Analysis of a Book Club: What Went Wrong

At the beginning of last term I was full of enthusiasm for my new Ninja Readers and Storytellers Club.  With Esther supervising the library at lunchtime it meant I could hold my book club over a longer period of time, and I could combine my book and comic clubs (my great reasons for that are here).  I had to recruit younger students (Year 4's) but I didn't see a problem with that, and I found a room we could use so we didn't disturb the students using the library.

It didn't take long however, before I realised that things weren't going according to plan.  Despite the fact that the students themselves enjoyed the club it didn't meet my expectations and here's why:

• Combining the two clubs led to the book portion of the club being rushed.  I was acutely aware when we were discussing books that we had a number of other storytelling things to do after that and I found it hard to stay in the moment.
• Holding the club outside the library changed the vibe in a way that I hadn't expected.  There's something about discussing books while being surrounded by them that is very special.
• There is a BIG difference between Year 4 and Year 6 students.  Both groups are lovely to work with but I prefer the more challenging books that the Year 6's read and their more mature reflections about them.
• I had planned to set interesting storytelling tasks and have the students work on them at home and then share them with each other.  This did not work as most of the Year 4 students didn't seem self-motivated enough to do independent activities at home.

No books in sight but great storytelling fun!

Where to from here?

In Term 3 I'll be moving back to holding my book club at morning tea, in the library.  It is for Year 6's and I have about twenty signed up.

In addition to a book club I also want to have a promotional group whose job it is to help me promote books and the library to other students, staff and the community.  I have learned my lesson about combining activities so this will take place on a different morning tea time!

I've been reading a lot about the importance of giving students a voice and allowing them to collaborate and make decisions together.  I want to incorporate that more into my clubs and for that reason I will be encouraging the students to set their own goals for both the book and promo clubs.  They will pick the names and decide how the clubs will run and what they will focus on.  I have a LOT of ideas about things we could do, for example I'm very keen to Skype with another book club.  Hopefully I can share these ideas but leave the final word up to the students (who will love my ideas and do them anyway!).

I don't regret trying something new with the book club.  I had thought it through and it was worth seeing what would happen.  The students involved were very enthusiastic; it was only my grand vision that didn't pan out.  At the end of the day I would rather try lots of new things and have some work and some not, than keep doing things the way they have always been done and risk missing opportunities.

Stop Motion Animation - Go on, do it!

I've been meaning to write about stop motion animation for a while now, because it turns out it is very quick and easy to learn and a lot of fun to do.  I had been thinking about trying it so was very pleased when I was contacted by Hamilton City Libraries late last year.  They asked me if I wanted them to come over for a couple of lunchtimes and teach some students how to make stop motion animation to promote their summer reading programme.  The theme was the Waikato river.

I immediately thought of my Moustache Potatoes Comic Club (10-11 year olds); they were all very keen to participate.  I downloaded the free Stop Motion Studio app onto some of our school iPads and then the team from Hamilton City Libraries came round and showed us how it works.  Here is a short video I found today that explains it well (I admit we didn't even use the timer - it looks like a good idea!).  

The students picked it up straight away and were so enthusiastic and engaged with what they were doing.  The Hamilton City Library team had brought with them felt tips, coloured paper, pipe cleaners, Lego, and Playdoh.  For the first session the students had a chance to experiment with how animating worked and then in the next two sessions they made their animations.

This is what they came up with (we added the music once we'd uploaded the animations to YouTube):

For the last couple of weeks of Term 2 this year I went solo and taught members of my Ninja Readers & Storytellers Club how to do stop motion animation.  These were Year 4 students (8 year olds) but they too only required a couple of minutes' instruction before they were off and animating.  I brought in my own children's old toys and they used them to animate with.  We also used paper and whiteboards and one enterprising fellow simply animated himself!  

I loved watching both groups of kids get heavily involved with their creations.  Some found that viewers didn't understand the story they were trying to tell.  I thought this was a valuable lesson for them to think about how to get their ideas across clearly.   Next up I aim to use students' stop motion animations to promote reading and the library.  

Now that you've finished this post why don't you go off and give stop motion animation a go yourself?  It will only take half an hour (unless you get totally addicted, it is a possibility!).  Better yet, find some kids and get them to have go with you.  I guarantee you'll all enjoy it!

Ninja Readers and Storyteller's Club

Earlier this year I posted about my plans to improve my Ninja Readers Book Club and to also start a storytelling club.  However, since then I've been thinking about how I got some of our quieter book club students to come along to the comic club last year and step out of their shells a bit in order to tell stories.  I was also thinking about how I missed the opportunity to promote reading to some of the comic club students, the ones who weren't confident readers.

So I decided to combine the two clubs and form the Ninja Readers and Storyteller's Club.  This hasn't come without its problems.  Last year's clubs took place at morning tea but to combine the two and get a little more time I wanted to run over lunchtime.  I encountered unexpected opposition, with our older students deemed too busy with other things.  I could only take them at morning tea.

I went away and thought about it, and then decided to see if I could take the Year 4's at lunchtime instead.  The book/storytelling combo needs the extra time and I think I can make it work with younger children.

I got the students to sign up - 40 of them!  Gulp!  Still, I was pleased that it showed the concept was a popular one and I'm sure there will be some drop off as we go along.  I decided to meet with them before the term ended so I could tell them a bit about how the club would run, and issue a couple of voluntary challenges for the holidays.

The first challenge was an image scavenger hunt.  I got the idea from a book I had just read - 'Half a Chance' by Cynthia Lord. The main character is a girl who does a photography scavenger hunt.  I wanted to make sure all the students could join in if they wanted to, so I made it an image scavenger hunt, and gave them the option of drawing images if they didn't have a camera to use.  I read out the list of images and we discussed what we could draw or take photos of.  Here is what I gave them:

Only one of these words and phrases was taken from the book.  The rest I made up, keeping in mind that after we share the images I thought we might use them to inspire short stories.  Over the holidays I have been doing the scavenger hunt with my younger son and we have both been enjoying it, so hopefully some of the students have too.

The second challenge was to draw a Nina reader or storyteller so we could make a poster for the club.  As an example I showed them the one we made last year for the Moustache Potatoes Comic Club.

I have spent some of the holidays reading about writing, with my favourite book so far being 'Once Upon a Slime' by Andy Griffiths.  There are so many awesome ideas to inspire writing in there.  As usual I have spent too much time researching and now I need to pull it all together for next week.  I am aiming to use books/genres as the basis for the storytelling projects, while also showcasing the various storytelling apps on the school's iPads.  I will let you know how we get on.

Ten Library/ICT Projects for 2015

I have some really exciting projects lined up for this year; the key will be finding time for all of them!  Around about this time last year I posted about what was on the agenda for 2014.  Each of the four things I discussed then will need more work this year, so let's start with those:

1. Genre-fication.  This went really well but I still have lots of posters I want to make as a result of it: lists of what genres our Quick Picks readers could move on to, based on what Quick Picks series they are reading; lists of what new genres would be good to try based on what students already like; top 10 lists for each of the genres to help with selection; signs linking genres to non-fiction...that sort of thing.  But I have also been inspired to reinvent our non-fiction area and make the signage there much more bold and attractive.  
2. Ninja Readers Book Club.  While a big improvement over 2013 I still think I can make this better.  So I'll be trying new ideas, some based on a fantastic session on Book Clubs by Carrie Bouffard at the SLANZA Otago Weekend School last year.
3. e-Books.  I just squeaked in getting this up and running at the end of last year so I will need to work on promoting this with teachers, parents and students.
4. Library Expansion.  Well, this is a bit of an ongoing saga.  First we had issues with the courtyard area we were going to expand into.  Apparently the concrete there is pavement concrete and cannot be built on without the great expense of digging it up and starting again.  Now the funding is up-in-the-air because of unexpected changes to other parts of the school budget.  So I have to be patient, although I am still getting our builder in to quote for expanding into our resource room :)

As it happens I had three more big projects that came along last year that I'll also be working on in 2015:

1. Te Totara Times.  I started this blog last year in order to have student-created content for our school website.  I worked in conjunction with one of our teachers and it went well, but this year I need to find a new teacher to help me and I also have more ideas about what we can do.
2. Storytelling Club.  Building on from my Moustache Potatoes Comic Club and our foray into stop motion animation, I'm keen to combine the two, plus some other forms of digital storytelling, and make a storytelling club.  But with a cooler name.
3. BYOD.  We decided to centrally manage our school iPads (for reasons I set out here).  Wiping 140 iPads and adding them to Meraki was a big job for me at the end of last year.  Now we're hoping to have BYOD iPads in place by the end of Term 1, with each child being able to purchase a discounted set of apps from the school.  This is uncharted territory so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.

And now, because I just don't know when to stop, here are my new projects for 2015:

1. Library Skills Sessions.  We finally have enough hours allocated to our library staff that I can run some library skills sessions for our classes.  I'm sure this will be an item on my list for 2016 as I have much to learn about what I should cover and how quickly.
2. Pinterest Boards.  I do already have a few Pinterest boards but I am keen to build these up, especially around picture books that have themes that would be useful for teachers, like confidence, sharing, bullying, being creative etc.
3. Book Fridge.  At the end of last year I noticed that the school was throwing out a fridge that no longer worked.  So I snapped it up and a teacher aide did some wonderful artwork on it (with permission from Scholastic).  Now I need to launch the idea and explain how a Book Fridge works (basically it's a place for students to swap their own books among themselves).

So, a busy, exciting year ahead for me.  I'm also looking forward to attending the SLANZA conference in Christchurch in September.