12th September Mindfulness Day

Mindfulness Day is celebrated annually on September 12th and has been since its inauguration in 2011.

Mindfulness is the practice of intentionally focusing on the present moment and accepting it without any judgment.

Mindfulness helps build self-awareness, awareness of others, and awareness of the world.

A major benefit of mindfulness is that it encourages you to pay attention to your thoughts, your actions and your body. 

To practise mindfulness

 • pay attention - slow down and notice things in the busy world.

• live in the moment - bring a concentration to the task in hand

• accept yourself - treat yourself the way you would treat a good friend

• focus on your breathing

Of course, none of this is particularly easy to practise with young children, but at school we do try and the library has a big focus on it, labelling books that may help teachers with these concepts. We affix a sticker to the front cover that simply says 'mindfulness'. 

We do this because mindfulness practice helps alleviate stress, worry, and anger, and improves focus and sleep. It can also give children strategies to alleviate their own stress and anxiety.

The easiest books to locate and label are the ones about focussing on breathing, but books about living in the moment or being present are probably the books you will need to revisit and refocus on often.

Look for:

Here and Now 

Explore identity and connection, inspire curiosity, and prompt engaging discussions about the here and now.

I Am Peace: A Book of Mindfulness

Breathe, taste, smell, touch, and be present.

What Does it Mean to be Present? 

Being present means...
Noticing when someone needs help
Waiting patiently for your turn
Focusing on what's happening now.

NB The new cover is different from this one.

Charlotte and the Quiet Place

Sometimes children need a break from our noisy, over-stimulating world.This book shows how a child learns and practices mindful breathing on her own and experiences the beauty of silence.

Silence

Silence encourages children to stop, listen, and reflect on their experiences and the world around them. Using qualities of mindfulness, readers are asked to pay attention to what otherwise gets drowned-out in our noisy environment and use those sounds as a means to develop imagination and curiosity, and learn a little more about themselves.

Now

This is my favourite cloud...because it's the one I am watching.

This is my favourite tree...because it is the one where I'm swinging.

This is my favourite tooth...because it's the one that is missing.

 

Someday

Someday I am going to be a great artist. Today I am off to help my dad paint the shed.

Breathe and Be: A Book of Mindfulness Poems

I breathe slowly in, 
I breathe slowly out. My breath 
is a river of peace. 
I am here in the world. 
Each moment I can breathe and be.

Puppy Mind

A young boy discovers his mind is like a puppy, always wandering away, into the past or the future. He sets about learning to train his puppy mind to heel to the present moment. Through remembering to breathe, the boy becomes a stronger and more caring master of his puppy mind, keeping it in the present, if only for a moment.

Today

The moments that make up the day are filled with surprises, joy, fun, and memories. This book guides young readers to keep their eyes and ears open so the day doesn’t slip by.

If you are looking for more titles see my Pinterest page.

18th August Book Week Reading is Magic

As I sit here thinking about the things I need to do this week, I do wonder why teacher librarians and schools put so much pressure on themselves to 'do Book Week'. Every week at school should be Book Week and it should be more about reading  and less about who has the best display, dress up  costume or how much you can make from a Book Fair. 

Sure, the children and teachers should have fun 'with books', but when I started teaching, I did feel it was my job to make sure my students had access to lots of books, lots of reading and lots of opportunities to respond to what they read. I believed that books and reading were a kind of magic and that in the hands of the right teacher, (wizard), children would be as enamoured of reading as I was. 

I did not own many books a s a child, but, I did come from a 'reading' home where my parents took us to the library weekly. The town I lived in actually had a separate public children's library and I was always keen to see what was in the 'discarded box' which you could take a book from if you wanted to. True, I did learn a lot about how to teach reading in my teacher training and I did a degree that included children's literature as a subject. I felt well prepared when I arrived at my first school. I 'marched' my Year 5 class off to the public library once a fortnight and we browsed, borrowed and read while there. The school also had a library and a trained Teacher Librarian to learn more from.

What happens now is so 'rushed'...the Teacher Librarian is not always seen as 'a book wizard', but rather as a RFF teacher who allows the classroom teacher precious time to plan 'without the Teacher Librarian' using units of work suggested by the syllabus and often planned by a third party who allows teachers to shortcut their own reading. I find it hard to teach someone else's unit of work. I have to 'own' something to teach it and I need to read any book suggested for myself before sharing it with students whether by reading, viewing or listening.

Back to Book Week. It must be about reading. The theme this year has allowed me to share some magical books as well as the books on the shortlists.

We have read quite a few about imagination being able to create magic, among them these:

Poppy Pickle  by Emma Yarlett

Poppy gets into a major pickle when her imagination comes alive! Poppy has the most extraordinary imagination. When she is sent upstairs to clean her room, she just can't help imagining, and suddenly . . . her imagination literally comes alive. 

We Know a Place  by Maxine Beneba Clarke.

A playful love letter to those wondrous places where secrets and magic live around every corner and between every cover.

We know a place that's mysterious-magic,
a window to lives you can't even imagine.
We know a secret world-wakening secret,
a brain-boggling secret, on Ballarat Street.

Two children set out on a journey to their local bookshop, a magical place where sneaky stories escape as you peep in the door and there's plentiful magic for each and for all. Monsters, giants, trolls and pirates ahoy! But what happens when some cheeky creatures follow the children home one day?

When You Open a Book by Caroline Derlatka

A stunning ode to the world’s grandest adventure of all: reading a book. Gorgeous artwork by Italian illustrator Sara Ugolotti depicts dragons, forests, pirates, merfolk, lollipop trees, lemonade tides, and more as a child journeys through page upon page of the written word.

There's No Magic in this Book  by Michelle McWhirter

In this vibrant interactive story, readers are told by the insistent Bookkeeper that there’s no magic to be found in its pages, but eagle-eyed readers can discover enchanted surprises on every spread.

This week we will do lots of reading including Julia Donaldson's poem I Opened a Book. On Tuesday we are having a Magic Hat Day inspired by Mem Fox's book and I have made a hat befitting Aunt Bundlejoy Cosysweet from Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake's Captain Najork books. I will tell the students that I would love to be like Bundlejoy,  a harbinger of joy, play and fooling around, so my hat's magic is that it makes me calmer, more fun, an advocate of play and what it allows children to experience.

And then, on Thursday each class is making a chalk garden inspired by Bob Graham's The Concrete Garden

10th August World Lion Day

 

Why is World Lion Day important?

• Lions are facing huge threat. The population of African lions, for example, has dropped by 43% since 200.
• Lions are exploited. Thousands of lions are farmed around the world for their bones and other body parts.
• Lions have empathy. Lions are social animals and they are able to empathise with other members of their pride.
• Lions are intelligent. Like many other animals, lions are able to solve puzzles to obtain food.

I haven't written about Lion Day before and that surprises me, but if you're in a library looking for lion books there are lots to choose from. Look here for ideas and then go looking.

Some information books for young children.

Some fun stories:

 

Some traditional stories:

5th August Underwear Day

The most popular display in our library is one that features underwear. Every year we put out books about underwear to celebrate this special day and by the end of the day, most will be gone. The children love to borrow them and snicker. The parents aren't as happy, but they can see that the children like the 'naughtiness ' of it all.

The first underwear dates back to prehistoric times — with humans wearing a loincloth.

See this fabulous book A History of Underwear  by Hannah Holt or 

A Brief History of Underpants  by Christine Van Zandt

I have written about this day several time before and I have a Pinterest page, so if you are looking to add to your collection look there.

Some of the newer books available are: