Our fourth graders have been inquiring into human rights under the transdisciplinary theme Who We Are and in connection with this during their time in the library, we have been looking into what rights and responsibilities a library user and reader has. In a first step, we brainstormed all we do as library users and readers, to then divide these into rights and responsibilities. In some cases, our students argued well that it could be considered a right as well as a responsibility, depending on how we look at it. It was wonderful seeing everyone so engaged in the conversations and hearing our fourth graders speak so confidently about what rights and responsibilities are.

In a next step, we brainstormed which skills we need to be able to take advantage of our rights and honor our responsibilities. We started putting our thoughts in Padlets - see below - and will continue working on this after the break. Further, we want to revisit the skills we identified, in particular material arrangement, search strategies to locate resources in our library as well as online, our responsibilities in sharing and using resources and information as well as lifelong reading habits. 

Various read-alouds have helped us in getting conversations started around rights and responsibilities in the library/ education context: The Librarian of Basra (Jeanette Winter), Nasreen's Secret School (Jeanette Winter) and The Book of Gold (Bob Staake). I always find that sharing a picture book related to a respective topic is one of the best ways to get everyone wondering and pondering about that topic, while nurturing at the same time an appreciation of literature and demonstrating that no one is ever too old to enjoy a picture book. 

And, last but not least, our fourth graders have made good use of their rights as library users and readers, choosing their own reading materials and enjoying sharing books and recommendations with classmates.

​I hope you found something you will enjoy reading during the break, Fourth Graders, and look forward to hearing your recommendations after the break!

We have only just begun our first author inquiry of the year with Kindergarten, and yet, after sharing the first two stories by children's author and illustrator Bob Graham, it is easy to see how much our kindergarteners are enjoying the books. Just look at the beautiful pictures below and above, with our students totally hooked by the story.

As a consequence of the great interest in the stories and the observations made, there has been no shortage in wonderings and so when we return from October break, we will look for answers to our questions. Here are a few examples of what our students are wondering about:

How does he make the books?
What tools/materials does he use?
How does he chose the colors?
How can you use colors when telling a story?
Why does he like making books?
How does he think of the stories? / Where does he get his ideas?
How did he get his dog? (Students are wondering whether he might have gotten the dog like the family in Let's Get a Pup, Said Kate.)
Was he already an author/illustrator when he was a kid?
When did he learn to draw and write stories?

(We had spend some time looking at how we ask questions with the help of two stories - A Chicken Followed Me Home and The Mermaid and the Shoe - prior to embarking on this author inquiry, and from the questions it was apparent how much this has helped our kindergarteners in sharing their wonderings.)

In preparation for additional check out opportunities (as shared with you in an email this week, our kindergarteners can now check out two books in English and one additional book in Mandarin or any other home language other than English), we also spent time exploring other picture books together. As shared in our email,  with picture books, no matter whether they are enjoyed alone or together, the combination of words and pictures invites readers to actively participate as they observe, explore, and connect to what they see and hear. This is what makes picture books developmentally so appropriate for our kindergarteners, while at the same time nurturing a love for reading and an appreciation of literature. Observing our young readers explore, check out and share books with each other, there is no doubt how much our kindergarteners love books, and picture books in particular. Enjoy looking through the slideshow below with pictures of our enthusiastic readers.

The Global Read Aloud (GRA) is celebrated yearly since 2010, bringing together students, their teachers and librarians from all over the world, to read the same books over a period of six weeks to then share with each other with the help of technology some of the reading experiences. Since its start, a total of over 2,000,000 students have already participated and the numbers keep growing. In the past, we participated with some of our first grade classes but this year decided to join with our second graders, reading books by well-known and much loved Australian author Mem Fox.

Officially, the GRA runs from early October to mid-November each year but due to our calendar and the calendar of the schools we are connecting with, we decided to slightly adjust our schedule, heading into the GRA before October break. Here is what the GRA looks like for us.

We read one of Mem Fox' books each week, in the order given by the GRA organizer.

We talk about the books, what we notice and what we wonder about. This can be observations and wonderings about the story itself or about the author Mem Fox. At first we chat within our class.

Then we share our observations and wonderings with second grade classes at the Canadian International School in Singapore and the Jakarta Intercultural School in Indonesia via Padlets (Padlets are like online bulletin boards, allowing us all to post text and images and commenting on each others posts as shown in the two screenshots below).

We are also planning to find answers to our questions about the author by exploring the large number of books written by her owned by our library as well as by looking through her website. So far, the stories we have read have been enjoyed and there has been much excitement over seeing comments from the other schools on the Padlets. We look forward to continuing with our GRA participation after the October break.

Our second graders show us constantly that they love, love, love to read - on their own or with a friend, during their class visits as well as during library mornings and library lunch times on Tuesdays. The turnout is just fantastic, their enthusiasm for the library and books contagious. Enjoy the photos in the slideshow below. Thank you for your passion and enthusiasm, Second Graders!

... and so do we (as you can easily see in the pictures above)! 

Throughout September, we have been reading books by this talented author and illustrator to our PK2 students to give them a taste of his creative work. There are so many wonderful books to share and have fun with: books about Piggie and Gerald, the Pigeon, Knuffle Bunny, Leonard the Monster, just to mention a few. Mo Willems' books are just perfect to kindle a love for stories and reading among our students. Besides the reading and enjoying of stories together, we also encouraged our students to share their wonderings with us, what they are curious to find out about Mo Willems. They wonder why he writes so many books, whether it is hard work to make a book, whether he enjoys making books, how he makes his books and - this is a questions that always comes up in the context of Mo Willems' books - why the Pigeon always seems to sneak into the Piggie and Gerald books too (our PK2 students are so observant). Together, we will try to find answers to these wonderings by exploring books and online resources, letting students in the process experience an inquiry process and practice inquiry skills.

This past Monday, the following video helped us to find out more about Mo Willems and introduced us to another series of his books. Also in this series, with just a few words and pictures, Mo Willems entertains readers of all ages. Indeed, all of his books are always as much fun for the person reading aloud (and performing) as they are for the listening audience. PK2 Parents, if you don't have any Mo Willems books at home and would love to give them a try, remember you are welcome to pass by the library to check them out. 

In addition to our read-alouds in English and the author inquiry of which they are a part, our PK2 students have also been enjoying story time in Mandarin during each library visit... 

... and of course, choosing books and sharing books with classmates. So much enthusiasm for stories and books among our PK2 students!

Our first graders have been pretty busy in the library since the start of the year. At first, we spent time together thinking about how the IB learner profile guides us in the library, as we read, learn, and interact with each other. We explored this with the help of some picture book read-alouds  and by reflecting on our personal experiences and prior knowledge before taking pictures of the learner profile in action. In the pictures below, some of our students demonstrate what individual learner profile traits (caring, thinker, balanced, open-minded, inquirer, communicator, knowledgeable, risk-taker, principled, reflective) may look like in the library.

In preparation for our first author inquiry, we spent some time thinking and talking about how we ask questions. A very entertaining and at the same time informative picture book by Robin Page, A Chicken Followed Me Home, helped us with this. How helpful spending some time in revisiting how we share our wonderings was, became obvious when we started our inquiry about children's author and illustrator Anthony Browne. We were blown away by the questions that resulted from sharing just one of his picture books and introducing them to Anthony Browne's shape game; such as

Why does he tell so much of the story through his pictures?
What makes him decide what colors to use?
Are his stories inspired by real stories from his life?
What inspired him to make such books?
Is the gorilla his favorite animal (since there are so many gorillas in his books)?
How long does it take him to write a book?
Why does he use more animals (especially gorillas) than people in his books?

In addition to their class visits, many first graders spend time in the library each morning before school starts, checking out new books, reading, folding origami or playing a board game with a friend. We love your enthusiasm for the library, first graders! Well done!

Our youngest library visitors have been busy since their first visit almost a month ago. While we could tell right from the start that many were already familiar with a library setting in general and story time in particular, with each visit more students start adding to our conversations about the books we read and spending more time selecting the books they want to take home on the day. The stories we have so far read together allowed conversations about what people do at a library, how we take care of books as well as encouraged our students to make connections between the stories and personal experiences. This week for example, we shared a picture book by Alyssa Capucilli about Biscuit the dog, who delays bedtime by making all kinds of request: a drink, a cookie, a story. a kiss, a toy, a blanket and more. Some of our students happily shared that they make some of these requests too, especially having a bedtime story. 

Here are a few snapshots from PK1's time in the library:

Our PK1 students are allowed to check out one book in English and one book in Mandarin. Parents are welcome to visit the library with their child on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons between 3-4pm to check out additional books and explore the library together.

This week and last week, we asked students to share with their parents via SeeSaw the reasons for selecting the individual books in their shelfie and how these represent them as readers. It was a great way of taking advantage of their technology skills - supported by Mr. Bruce - in recording their explanations and then sending them out through SeeSaw. ​

This week, we embarked on our first author inquiry of the year. In both G3 classes, the teachers are currently sharing as a read-aloud the first book from the Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look. Without telling students who the author was, I shared as a read-aloud in the library Brush of the Gods, one of Ms. Look's picture books. The book is inspired by the legend surrounding Wu Daodzi, a Chinese painter who lived in the 700s. Our third graders were surprised to later on discover that Ms. Look was the author of both books - Alvin Ho and Brush of the Gods -, commenting on how different they were. This has created additional interest in the author and her books and I look forward to hearing from our students next week what they are curious to find out about Ms. Look.

Author inquiries are a wonderful opportunity to get students familiar with and interested in authors and their creative works while allowing them to practise inquiry skills. As part of these inquiries, we search for information about the authors in their books, in online resources, - and when we get really lucky - by directly communicating with the authors. As you can see from the communication in the screenshot below from Instagram, we have already gotten very lucky! A special THANK YOU to Ms. Look for commenting on the picture and for staying connected to us here at HKA.

We have had an amazing turn out during our first two Battle of the Books meetings of the year, with about 50 students attending. Last week, we introduced the books and could tell from the excited response, that some of the books have already been read, enjoyed and become favorites among our students - for example, The War That Saved My Life, Heartsong, Because of Winn Dixie, Fish in a Tree, Pax, and The Bolds.

This week, a group of students who participated in B.o.B. last year, demonstrated what the actual competition looks like, how the questions are asked, what kind of questions are asked, and how the team confers before responding. Considering the large number of students participating this year, our readers were especially interested in finding out how we will choose the traveling team, which consists of 12 students. As also shared in an email with parents today, the following criteria will be guiding the selection process:

• Overall commitment (attendance, engagement during our meetings, time made to read B.o.B. books)
• Basic knowledge of the books (book title and author)
• In-depth knowledge (as demonstrated in answering practice questions).

Since B.o.B. is a team competition, we will also look at and guide students in showing sportsmanship, like listening to other team members, appropriately adding to the conferring before answering questions.

We stressed that B.o.B. is not a race, that it is not about reading as many of the books as fast as possible. It is about enjoying some beautiful stories, understanding what they are about, and what makes them unique. 

During our upcoming meetings, we will dive right into practice questions. This is what our students are looking forward to, the thrill of trying to figure out what book the question is referring to. Not only does it help our readers to get a feel for the questions and get to know the books better, but it is also a wonderful way of finding out more about books not yet read and then deciding on what to read next. 

We are thrilled about this wonderful start and look forward to an exciting year with our Battle of the Books team.

​With a read-aloud of Sarah L. Thomson’s stunning picture book Imagine a Place, and a special poem about our volunteers inspired by the book, our Secondary School Teacher Librarian Ginny Hand opened our library volunteer get together yesterday morning. Even though we librarians and our library spaces here at HKA have enjoyed the wonderful support from parent volunteers over several years already, this morning once again, we were blown away by the sheer number of our volunteers, by their warmth, kindness and generosity. It was wonderful meeting everyone – returning and new volunteers – getting a chance to introduce ourselves, catching up and chatting over a cup of tea or coffee and some treats. We were especially touched hearing our volunteers speak so passionately about why they enjoy supporting the library, about how volunteering in the libraries has allowed them to discover wonderful new books for themselves and their children, and how they have embraced our two libraries as one, with more and more volunteers sharing their time and support between the two libraries.

As some of you already know, at the beginning of a new school year I often ask our students in grades 3-5 to select five books that show who they are as a reader and have their picture taken with these books to create a shelfie. It is a fun way to start the year in the library, helpful in allowing students to reflect on their reading identity and giving us teachers and librarians valuable insights about our students' reading preferences and attitudes. So I decided to do something similar for our Back-to-School Night presentation: a library shelfie. I hope those of you who were able to attend enjoyed the presentation - thank you for coming - and if you weren't able to attend, below are the three books I shared and a few words about what each of the books stands for.

There is never a quiet moment in our library; instead there is always an exciting buzz in the air as students look for books, inquire about topics of interest, share interesting facts they discover in books, exchange recommendations, ask questions, and read with each other. Our goal is to provide to everyone a warm, welcoming and safe place, providing a wide range of resources that match our learners' and readers' interest, preferences and learning styles.

We believe that we are all children of books; we are all readers. We want to help our students in finding their inner reader and nurturing a love for reading that will last a lifetime. We do this by introducing them to authors and series, by making individual reading recommendations and by sharing read-alouds so that our readers can experience the magic of reading, what it means to loose yourself in a book, to discover new and unknown people and places in the pages of books. We know how important it is in motivating readers to allow them to choose and ultimately decide what they want to read - even though we provide guidance and help them acquire the necessary skills to select independently.

We believe in the power of inquiry. We want to kindle and nurture our students' curiosity; wonder with them about the world around us and help them in the process to develop the necessary skills to become independent, efficient, safe and responsible seekers and users of information. We aim at giving our students access to a wide variety of resources, not limited to our physical space and the printed books on our shelves, but also taking advantage of technology and connecting them to other learners and experts beyond our immediate HKA community.

We want to extend once again a warm welcome to all of you and hope to see many of you in the library this school year. Remember, you can visit the library with your child during community afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4pm. We are always happy to show you around the library and help you in selecting books.

​Have a lovely weekend!