NDG - A proper introduction

Izzy P, Izzy R, Paris, Dominic, Samuel, Sofia, Anya, Lottie, Jess , Ellie

We held our first meeting for our book club and this is the group that will be shadowing the awards. We are in our new school library! They were told of our plans to blog with students in Canada about both the Greenaway awards and the Chocolate Lily awards and were very excited to see photo's of the students they will be talking to. They really hope that this may lead to future friendships.

Notre Dame is a small Catholic school in Guernsey. Here is a link to our school website. Our school moto is 'Learning together Loving God'

Guernsey is a small Island that is part of the UK but is near the French coast so we don't get snow very often. The children were very happy to have a couple of days off school to go out and play in it. It was lovely to see your students enjoying the snow too!

Well done for doing so much for charity. We were very impressed with Jeffrey shaving his hair for Faith and we are very glad to hear that she is getting better. We too support charities and we support Cafod. A representative from CAFOD will visit our school on Monday 4th March to tell our junior children how we can make a real difference to people's lives this Lent.

We looked at our first book this week and after our Easter holidays we will get one of the students to tell you about it.

HCS - An Introduction

Here is a picture of some of the students in the grade 7 class at Heritage Christian School in Kelowna, B.C. Canada.  We all wore mustaches to raise money for an orphanage in Kitale, Kenya.  Our Principal shaved his off!!

We understand what snow is like! Here is a picture of some of the students sledding during a day of snow fun at the end of January.  Emily, at the end of the "train" will be one of the students who does the book reviews. 

Here is picture of Jeffrey who is presenting his art project.  He is a real artist!  He will be the other main student reviewer.  

The reason his hair is so short is because he chose to shave it off in support of his classmate, Faith, who has just beat cancer.  She was diagnosed in October and has completed all her chemo treatments.  She was able to even come back to class just before our Spring Break.  We are so thankful she is better!   Here is a picture of Faith (in front, middle, staying away from us due to low immunity to germs) with all of us wearing T-Shirts made in support of her battle with cancer.

We are looking forward to being involved in this project with you!!!

About ourselves - NDG

We were today going to introduce you to our group here in Guernsey but due to adverse weather 'snow' all schools across Guernsey have been closed. So instead of not posting anything I thought I would give you some pictures of the snow that has brought everything to a standstill.

We will be meeting as a group next Tuesday so hopefully I can send you some pictures of people next time.

I am really looking forward to getting to see the books on both shortlists and can't wait to see the discussions that will hopefully take place.

Shortlists for Chocolate Lily award and Greenaway award

Here is the list of books that our students will be reading and disscussing which do you think they will pick?

Congratulations to the publishers, authors, and illustrators for their 2012 – 2013 Chocolate Lily nomination!

2012- 2013 Picture Book Nominees (Kindergarten – Grade 4)

Pussycat, Pussycat Where have you Been by Dan Bar-el

I want to go to the Moon by Tom Saunders and BC illustrator Cynthia Nugent

Seal Song by Andrea Spalding

Can Hens Give Milk by Joan Betty Stuchner

Sounds of the Ferry by Sara Leach

Louis the Tiger Who Came from the Sea by Michal Kozlowski

Grandpa’s Girls by Nicola I. Campbell

The CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2013 shortlist in full:

Lunchtime by Rebecca Cobb, Macmillan Children's Books

Again! by Emily Gravett, Macmillan Children's Books

Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton, Walker Books

I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, Walker Books

Pirates 'n' Pistols by Chris Mould, Hodder Children's Books

King Jack and the Dragon by Helen Oxenbury (illustrator) and Peter Bently (author), Puffin Books

Black Dog by Levi Pinfold, Templar Publishing

Just Ducks! by Salvatore Rubbino (illustrator) and Nicola Davies (author), Walker Books

Greenaway and Chocolate Lily Awards - international discussions

Every year we Shadow the Greenaway book awards with students in Guernsey. Within our schools we bring groups of students together to talk about the shortlist and encourage some students to post their thoughts on the CILIP website.

 

In our groups we try to guess who we think the winner will be and why. On the day that the real winner is announced we bring 4 students from each school together at the Guille-Allés Public Library for a celebration lunch. The students then split into groups to again discuss the books and have another vote; this allows us to have a Guernsey ‘winner’.  We are given a gold envelope that contains the real winner and we then open it to reveal who has really won the Greenaway award.

The students really enjoy the whole process from reading the books to discussing what they like and don’t like about them and then choosing a winner. They especially look forward to the lunch when they get the opportunity to share their thoughts with students they have not met before.

Not many of my students were keen to post their thoughts about the books on the website so I began to think about what would encourage them to write more. Blogging book reviews is something that has started to become popular but it has been done before so what could I do that would be so different that they would want to write something?

I was recently talking about encouraging older students to read and look at picture books to Pippa Davies through a social networking site called scoop.it. We began to hatch a plan that would enable her students who are in Canada and follow the Chocolate Lily award

 

to talk to my students about both awards by blogging. We have made sure that all students have access to all the books and we hope that they will be inspired to talk to each other about them. We are going to finish this off with a virtual  classroom where they will meet each other and talk about what they have done.  Please follow and see the results.