Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Steven Spielberg in the Land of Tintin


Here is an interview with Steven Spielberg about his new movie, The Adventures of Tintin. He is interviewed by teenager, Damien Murphy. They talk about the making of movies, and the importance of reading. I can't wait to see the movie!

Check out your library catalogue and see which Tintin books they have for you to borrow! What is YOUR favourite Tintin book?

Saturday, November 05, 2011

Read the book then see the film



We all love a good movie. And we all love a good book!

How many books have been made into films? LOTS!

If you like to read books, and then see the film, you will enjoy the Christchurch City Libraries page called Read the book - then see the film.

And, if you've seen a great movie, you might wonder if there is a book linked to it. And often there is! Take a look at the Christchurch City Libraries page called Books into film and television.

We all know a couple of great examples of this - The Hobbit (being made now!) And, The Adventures of Tintin is being released soon - how exciting!

What are your favourite 'Book Movies'? Please leave a comment below.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

a Google a day

I only recently came across a Google a day, and thought it might make a fun challenge for more able readers around Year 7/8 in our school.

Has anyone tried it with this age group?
How tempted do you think they would be to just use the hints?

Is there a place for this in our classrooms (I do think we need to increase students' general knowledge) - or should they just focus on the learning focus happening in their classrooms?
Is it too Americanised for our NZ culture?
Carol

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Holiday Activity


Gavin Bishop at The Reading Bug


Gavin Bishop will be reading and
signing his latest book

BRUISER

at The Reading Bug
11am Wednesday 12th October


Bruiser is a machine on a mission — a digger who’s ploughing up hillsides, trampling down paddocks and crushing rocks in his plan to build a motorway. That is until a nest containing a baby bird falls right in front of him — and Bruiser realises there’s more to life than tearing up hillsides.
Aimed at 3–8 year-olds, this engaging story carries a gentle environmental message as Bruiser realises the destruction he has caused along his path, ripping up trees and flattening paddocks of daffodils. In the end he is humbled by a tiny baby bird and its mother, and decides to change his ways.

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Question Generator

State Library of Australia/Department of Education and Early Childhood Development

Do you want a fun and easy way to create questions for interviews or for your inquiry?

Click the spin button to generate your question.

Friday, September 30, 2011

Book Week Parade

Our Book Week Parade has come and gone for another year. Are you in this slideshow?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Any Questions?

I introduced three students (Years 6-7) to Any Questions this afternoon. It was a spur of the moment thing - I needed a way to help them search for their information independently, and decided Any Questions would fit the bill, and this would also be a great chance to introduce a resource they could use again and again in the future, on their own.

The students are members of our FLL Robotics team, and needed to find out information for their inquiry project relating to food safety. They had no idea this wonderful online resource existed and were amazed and excited to find themselves each chatting to a real librarian online. They each had separate questions, so used a laptop each and logged in to AnyQuestions themselves.


I kept an eye on what was happening and was interested to see how the students responded. The first thing that struck me was how they realised they couldn't type as fast as they wanted to when chatting to their librarian. Also, suddenly spelling naturally became an issue for them - they wanted it right and they were panicking a little (asking me how to spell this or that). Also, I found myself NOT worrying so much about the spelling etc, and just telling them to write what they could and the person at the other end would say if they didn't understand. Of course, the correct spelling was important at the stage of putting key words into search boxes. I showed them how to copy and paste any ideas from the librarian, into a Google search box (to save themselves doing extra typing) - keyboard commands made the process quicker. Not all the students knew how to work with tabs in their browser, so that was another lesson for the day. And bookmarking was refreshed, too. I also kept an eye on the etiquette - greetings and sign-offs, and responding to questions asked of them by the librarian. But, this was just the nuts and bolts stuff.

Of course, being able to read was essential - not only what the librarian was saying to them, but skimming the results that came up on a Google page once their mentored/guided search was underway, and later reading the websites themselves. The big thinking came with forming their question and thinking about possible key words - not easy for all of them.

Once some suitable sites were found, and thanks to the help of their respective librarian guides they were found, the students then needed to read these and glean some information. They'd done enough for the afternoon, and this stage was to be done for homework. The websites and transcripts were emailed home to be referred to later.


At the end, the students all had some good resources to help them. When parents arrived at school to pick up their children (this was an after school session), they were greeted by three VERY excited students who couldn't wait to show them what they'd been doing!

I thought the whole experience was great, and left with a real buzz myself. And I was delighted that there had been three librarians available to give that one-to-one help to my students. Thank you Any Questions!

Carol

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Who are these whacky book characters?

The teachers dressed up as Book characters for Book Week. Can you tell who they dressed as?

Please leave a comment telling us which book characters you recognise!

Click on the photo to see more clearly.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Books take these boys somewhere interesting!

Books can take you to dangerous worlds, especially if you're a boy!



By Hayden, Freddie and Oliver.

Books can take YOU anywhere!



Anna (a Year 5 student) already knows that books can take us anywhere! (And this is her first attempt at green-screening in iMovie. She has also been learning to give credit for any Creative Commons photos she finds on the internet, and wishes to use).

Please leave a comment telling us where books have taken YOU.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Long Live the Book - by AbeBooks



I just came across this beautiful video, mentioned on the Stephen's Lighthouse Blog, and I simply had to share it here.

Next week is Book Week at Springston School (actually, I think that EVERY week should be Book Week)! So, this video is great for reminding us about what books can mean to us.

What other words about books could we add to a video like this?

What word would YOU add to this sentence:

Books are....................

Please leave a comment below and tell us!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Book Week postponed until next week

Book Week has been postponed until next week because of the snow causing school closures. The same timetable will operate, with Dress Up Day being next Wednesday 24 August.

In the meantime, snuggle up and enjoy some books now - share some reading with mum or dad, or brother/sister/friend.

Where will your imagination take you? What will you learn?

Post a comment below, and let us know where your reading has taken you during these snow days.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Book Review - Bear Grylls: Living Wild

Author: Bear Grylls

The book Living Wild is about surviving in all terrain in the wild. This book is full of useful information and skills you need to know about before you go for your trek day tramp or weekend camping trip.

My favourite character is Bear because he features most in the book and his ideas are great.
What I enjoyed about this book is that there is so much information about scouting that I did not know before I read it and I thought there was just the right amount of detail.
This book is based on a true story.

This is his first book and if there were any other books he wrote I would be very excited to read them.
I have only read the first book but I would like to read other titles if he wrote more books.
Bear Grylls lives in Britain and is known around the world.

I would recommend this book to people that enjoy camping and tramping or to people who just want to learn about surviving in the wild.
A friend in my classroom recommended this book to me. This book is rated four stars as a good book.

I found it at the school library and I would definitely read this book in the future.
This book is published by 4 books.

By Matthew S.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Updates to our Shelfari Bookshelf - Thanks Team Enterprise!

Thanks to our Team Enterprise students for adding some new books to our Shelfari bookshelf! View our shelf in the right column of this blog, and check out the students' opinions of the books they are reading (hover your mouse over a book). Or go to Shelfari to take a closer look at our bookshelf.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Lively Library

The Library was a busy place during our first half hour break at lunchtime today! Carol grabbed the camera and captured some of the moments.



Did you notice a wonderful Student Librarian, hard at work shelving books?

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Book Xylophone - indeed!



Now, I bet you never thought of this as a use for your books! But don't go trying it on any books without checking with your parents first!

How do you think they managed to get the different notes from the books?

Monday, May 16, 2011

Kid's Lit Quiz

On Friday Jahna, Philippa, Oliver and Freddie represented our school at the Kid's Lit Quiz held at Cobham Intermediate School. Approximately 47 teams from all around Canterbury competed. Ten sets of ten questions on a variety of topics were asked, with each team choosing a 'double points' topic.

While the marking was happening spot prizes were given out for answering questions; the audience won book prizes and the children $5 cash, well done Oliver!

The team marks for the different sections were, Ages 6, Alias's 6, Beasts 8, Classics 7, Colours 4, Construction 5, Extra Terrestials 5, Hats 6, Islands 8 and XL 7.

1st place went to Cobham on 83 points followed by Chisnalwood 1 82, Cathedral Grammer 2 81 - a very close competition. Our team finished on 62 points about 16th place.

Well done team, our best effort yet, can't wait until next year! Anyone can try out for the team, it is open to Years 6, 7 & 8. Start reading now!

Friday, May 13, 2011

New! New! New! Loads of new books on the browsing table

It is a sophisticated picture book

4 new I Hero titles


Two titles from Kirsty Murray's 'Children of the Wind' Series

Stories for horse lovers
Alex recommends Mr Stink. An adventure goes wrong up on Raven's Mountain








Artemis is back!

Winnie has a birthday party



Sensational Survivors- NZ Post finalist




Finalist Junior Fiction NZ Books awards
At last, Hunting stories for the adventurous

'Flush' joins 'Hoot' and 'Scat'by Carl Hiaasen


Wednesday, May 11, 2011

'Adolphus Tips' Voicethread


Have you read this book? Please leave a comment on our Voicethread. Click on the 'Comment' button, sign in, choose your identity, and then record your thoughts.

(This post is also published on Team Venture's Blog).

Reporters: Hannah D and Courtney

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Next-generation digital book - amazing!

This short video of a next-generation digital book will blow your mind! I simply had to post it here. You can view more information about this video and its creator, Mike Matas here at TED.


What do you think? Please leave a comment with your thoughts.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

2011 Librarians

Introducing Callum who loves Hunting and Fishing and has just read Bear Grylls book.

Callum has been awarded the 'Librarian of the Month' award for his fantastic attitude and great enthusiasm as a new librarian. Well done Callum!


Haidee loves Michael Morpurgo books and has read lots of them.

Tanna loves netball and rugby and loves her pets.

Alice loves to bake, swimming and loves JK Rowling books.



Annabelle loves to read, swim and dance. Her favourite book is Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo.







Philippa
really loves reading Pongwiffy books but reads lots of others too!




Matthew likes Jimi Hendrix music and enjoys gymnastics.

Mollie loves horses and enjoys riding, eventing and reading Roald Dahl books.

Ana enjoys cooking and babysitting and belongs to a marching team.

Jahna loves to play her guitar, listening to Don McLean and climbing. Jahna is close to gaining her GOLD Librarian badge

Sunday, April 03, 2011

'Books, Books, Books' Game


You may enjoying playing this hangman game to find the right kind of book or genre.

I got stuck on one of the clues and almost got hanged - the question about the book about the past - I didn't quite agree with the answer. There was one other I didn't think was quite right - the book with words that rhyme. Perhaps you can post a comment to tell me if you spotted the problems I had.

See how you get on! Go to the website and click the button to 'Play this game!'

Have fun!

Friday, March 11, 2011

The latest fantastic new titles on display now!

Des Hunt's latest 'The Peco Incident' will not disappoint
New picture books!


Simon says you must read 'SCAT'
&

'Pongwiffy' books are Philippa's favourite
                                  
Bug Buddies.. be in quick and reserve these!
Something for everyone here:)
Fantastic read along story for juniors.
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