Your School Library - Mind Map Central

International School Library Month (ISLM) is celebrated every year in October. It first began as simply International School Library Day in 1999, but in 2008 it was decided to make it an entire month to honour the fantastic work of school libraries all over the world and their contribution to student achievement and development. 

This year, our theme is Your School Library: Mind-Map Central. Mind-mapping is a way of note taking -in a visual form that gives you an overview of a topic and its complex information. This lets you understand more easily, create new ideas and build connections. It can also be a really cool way to brainstorm and organise ideas for projects, research and essays.

Akinoglu and Yasar, 2007 and Abi-El-Mona et al., 2008 showed that students who use mind mapping show improved creativity, organisation, productivity, and memory for mastering complicated ideas!

Creating a mind map is simple too... you can just use a whiteboard or sheet of drawing paper & coloured markers, or if you prefer, there are many software options from which to choose. Here are 5 great free choices –

• Examtime 
• Xmind 
• Coggle 
• Freemind
• CubeCreator and our school library collection is also a brilliant starting point for any mind mapping exercise! 

We have some amazing activities on @ourlibrary this month; our library prefect community outreach at the NALIS Celebrity Tale a Thon on Sunday 26th to begin National Library Week, librarian led CubeCreator user sessions, to Skype adventures with students from schools in Portugal, UK, USA and other mystery destinations and of course our Bookmark Exchange with our new friends in Portugal. And of course, the book collection is, as always, amazing. So don't forget to check us out @ourlibrary!

References

Abi-El-Mona, I, (2008). The Influence of Mind Mapping on Eighth Graders’ Science Achievement. School Science and Mathematics, 180, 298-312.

Akinoglu, O. & Yasar, Z. (2007). The effects of note taking in science education through the mind mapping technique on students’ attitudes, academic achievement and concept learning. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 6 (3), 34-43.

International School Libraries Month Bookmark Exchange 2014

To celebrate International School Libraries Month 2014, our school has been paired up with the Agrupamento de Escolas N.º2 de Rio Tinto. Click on the image to see our fun messages to each other!

Sharing learning and hugs from Trinidad to Portugal and back again!

We're open for borrowing!

So even if you've only just met me, one thing will probably be very obvious... I love reading! I especially enjoy adult and young adult paranormals, science fiction/fantasy and adult romances. I just love reading!

So I am really excited to announce that the library will be open for borrowing from tomorrow, Wednesday 10th September at lunchtime. Just take a minute to read through our loans policy below and make sure you have your library card ready!

• Students in Forms 1 - 3  may borrow up to 2 items at a time.
• Students in Forms 4 - 5 students may borrow up to 3 items at a time.
• Form 6 students may borrow up to 4 items at a time.
• All materials must be checked out before they leave the library, including magazines which are to be signed out at the desk. 
• A two-week checkout period is allowed for most books. 
• Quick Read books (under 150 pages) may be borrowed for only one week. 
• Special reserve items may be borrowed overnight but are due before 8.00 am the next day.
• Fines are charged for overdue books - 0.50c per day for General and Quick Read items and $3.00 per day for Special Reserve items.
• No student is permitted additional checkouts until overdue books are returned, and fines cleared. Replacement costs are charged for lost or damaged books, and parents or guardians will be contacted if students have overdue books or charges at the end of any term.
• Items, including Special Reserve Collection items, may be renewed once unless requested. 

And if you need suggestions and recommendations, my staff, my library prefects and I would be delighted to be your Book Buddy!

New (school) year... new worlds.

The library staff is so happy to welcome all members of the SJCPOS family for our new school year!

I chose some brilliantly cool new books, Ms. Seepersad has worked really hard to get our them processed and on the shelves and Ms. Peters has sweated over repairs to your old favorites.

So now we're all ready and book loans will resume on Wednesday 10th September. We would like to remind everyone that

• Form 1s to Form 3s are allowed to borrow 2 books
• Form 4s and Form 5s may borrow 3,
• and all Form 6s may have up to 4 books out at one time.

But what to do if you have overdue books and/or outstanding fines for the library? Well, just for this week we are declaring a BOOK AMNESTY. Bring in your overdue item and we'll forgive all fines!

So everyone come in, check out our amazing collection and make sure you have your library card available... because 'you can't get none if you ain't got one!'

So why do we blog?

Mr Smith from Watercliffe Meadow School, Sheffield, UK asked all the quadbloggers who visited his class' site to tell him why they blogged. Yes, I know some of you would say, because Ms Heywood makes us, but check out the video he made of some of the answers he received... And if you blog for a different reason, please tell me in the comments!

Form 1 blogs!

So this week in Trinidad, we had quite a surprise. Fires began burning in the landfill outside our capital city and that produced a horrible smog that left many people gasping for air.

Many schools were closed and students sent home for 3 days! But our Form 1s still blogged... so click on the links below to find out...

• why Karina is really looking forward to Sports Day

• and why Shana really isn't

• what Jordana is resolved to do differently this year

• and Alexi's new direction

• what Marley wants to be when she grows up

• about Stephanie's amazing accomplishment

• just what Leah-Marie wore to the bazaar

• how brilliant Terika's dance project was

• why Aqueena loves libraries

So just click on the links, give us a read and don't forget to leave a comment!