18th August Science Week Part 2 Noise and sounds

In 1998 ABC Science built the first National Science Week website to provide information to event holders and audiences, they have conducted an annual online participatory science project since 2000 and promote the week widely across their networks.  The 2023 school theme is Innovation: Powering Future Industries, but the ABC has taken 'noise' as their focus and they want people  to eavesdrop on the animal kingdom and  explore the wonder and science of bioacoustics.

Listening in all facets of life is important but it is wonderful to be able to go outside, be still and just listen. What will you hear? Hopefully some natural noises, such as cicadas, frogs, birds, running water, waves.

As background to going on a listening walk you could use one of these books as provocation:

• What Can You Hear Today?  by Louise Bladen and angela Perrini

• The Listening Walk  by Paul Showers and Aliki

• Listen to Our World  by Bill Martin Jr and Melissa Sweet

• Listen to the Rain  by Bill Martin Jr and James Endicott

And after your walk and comparing lists you could follow up with books about some of the sounds:

• Cicada Sing Song by Pat Simmons and Kate Dreiling

• Cicada Symphony by Sue Fliess and Gareth Lucas

• Noisy Bug Sing-along  by John Himmelman

• The Dawn Chorus  by Suzanne Barton

• The Forgotten Song  by Coral Vass and Jess Racklyeft

• Sounds all Around Us  by Ryhia Dank

• Sounds All Around  by Susan Hughes and Ellen Rooney

• The Sounds Around Town  by Maria Callucio

You could just read a couple of favourites about noise such as:

• Noisy Night by Mac Barnett and Brian Biggs

• Too Much Noise  by Ann McGovern and Simms Taback

Or you could segue to the winning Early Childhood Book Where the Lyrebird Lives  by Vikki Conley and Max Hamilton and talk about mimicry because lyrebirds are masters of mimicry.

Lyrebirds are capable of imitating almost any sound. As well as their own calls, clicks and song, you will usually hear them mimicking loud clear sounds made by other birds and mammals, including humans. They have been heard to mimic the sounds of chainsaws, horns, alarms and even trains.

                                          

19th March Aardvark Day

On the 19th March every year, National Aardvark Day is when we celebrate our favourite inquisitive friend, the Aardvark. The natural habitat of the aardvark is sub-Saharan Africa and they are nocturnal.

The aardvark has long ears like a rabbit, a snout somewhat similar to a pig, and a tail a bit like a kangaroo, but actually there are no close relatives to the aardvark. In fact, the nearest thing to an aardvark is an elephant!

In the world of picture books, Marc Brown's Arthur would probably be the best known aardvark, as he has a  series of books in which he stars with his sister D.W. There are chapter books, easy readers and picture books.

My favourite aardvark book is one of the African Animal Tales series illustrated by Adrienne Kennaway, Awkward Aardvark.  This story explains why aardvarks are nocturnal and live underground.

Of course there are other aardvark books in the library. Look for:

• Oi Aardvark! by Kes Gray and Jim Field

• It's an Orange Aardvark!  by Michael Hall

• Aalfred and Aalbert by Morag Hood

• Can an Aardvark Bark? by Melissa Stewart and Steve Jenkins

• Weird and Wonderful Animals: Aardvarks  by Emma Bassier

• Aardvarks by Maddie Gibbs

•  A is for Aardvark by Mark Shulman and Tamara Petrosino

• The Aardvark Who Wasn't Sure by Jill Tomlinson

• Noko and the Night Monster by Fiona Moodie

• Noko's Surprise Party  by Fiona Moodie

18th January Thesaurus Day

Thesaurus Day is held on 18th January because that is the birthdate of Peter Roget the creator of Roget's Thesaurus. He was born in 1779, was a consummate list-maker by 8 years old and went on to be a physician after leaving school and studying medicine at University of Edinburgh. He retired in 1840 and dedicated himself to compiling his dictionary of synonyms that he had begun in 1805. This dictionary was first published in 1852. It was called 'Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition’. It was republished and republished and became very well known and thought of and despite Roget's other achievements it is for this that he is most remembered.

Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet published a spectacular picture book biography of his life, titled The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus in 2014. It is the perfect way to learn about Roget and thesauruses. It also impresses upon readers the power of words and the joy of looking closely at them.

If you can't find this book and you want to look at synonyms through a fun read look for:
• Thesaurus Rex by Laya Steinberg and Debbie Harter

21st March World Poetry Day

Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings.

Poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition and, over centuries, can communicate the innermost values of diverse cultures. 

In celebrating World Poetry Day, March 21, UNESCO recognizes the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind.

These are the first three paragraphs on the World Poetry Day website and these in themselves make it such a worthwhile day to commemorate. Unfortunately this is on a Saturday this year and we are not at school. We have had some great school celebrations on Poetry Day in the past. This year we have had a poetry book display in the library and I have encouraged the children in class time to borrow a poetry book by sharing a poem with each class. 

There are so many beautiful single poem poetry books. In fact it always surprises me how many books SCIS wants us to put in the poetry section of the library rather than in fiction, not that we always comply. There are also more and more very child friendly illustrated anthologies available. Below are some recent acquisitions, all anthologies that I love:

27th February Birds

Hard to believe we've been back at school already for over a month. The time has flown. There seems to be so much to do at the beginning of a school year. Over the last six months or so I seem to have bought so many picture books that feature birds and so many of them have simply outstanding illustrations. It got me thinking about how many books we already had in the library about birds so we decided to turn the library into an aviary to start the year's displays. It has been amazing. The teachers at school think it odd because they know I don't like birds, that is real birds. I'm quite scared of them since I had a magpie in the library and he couldn't get out. However I really like pictures of birds. They make for great illustrations, greeting cards, posters, sculptures etc so it was easy to decorate the library. I used some old books as my initial focus to sort out the wording to accompany the display -

• Have You Seen Birds?  by Joanne Oppenheim and Barbara Reid. Like all of Reid's books this uses wonderful plasticine collage for the illustrations but my children do not engage with the text.
• Birds, Birds and More Birds by Matt Cosgrove
• Birds  by Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek. My preschool teachers love this book.
• Birdsongs by Betsy Franco and Steve Jenkins. Perfect for having fun with the noises birds make.

I put out all the old favourites such as Edward the Emu; Edwina the Emu; Olga the Brolga; Enoch the Emu; Samantha Seagull's Sandal; Don't Let Pigeon Drive the Bus; Leonardo Pigeon of Siena; Pidge; Jeremy; Waddle Giggle Gargle; How the Birds Got their Colours; The Birdwatchers; Vuture's View; Condor's Egg; Owl Moon; Owl Babies; The Owl Who was afraid of the dark; Feathers for Phoebe; The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay; Puffling; Little Owl Lost; Mozzie and Midgie and King of the Birds.

The library also has two beautiful biographies about two prominent bird lovers which we featured:
• The Boy Who Drew Birds  by Jacqueline Davies and Melissa Sweet. This is the story of John James Audubon
• For the Birds by Peggy Thomas and Laura Jacques. This is the the story of Roger Tory Peterson

And then all the new ones. I have put All I Said Was by Michael Morpurgo first because it is a great book to start a discussion about birds and their characteristics because in this story a boy wishes he was a bird, becomes a pigeon and then experiences the consequences of the change.

16th October World Dictionary Day

October 16, the birthday of Noah Webster, is World Dictionary Day. Show your appreciation for this most useful of reference books by celebrating Dictionary Day with children --learn some new words, learn how dictionaries came to be, spruce up your dictionary skills, or even create your own dictionary! Look here for lots of ideas on how to have fun with words.

In Australia we are more likely to use an Oxford, a Collins or a Macquarie dictionary than a Webster's, but nevertheless Webster is worth celebrating. There is Noah Webster and His Words  a picture book biography that will be in many libraries and it is an ideal way to introduce young children to Noah Webster. If this creates plenty of discussion you might like to also introduce students to the life of Peter Mark Roget, the thesaurus guru whose life is featured in this new book, The Right Word by Jen Bryant and with wonderful illustrations by Melissa Sweet.

28th March Skipping Day

Our school is a 'big' skipping school. We take part in Jump Rope for Heart and the kindergarten teachers make a point of teaching their children to skip each year and giving them time during most days to do some skipping before the big event. Last year the teachers told the children they would come to school in their pyjamas if they raised a certain amount of money. It was a very large amount and I don't think the teachers thought it would ever happen, but it did! So school in pyjamas happened.

So when I read it was Skipping Day in England today I thought I would investigate what they did in the way of skipping. It turns out that it is not a fundraising day, but purely about children, fun and good aerobic exercise. Schools can register, just like our Jump Rope and take part in activities that are planned and conducted by visitors to the school.

Today as I was putting Olive and the Big Secret  by Tor Freeman back on the shelf, I noticed that Olive always seems to have a skipping rope in her hands and then I went to the catalogue to see what other books could be used to  encourage skipping. There were three:
• Hop, Skip and Jump, Maisy!  by Lucy Cousins
• Ready, Set, Skip!  by Jane O'Connor and Ann James
• Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep  by Eleanor Farejon and Charlotte Voake.

And then two books with skipping rhymes:
• One Two Skip a Few by Roberta Arenson
• Schoolyard Rhymes by Judy Sierra and Melissa Sweet

And don't forget all those rhymes from your childhood like Cinderella dressed in yella, went upstairs...; Miss Mary Mack all dressed in black...; Teddy bear, teddy bear... etc  all collected together by June factor in Australia and Roger Abrahams in the USA.

19th April Melissa Sweet

It is Melissa Sweet's birthday and as she is a favourite illustrator of mine I have written about her on this blog many times before. Recently I discovered that I had incorrectly celebrated her birthday on the 18th April so I need to write about her birthday again in order to correct my mistake.

Seeing this illustration from Google images which is in fact from Melissa's blog, you can understand why she would be a favourite with any librarian. Her kind of art, some of which, makes extensive use of collage appeals immensely. I first discovered her books when Jane Yolen's Baby Bear books became so popular with the children in my library, but then I went looking for more books by her and discovered that there were a large number of other titles in the library, such as Moonlight,  Love and Kisses, all the Charlotte books and the wonderful Carmine.

More recently when I began a unit of work using picture book biographies with my Year 2 Book Club I discovered more Melissa Sweet titles such as The Boy Who Drew Birds,  Balloons Over Broadway, and Girls Think of Everything and more recently I purchased two new books to add  to this unit Brave Girl  and Mrs Harkness and the Panda.

The best way to learn more about Melissa is to read her own writing on her website and her facebook page because you will see there all the things she is involved in. I was so envious when I read that she had recently done a workshop at the Eric Carle Museum. I wish she had been there the day I visited. I would even have forgone the blue sky, long green grass and heavily fruit-laden apple trees I saw, for the snow and kite flying!

Now I  need to order Spike  (so I can use those wonderful bookmarks) and A Splash of Red to add to the biography unit. And I need to hound the publisher to get Baby Bear's Books  back in print. It is one of the few books that has 'walked' from my library, so you know it is good. Must dash, off to go bike riding or walking by the beach with my librarian friend. see bikes and librarians are important!

8th March International Women's Day

International Women's Day, the one day of the year that we devote to celebrating all things female. From the progress we've made, to the dreams we have for the future.

The day was designed to inspire women and celebrate their achievements, so in assembly on Friday I had fun talking about women and their achievements. Of course I took a children's book as a focus, Seven Chinese Sisters, and it is one where the women have special skills, but as it came about because of the wonderful story  The Seven Chinese Brothers, it was a good choice to highlight that girls can do anything as well or better than boys!

Then in the library we made a display of biographies about successful, pioneering women who achieved despite the odds stacked against them. Among others we used:
• Me and Momma and Big John  by Mara Rockliff is a good story to show girls and boys that women can do anything they want to, even a job that appears to be 'male'.
• Fossil Girl  by Catherine Brighton, and Stone Girl Bone Girl by Laurence Anholt, both are the story of Mary Anning who was the first person to find dinosaur bones in England.
• Mrs Harkness and the Panda by Alicia Potter and Melissa Sweet which tells about how in 1934 Ruth Harkness continued the work that her husband started, went on an expedition in China and brought a panda to America.
• Marvellous Mattie  by Emily Arnold McCully which tells the story of inventor Margaret Knight.
• Girls Think of Everything by Catherine Thimmesh and  Melissa Sweet which highlights many female inventors.
• Rachel  by Amy Ehrlich and Rachel Carson and the Book That Changed the World by Lawrie Lawlor tell of pioneering environmentalist, Rachel Carson.
• Life in the Ocean by Claire A. Nivola tells of the life of oceanographer Sylvia Earle.

Also in your library there will be picture books about other wonderful women such as Rosa Parks, Madame Curie, Annie Sullivan, Florence Nightingale, Jane Goodall and Wangari Maathai, some of whom I have written of before in this blog. See pinterest page for more biographies.

6th July Kathi Appelt (1954)

I know very little about Kathi Appelt other than that we have three of her books in the library, so when I found it was her birthday I went searching. From her website I learned that she was born on the way to hospital in her father's Ford. Wow, I thought that was unusual when I read that Mini Grey was born in a Mini, but maybe not, when here is another author admitting to this mode of birth. Using Mini Grey's logic though, Kathi would have been named Ford! Maybe we can extend the logic and say that if you want to be a children's writer organise to be born in a car!

The other thing I learned about her is that she is very supportive of librarians and made a film clip expressing this fact, Love Song for Librarians. I hope some student of mine ends up being a writer and says such nice things about their school librarian. I do try to source books for specific children and I do think it is important to match children to books.

The books we have are Elephants Aloft; I See the Moon and Bats Around the Clock, but she has written many more. I particularly like Elephants Aloft because it cleverly written using only prepositions and Keith Baker's wonderful illustrations. Kathi has written a series of picture books about bats and they are illustrated by Melissa Sweet, another of my favourite illustrators so I should source the rest of these.

18th April Leigh Hobbs (1953) Melissa Sweet (1956)

Leigh Hobbs is an Australian author, artist, cartoonist and the creator of the Old Tom series of books and yes, I did write about him last year, but since then he has brought out a new series of books and they are such a hit in the library with Year 2 that I need to tell you about them. They are about Mr Badger who is the Special Events Manager at the Boubles Grand Hotel in London. He is in charge of parties, weddings, balls and special guests. He solves mysteries and so far there are four books in the series.

It is also the American illustrator, Melissa Sweet's birthday. Her style is very different from the cartoons of Hobbs. Her illustrations in the series about Baby Bear written by Jane Yolen (see Baby Bear's Books; Baby Bear's Big Dreams and Baby Bear's Chairs) are sweet, warm and comforting, but she has other styles such as the one used to illustrate the Charlotte books by Joan Knight. See Charlotte in Giverny; Charlotte in Paris; Charlotte in New York and Charlotte in London and the beautiful biography about John James Audubon, The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies. And to follow up on yesterday's celebration of bats, you can dig out Bat Jamboree and Bats Around the Clock both written by Kathi Appelt and illustrated by Melissa!

25th October International School Library Day

Today is International School Library Day which has been extended this year to make October International School Library Month. What a wonderful thing to celebrate. I put a display on the noticeboard outside the library reminding parents and children of all the wonderful things libraries do and why their library is particularly good. The theme for 2010 is Diversity, Challenge, Resilience: School libraries have it all. There are good posters on the websites here and here.

I also displayed the conclusions from the report Impact of School Libraries on Student Achievement; A Review of the Research that says "Existing research shows that school libraries can have a positive impact, whether measured in terms of reading scores, literacy or learning more generally, on student achievement. " It also says among other things, that there is evidence to show that

* a strong library program that is adequately staffed, resourced and funded can lead to higher student achievement...;

* the quality of the collection has an impact on student learning;

* test scores are higher when there is higher usage of the school library;

* a print-rich environment leads to more reading, and free voluntary reading is the best predictor of comprehension, vocabulary growth, spelling and grammatical ability and writing style;

* the extent to which books are borrowed from school libraries shows a strong relationship with reading achievement whereas borrowing from classroom libraries does not;

and

* libraries can make a positive difference to students' self-esteem, confidence, independence and sense of responsibility in regard to their own learning.

I am lucky, the school library I work in and am responsible for is well funded and has an exceptional collection of resources, but they do not 'walk' off the shelves without the commitment of the staff to using literature to teach in all curriculum areas, not just when teaching English.

I found this lovely picture and verse above. Thank you to Peter Golkin and Melissa Sweet. No one could have said it better. You need to go to the library no matter the weather or the mode of transport...it is a pressing need in those of us who love libraries and sharing their many benefits with others.