Reading Adventures in 2016

At the start of this brand new year the students at Cromer School are certainly enjoying the library. There are lots of interesting areas to relax and enjoy the many new books that have been purchased in the past year. We have created many more labelled boxes which make it much easier for both the students and teachers to find texts by favourite authors or that provide information on specific subjects.

The students enjoy visiting the library each Monday, Tuesday and Friday morning before school and at lunch time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Each class attends library lessons for a weekly forty minute lesson. Please endure that your child has a library bag (preferably waterproof) on their designated library day.

This year we welcome Ms Kimberley Lee to the library as library teacher each Friday.

The Premier’s Reading Challenge

The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely. (NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge Website)

The challenge will open on the 7^th of March and all students are encouraged to participate.

The Library Program

Kindergarten:

This term the kindergarten students will participate in a study of the work of Julia Donaldson. Her most famous book is the very much loved classic The Gruffalo. In our series of lessons we will study The Gruffalo and a number of Donaldson’s other works. The students will participate in a variety of related interactive activities using the Panaboard.

Years One and Two

I would like to extend the reading experience of the students by introducing them to the wonderful reading adventures that can be found in junior chapter books. There is a very large collection of junior chapter books in our library and throughout the term we will read a variety of texts from a number of different series that are on offer in the library.  A different set of books has been selected for each grade.

Stage Two (Years 3 and 4)

The students in stage Two will undertake a unit of study that is designed to help with the development of their research skills. We will be using World Book Online as well as film clips and books to research the following topics:

Environmental Pollution

The Human Body

Space Exploration

Feasts and Festivals

At the end of each research unit individual classes will create a challenge using the interactive tools in Smart Notebook. These challenges will be completed by the other classes in Stage Two.

Stage Three (Years 5 and 6)

Visual Literacy involves the skill of interpreting still and moving images, graphs, tables, maps and other graphic representations. It incorporates the understanding and evaluation of the manner in which images and language work together to present ideas.

The students will participate in a visual literacy program which explores the techniques used in the development of multimodal texts. Using the program The Text Files, the students will examine the techniques used in the production of plays, television advertisements, billboards, computer adventure games and comics.

The year is off to a great start and I am looking forward to our reading adventures in 2016.