GIFSL* 21: Tree (revisited)

In GIFSL (good ideas for school libraries) 21 I mentioned this tree:

I bought one last year (after Easter, on special) for the school library, and it's since graced the table outside my office full of face-up borrow-me impulse-grabbing books.  It's had various things hung on it over that time - bats at Halloween, laminated fabric motifs, book cover and so forth, depending on our themes (with banners/bookmarks).  In fashion parlance, its 'cost-per-wear' has been worth the purchase; it provides a focal point on a table I deliberately keep a tad untidy, so kids don't feel, by browsing, that they're disturbing a neat-and-do-not-touch display.

Bed Bath N Table, the shop from which it came, has three white tree options this Easter.  None are dirt cheap, but I'd point out that one of the attractions of these is their scale/size - they don't get dwarfed in the context of a library.  The above tree is $99.  About the same height, but 3D/in the round is this one:

I don't think I have a spot for it in my library, but it certainly has potential.  Smaller, but not small, is this one at $129:

As I said in my original piece, these aren't specifically Easter - you can tweak the themes to suit yourself.  They do only seem to be on sale (in these larger sizes) at Easter.  So you can buy now and secure one, or wait till the after-Easter discounts and potentially miss out (last year I gambled and won, but it's always a gamble!).

Bed Bath N Table is a chain of shops, but unfortunately they don't have a website/online store.  The shops can order stock in from other shops, though.

No affils or suspect brown paper bags with apple pies or crisp banknotes: we've been happy with ours, and so I thought I'd give you a heads-up, when I saw them again.  Photos taken with permission.

Cheers

Ruth

Advice on life

Richard Glover's column in Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald was entitled, "It's what I know now...and wish I'd known then", and is advice on life to his 18 year old son - tips that are by turns practical, wry, thrifty, funny, sincere and apt.

Here's an extract:

People who spend excessive time on their own appearance are almost never as interesting, or as attractive, as they think.



You are what you eat but also what you read and watch and hear. Don't feed your brain with rubbish, at least not all the time.

Don't be negative. Whingeing is for people who want to blame others for their troubles, because it's easier than finding their own way forward. If a friend makes a habit of bad-mouthing other people, take a moment to wonder what they say about you. Spend your mental energy on people who think you are terrific, not people who dislike you.


I'm not sure yet how I'll use it at school, but I've stored a copy (since the SMH often takes online material down after a fortnight) and kept the paper copy so I will have it to hand.  Maybe with study skills, maybe Crossroads (sex, drugs, personal safety etc for Year 11 students).  It's got all sorts of potential.  Definitely worth reading.

Cheers

Ruth

Twilight Eclipse film/movie teaser trailer

Here's the teaser trailer for Eclipse, the third Twilight movie.  I've sourced this from TrailerSpy since YouTube is riddled with fake trailers labelled 'official'.



Or view the webpage here:
http://www.trailerspy.com/trailer/8567/The-Twilight-Saga-Eclipse-Teaser-Trailer-HD
Enjoy!

Cheers

Ruth

The happy life of teacher librarians: do not assume

At the end of a lesson when I'd helped this teacher find some visual resources for her science class, shown with our data projector and screen, she said to me, after the kids had gone, "Thank you.  That YouTube site looks useful.  I hadn't heard of it.  I'll have to take a look at it."

So we talked about YouTube (blocked for kids but not teachers) and TeacherTube, and finding animations/videos of science-y things, and she went off happy.

I had assumed that YouTube had soaked into popular culture enough for everyone to have heard of it, but this was a salutary reminder of the old saying about assuming.  It was good to know she'd added another source to her knowledge bank. 

I know I can be left behind by those who have greater knowledge than me (I've barely looked at Second Life, for example, so those worlds are a mystery to me, I don't (yet) have an iPhone so I'm app-iggerant and I've never really mastered spreadsheets) and I know my technoliteracy is selective rather than comprehensive.  Teachers have been expected to make great techno-leaps in knowledge in the last ten and five years, and there are new things to learn about all the time.  In teacher librarianship, over the twentysomething years of my career, we've gone from the nineteenth century (eg. card catalogues) to the twentyfirst - lots to be learned, long after finishing my teacher librarianship qualifications.

Memo to self: don't assume.  Bring them along for the ride, and hitch one yourself when you need to.  Just this week I learned from two different people that the secret to not going over your iPhone's megabyte limit for internet use is to make smart use of your home wireless (if you have it) and free wifi (eg. at McDonalds), because you can connect through them with your iPhone (and thus you don't have to pay for the extra).  I'm not dumb; I'm a lifelong learner!

Cheers

Ruth

Twilight Eclipse film/movie 10 second trailer

From my extensive network of spies/fans/Twilightery enthusiasts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k33DEEI-15c
This is just ten seconds: the full trailer due out tomorrow, I believe.

Cheers

Ruth

GIFSL* 53: Signage: Welcome to fiction

Here's the fiction section one recent afternoon, at the end of the day.  A class has just been in for reading and borrowing, which explains the books on the table.  I'm always pleased to see them disarranged like this, not neatly as I set them out at the start of the period, because it means they've been looked at, picked over, and, for some, borrowed.  (That's why I didn't tidy them before taking the photo - the 'birdseed' caught some 'birds', ha!).  The array put out depends on the class/year group and if the teacher is focusing on a particular genre or topic.

I wanted to improve that back wall.  The Harry Potter hanging cubes were looking a bit faded from being there for a couple of years, and I still had a couple of Welcome signs from a foray to Reverse Garbage - the same aqua style as that in the reading retreat downstairs, near the library entrance foyer.  Took them home for a wash (as they used to be street signs, hanging in Sydney streets with traffic and weather and so forth) and one of my school assistants sewed hanging sleeves on the back top of each.  Two dowel rods, a couple of hooks...

Better, I think.  I like the message for our library users, and the repetition of it.

I utterly understand that this was a lucky find, and you may not be able to have exactly the same banners.  But they are makeable, with fabric; or you could use preprimed canvases, such as those we've used for our major area signs.  And keep your eyes open for things with library potential, because there are lots to be found, in places like Reverse Garbage, and op shops, and garage sales, and things you see in other libraries, and the world all around.

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL good ideas for school libraries

The happy life of teacher librarians: an unexpected croissant

One of my mentor kids popped by the other morning period one, on her way to the senior study (which is in the library, upstairs).

Hi miss.  I brought you a chocolate croissant.

She hands me this, and smiles, and heads on to the senior study.  Wasn't that sweet?  A lovely unexpected moment.

Oh, in case you wonder, I have an ergonomic mouse, as a result of some issues from a couple of years ago.  The model is Sky Vertical, and you can read all about ergy mouses here and this one in particular here.  I keep meaning to get one for home... it's brilliant, and much less strain on arm/wrist than conventional mouses.  I'm so used to it now, I forget it's 'weird' till a kid asks about it.

Cheers

Ruth