“Critical thinking is a key skill in media and information literacy, and the mission of libraries is to educate and advocate its importance.“
Source: IFLA infographic based on FactCheck.org’s 2016 article “How to Spot Fake News” in JPG format /IFLA. 27 January 2017
An absolute highlight was waiting for a group of ESRM-students on the last day before the May holidays. Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre were all dressed up in amazing costumes when they came to present their book “Oliver and the Seawigs”. They did not only introduce their characters, setting and plot to our students, they brought their story to life and captured their audience.
Aside of the great excitement, there were a few students who seemed a bit nervous. But it did not take long until the last student had overcome his shyness and joined in this interactive and outstanding event. They were asked for the one food they would take to space when our guests were talking about their book “Cakes in Space”, they listened to the sound of science when witnessing how the “Norm-O-Tron” (a scientific machine) works and under the guidance of Sarah McIntyre they all drew and named their own sea monkey and sang along the “Cakes in Space” song with Sarah and Philip. But besides all this our guests also shared their wisdom on writing and illustrating.
The students expressed that they enjoyed “the things they did”, “listening to the poem” and they “really liked how they made us sing and draw the illustration” and “the teaching of the sea monkey”. There were many questions and we could have perfectly spent an extra hour.
Thank you Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre for this unique event, for patiently signing books and sea monkey pictures, for answering any questions that were raised while waiting for your autographs, for the little chats with our students and for not stopping until the last student in line has had the chance to meet you!
… and thank you Sarah, for giving hope to one of the librarians when you said that you were not born with a supernatural drawing talent and that practice was part of successful drawing and illustrating.
Wen es in der ersten Dezemberwoche in die unmittelbare Nähe der Primarbibliothek führte, der wollte wohl Ohren und Augen nicht trauen.
Wo sonst die Schüler auf leisen Sohlen durch die Bibliothek schlichen oder sich bei gedämpfter Lautstärke über bereits gelesene Bücher austauschten, saßen Kinder spielend an den Tischgruppen und immer wieder war das Gelächter zu vernehmen.
Doch vor dem uneingeschränkten Spielspaß mit den neu angeschafften Spielen für nahezu alle Altersstufen war zunächst die eine oder andere Herausforderung zu meistern. Während es für die jüngeren Primarschüler noch von ungemeiner Bedeutung war, mit wem und welches Spiel man spielen würde, stellte sich für die Schüler der Klassen drei und vier die Aufgabe der Selbstorganisation des meist unbekannten Spiels. Das Ergebnis war in der Regel in allen Altersgruppen ein reger Austausch, der hier und da zu Diskussionen, aber letzten Endes auch zu einer Lösung führte. Im Laufe des Spiels zeigte sich – vor allem bei den Spielen, bei denen es zu entscheiden galt, wer am schnellsten war – der unterschiedlich stark ausgeprägte Ehrgeiz. Eine Gruppe war sogar bereit, den Großteil der verfügbaren Spielzeit zu investieren, um auszuschließen, dass der falsche Spieler einen für den Außenstehenden minimalen ersten Teilsieg zugesprochen bekommen könnte. Auch der Umgang mit dem verpassten Sieg oder der wiederholten Niederlage war ebenso vielfältig und individuell wie unsere Schüler.
Nichts desto trotz am Ende überwog das positive Feedback der Schüler. Einige verabredeten bereits eine private Fortsetzung und viele wollten am liebsten die gespielten Spiele direkt aus der Bibliothek ausleihen.
Anyone passing by the primary library during the first week of December might have taken another close look to believe what he was seeing. Instead of students sneaking through the library or quietly talking about their previous reads children were seated at the tables, playing games and every now and then one could hear joyful laughter.
But prior to the fun there were some challenges ahead. While the younger primary students were worrying about not having the chance to be playing their preferred game with their best friends, the task for students in year three and four was taking care of getting to know and setting up the game all by themselves. A vital exchange, even some discussions here and there in the end all lead to a solution. However, in the course of the game – especially those games seeking for the fastest action or reaction – it revealed that some children were more ambitious than others. One group was even willing to invest a big part of their available time to assure not even the slightest first partial victory was given to a wrong player. When it came to dealing with a tight or repeated loss the reactions were as diverse and individual as our students themselves.
Nevertheless, in the end the overall feedback was positive. Some children agreed that they would continue playing together some day after school and many of them would have liked to borrow a game from the library right away.
European School RheinMain Library 