by one of the senior executive at my school:



Find it here if the above doesn't work for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuRuwR2JSXI

Which I'm sure I'll find an opportunity to show!

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: a conversation about careers

Me: So, what are your plans after you finish year 12?

Senior student: I thought maybe the police, or Duntroon to be an army officer

Me: OK

Senior student: I thought about being a vet, but then I learned that they have to put animals down, and I COULDN'T do that

Me: it is something they do

Senior student: And knew I couldn't be a doctor or a nurse because of the injections and blood and stuff.

Me (puzzled): so you don't like killing animals, you don't like blood or injections, but you're considering a career where you might have to shoot people someday?

Senior student: Oh.  Yes.  But.

(and we laughed.)

It's such moments that can make teaching a very very amusing career.  Also it generally doesn't include putting animals down, blood, injections or shooting people.

Cheers

Ruth

It's raining men (in bonnet dramas)

One to share with your English staff, and any of the many kids who have sighed over Mr Darcy, or other Austen heroes...



If that doesn't work, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFps_Naytg&feature=player_embedded

A delightful bonbon.

Found it here.

Which reminds me, if you want to appal yourself and others, and you have access to the recent Keira Knightley/Matthew Macfadyen Pride and Prejudice film, do investigate the extras on the DVD for the alternative ending filmed for the US market.  I myself personally can't believe that the US market is so dumb as to need the travesty provided... although it was fun watching English teachers go green at the gills when I showed it to them.  The kids were universally scornful.

Well, only three weeks left of term and this school year (for those outside Oz, our school year runs along with the calendar year).  I'll try to post a few bits and pieces here before the summer hols arrive - our Christmas decorations this year are even better than last year (and easy and cheap as chips!) and if you're really really good I'll let you in on how to obtain over 1000 bookmarks for 50c.  Really.

Thanks for the many kind messages sent while I've been quiet - I appreciate the thoughts and kindness very much.

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: maybe bunnies weren't a good suggestion...

One of the Year 9 boys has been making 'films' using his DER laptop computer.  They're animated, with black stick figures and silhouettes of other items.  He showed me one yesterday.

Kid: Look at my film, miss!
(film runs for a couple of minutes, stick figures running up and down various obstacles, and shooting guns at frequent intervals)

That's a lot of frames you have in there!

Kid: Yes, 150 of them (a fair amount of dedicated work for him to have done, nice to be able to praise him for it)

So how do you put it together? - must have taken you a while

Kid: I download the images from the internet then put it together myself.

Well done!  You know, though, all that shooting (I look kinda sad) - couldn't you make your next one about fluffy bunnies, and daisies, and sunshine???

Kid: Oh, I've done one with bunnies.  I had a four wheel drive run them over after about twenty seconds.




The happy life of teacher librarians.  Maybe bunnies weren't a good suggestion...!!!

Cheers

Ruth