Paddy: Hello, this is Paddy McCann and I'm Rachel. And we are coming to you today with Cup of Tea with a Teacher, the podcast where we discuss all things library but also just pick the brain of Rachel, who is both a Teacher Librarian and also the founder of Learn From Play. So, Rachel, what is happening in your library this week?
Rachel: So, we are still working on our speeches. Those will be presented in two weeks time. We're getting to the tail end of those and I am just amazed with what the kids are doing with those, both their research and their structure and just seeing this continual growth in their speeches is fantastic.
Paddy: These speeches are the ones about their favourite book and that sort of thing, right?
Rachel: Yeah, they are. Yep, so about the book, about the author, about a series, and just why other children should read the book that they're talking about.
Paddy: That's really nice. I like that. I would have a lot of fun with that. I loved to read as a kid. Do you get any kids that don't like to read?
Rachel: I do, but I find that I can always find something that they will be able to read for this speech and then hopefully they'll hear about another book from another student and obviously the peers giving them a recommendation is the best way to get them reading other books.
Paddy: So, the kids are literally there pitching their book to all of the other kids. It'd be like watching, you remember the old VHS when you'd watch a movie and at the start there'd be like, you know, a few previews, trailers. So it's all book trailers.
Rachel: Basically, yeah, verbal book trailers. Yep.
Paddy: Fantastic, and you're off to camp?
Rachel: I am, as this goes to air, I will be putting the finishing touches to my backpack. I'm heading off with Year Five and we're going down to Camp Somerset. So it's going to be a fantastic week.
Paddy: Man, I loved camp. When I was a kid, we went on school camp probably four times through primary school. It was just the best. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. With camp, what are you looking forward to most?
Rachel: I think for me, just being able to disconnect, we're going to be off grid. So there's going to be no computers. There is going to be no internet. There are going to be no phone calls. I will of course set up everything to go live while I am away and have that pre-scheduled. But, yeah, definitely looking forward to just a bit of a disconnect.
Paddy: From the computer screens. Yeah, that'd be very nice.
Rachel: It'll be really nice for me to have a chance to engage with the students that I'm away with and just be able to not teach them per se, but just be there with them as people.
Paddy: So, you're off to Camp Somerset. That sounds like a great time. What is trending in children's literature this week, Rachel?
Rachel: I've been seeing a whole lot of Indigenous books coming through, so Aboriginal books. Things like Country by Aunty Faye Muir and Sue Lawson, which is all about caring for Country and the idea that Country is past, it's present, it's future, and that how we care for Country dictates how it can care for us.
We've got the latest in Diana Lucas, Ben Tyler, and Emma Long’s series with Walking the, Rock Country in Kakadu. So that one's all about the plants and the animals that you find on the plateau in Kakadu and it's got a beautiful way of putting the pictures within the story so that language is integrated into the book in a beautiful way.
We've also had Country Tells Us When, which is a bilingual story about the change of seasons. I actually have the Yawuru edition, which explores the traditional owners of the lands and waters in the land around Rubibi, which is actually where Broome is located. But I believe this actually comes in a number of different Indigenous languages.
And then I've also had Djinang Bonar which is Seeing Seasons by Ebony Froome and Leanne Zilm and this is another language-based story and this time it uses Noongar language. So both of these teach us about the changes in the flora and fauna that mark the change in seasons and they show us how important it is to observe nature rather than looking at a date in a calendar and using that to judge which season it is.
Paddy: Yeah, I think that's a pretty good skill, you know, I mean, here we are putting dates in the calendar saying this is Summer, but you know, those seasons do seem to shift around a bit.
Rachel: So, it's not the first time we've seen these books coming through. Last year we also had Ask Aunty, Seasons: An Introduction to First Nations Seasons. So that was by Aunty Munya Andrews and Charmaine Leiden-Lewis was the illustrator for that. And they've actually just released a new book in the Ask Aunty series, which is Bush Survival Skills. So that one's actually a move away from seasons and that's more into the ways that the Bardi people of this saltwater country, which is in the Kimberley of Western Australia, find both food and source natural medicine. How they read the tides to help them fish. How they use the sea animals to help them navigate the waters. Just these lessons that we don't have in our Western culture.
There is such a wealth of knowledge in our Indigenous Elders and we are so lucky that we are seeing this coming through in these books and that they're so willing to share it and that it's being shared in such an accessible fashion. That we can be using this with our students and having them take this home and share it with their families.
Paddy: Absolutely. I mean, it's just beautiful. The illustrations and the styles of these books as well. Just some really original work coming through and it's just a really nice interpretation of the media. You know, with these, these lovely titles. They're just beautiful.
Rachel:. We've got a final one, which is actually a complete shift, so it's no longer about, the nature and the seasons and those sort of things, but this one's actually, about Aboriginal people and is looking at it through a sporting lens. So this one's called Our Game Make Your Mark and it's by Bianca Hunt and Desiree Saunders. And this one actually explores AFL football and it traces the origins to the Indigenous game of Marn-grook where a possum skin, was used as a ball and that was kicked around and then players jumped high to mark the ball and they scored goals by kicking. So you can see that's exactly AFL in there but then the book also traces some of the famous AFL players like Polly Farmer and Sir Douglas Nichols and of course Adam Goodes.
Paddy: Hang on, didn't Adam Goodes also write a set of books? I'm sure I saw those on the site.
Rachel: Yeah, he did. So he worked with Ellie Lang and Adam Hardy and they've actually got four books that we've got resources for on the site. They've got Somebody's Land, Ceremony, Back on Country, and Walk With Us and I actually use those books, along with Melissa Greenwood's Hello Ocean and Hello Mountain, when I do an author study in term four. So, yeah I love the fact that these books that we're seeing come through are just full circle, that we've got the authors of the books in the books and they're talking about the seasons and then we can do the seasons when we use it in maths and we can use it in sport and they're just such a brilliant resource to see coming out.
Paddy: We could spend an entire podcast just on this topic. But before we run out of tea, we'd better have a look at a quick tech tip. What have you got for us, Rachel?
Rachel: Okay, it's a really basic one this week, but we've actually been doing quite a bit of assessing and we use Google Spreadsheets, that when you open it, it actually comes up with a little prompt and it says, “@dropdowns” will let you have a dropdown in your spreadsheet. And then if I put the dropdown in, then when I'm assessing, I can actually just tick where the kids are at. So while they're talking, instead of needing to take copious notes, I can actually just be marking the outcome against the dropdown and then just put a little typed note next to it.
Paddy: How fantastic is that? That is brilliant. Dropdowns in Google. How great is that? Another fantastic tip there from Rachel, which is going to make teaching a little bit easier, hopefully.
Now, we haven't had anybody write in. I'm so sad. I love the questions and we haven't got any this week. So it's a slightly shorter podcast, which is lucky because we are out of tea, in fact. But if you have listened to this podcast today and you have any questions you want to put forward to Rachel or myself, by all means, just shoot an email over Rachel@LearnFromPlay.com.au. and until next time, I'm Paddy, I'm Rachel, and we'll see you next time for Cup of Tea with a Teacher.
Comments