The Lower School library provides a welcoming environment for both students and faculty to explore new ideas, conduct research and develop a lifelong love of learning. Within the space are multiple areas to encourage collaboration in an interactive, flexible way: where the Bulldog Broadcast team comes together, The Upper School Club “Reading Buddies” meets, authors visit, afterschool music lesson happens, fifth-grade opera team convenes, preschool’s literacy weekly sessions occur, and it is a home to the caterpillars.
We started the school year in the library with our focus on who we are! We discussed what a family is and how the school community plays a role in our lives. Reading “Our Class is a Family” and learning the song “It’s You I Like,” the students had a good sense of their parts in the classroom environment. They extended their views by reading “Our School is a Family” to celebrate our new friends and cultivate a positive school community.
In addition to building a solid connection through stories, as the students supported one another in the library with learning, they relearned the systems of selecting, registering, and reading books implemented last year to promote independence and autonomy.
Through stories such as “Quiet Please” and “That is Not a Good Idea” to enhance their learning skills, the students are exploring the questions “What is the difference between hearing and listening? What does the word ‘skill’ mean?” Along with the library discussions, the students are building momentum, acquiring the skills to develop deeper personal relationships, and becoming good communicators.
In the future, the students will embark/dabble in storytelling to pick up on the small changes that could alter a story, and their listening skills will allow them to decipher tales and make their stories compelling. Telling jokes and stories through art, plays, or dance, storytelling not only stimulates imagination and creativity, it promotes cultural awareness, builds cognitive and language skills development, and improves their ability to focus and concentrate. Storytelling is, above all, fun and entertaining.
We are looking forward to the process of telling and listening to the anecdotes they record on our library portal in the coming months.