21 Ideas to transform your library
Meena Raghunathan and Mamata Pandya
Why 21 ideas? Because it is the 21st century? Because 21 is as nice a number as any other?
Well, that is the not important point. What is important is to think of ways to make the school library (no matter what its size or resources) a place that children love, which stimulates them, and encourages them to engage with the world of words and ideas.
So just to get you started, 21 ideas…
- Have a theme every week, and post one word related to that theme on the notice board each day of the week, with its meaning, usage, origin and trivia related to it. Make the display colourful and wacky. Choose themes which will interest children – ghosts, insects, and food may be some good themes to start with. Once in a while, it would be a good idea to work with subject teachers and do subject-related words – e.g., geometry, geography, etc.
Meena Raghunathan is Director, Community Services Wing of the GMR Varalakshmi Foundation. She has worked on issues related to environmental education. She can be reached at meena.raghunathan@gmrgroup.in.
Mamata Pandya is Senior Programme Director, Instructional Design, Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad. An environmental educator, she has developed a variety of educational materials for teachers and children. She can be reached at mamata.pandya@ceeindia.org.
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Our School Board has gone wild on the idea of “Classroom Libraries”.
These are pre-chosen books kept in each classroom, sorted into theme baskets.
When students have free time to read, they ask to go to the school library, ignoring the pre-chosen books.
The funds tied up in the books chosen for each class could have been better spent adding these books to the school library, making it more appealing and welcoming.
The School Board treats the library and the two-day a week librarian, as past history.
This seems to be a backward step!
Students headed to university, won’t have pre-selected books, waiting for them in their lecture halls.
Whoever came up with this idea, should be locked in “the stacks” for a week!!
This is a wonderful idea for school libraries. and we expect like this articles from teacher plus .
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