Picture Saturday: Student's Work displayed in the library

Libraries are often centers of cultural displays.  ICSB’s library is no different.  For the past few weeks this remarkable 3-D map of the Holy Lands created by a grade 9 student has been on display:

Why I love my job: grade 6 helpers. Part 2

Last week I shared with you home much I enjoy having my grade 6 helpers.  I showed the picture of the soon to be Christmas tree.  Although that tree did not work, they did make a tree out of construction paper. (Thank you mom for sending us green construction paper).   They made the tree all by themselves and had a little help with the snowflakes.  Without being asked they brought the candy for the elementary students.  There have been many questions this week in elementary library about what the candy is for.  I always tell the students "you will have to wait to find out" and I give them a choice of jelly or coconut when they leave.   

They also made this "Merry Christmas" sign!

Picture Saturday: Me at work

Welcome everyone to my world at work:

At my desk - this was taken on Remembrance Day, hence the poppy

Shelving in the elementary section

Why I love my job: grade 6 helpers

700s - Art & Recreation  Bulletin Board

Shelf Markers for Elementry Students

This year I have some wonderful grade 6 students who are helping me in the library.  They are creative and full of new ideas.  Most often I have them work on a project that has some type of artistic aspect.  I am a believer in building leadership and independent thinking through allowing the students to come up with the majority of the ideas for their projects with minimal guidance. When I asked the students to do a bulletin board display all I told them was that they needed to use a book called Bob the Alien Learnsabout the Dewey Decimal System as a started point and choose one of the ten main classes of the Dewey Decimal System as the theme.  They were allowed to design it away way they wanted. 

Recycled Packing Material soon to be a Christmas Tree

Today when I asked them to break up some boxes and throw out some packing materials they asked if they could use it for their Christmas display instead. Of course I agreed and they made a wonderful Christmas tree.  Unfortunately, they were not able to finish it and when they were unable to return at lunch to complete it I had to pick it up off the floor and it feel apart.  I expect, though, next Tuesday we are going to have a wonderful Christmas tree in the library window just in time for the beginning of December.

Seeing the creativity and youth of these students is just one of the reasons why I love my job at ICSB!

Thank You Mom and Fall Library Update

I would like to give a big THANK YOU to my mom for sending me these:

 

The students love colouring with the assortment of markers, crayons and pencil crayons that she sent.

This fall the library has been busy as we celebrated TEEN READ WEEK (TRW) and kicked off a reading competition with American candy as the prizes.  I went on an adventure to Culinaris on the other side of Budapest by public transit to get the candy.

Signs were posted around the school to encourage student participation in TRW

Culinaris - expensive but the only place in Budapest where you can buy many 'American' and other imported products

Display of prizes for the reading competition

The elementary students have been learning the Dewey Decmimal Classification System and other important library skills using these cute animal cut outs:

 I have been busy selecting and ordering new books.  Here is the 'small' order we recieved this fall.  We will have the 'large' order in the spring:

Blessings from Budapest : Update October 2010

Why I love my job

The other day afterschool Beni in grade 2 came into the library and asked if I had time to read to him.  Although I always have many tasks to complete I wanted to take the time to read with him. We had fun reading about Benny and Penny in the Big No-No and Elephant and Piggy in There’s a Bird on my Head.  It is amazing how the Lord provided the time for me to encourage Beni to love books and to show him he is important enough for me to take time out of my busy day to read with him.  It is times like this when I can truly say I love me job and I am so glad the Lord brought me to the International Christian School of Budapest.

Reponse to Too Small to Ignore by Wess Stafford

 "When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." (Mark 10:14 NIV)

In his book Too Small to Ignore Wess Stafford gives a fascinating account of this life growing up as an MK in a village in Cote D’Ivore and then later boarding school. He talks about life in the village in almost in an nostalgic way, but never giving into writing that everything was perfect in that village.  Children, including him, growing up in that village were completely integrated into society and played an important role in the economy.  Stafford’s boarding school experience was a stark contrast. Almost daily Stafford suffered abuse from the mission staff who were meant to protect and nurture him.

After giving the background to some of the reasons why his thinks that children are so important Stafford then goes on to talk about how Jesus feels about children, how God used children in the Bible and is still using them today.  Throughout the book Stafford sends the message that children should not be ignored or swept away until they reach adulthood.  Jesus thought children were so important that he became ‘indigent’ when the disciples tried to keep them away for them (Mark 10:14 NIV). Children are for today and each time we interact with a child we have a chance to shape their life positively.

As a librarian at an International Christian School this book has challenged me to think about how important the children I work with really are to the kingdom of God.  Every time I teach a child a new skill, encourage them or even just spend a few minutes listening to them I am showing them that they are valued and important.  Often times I struggle with how to integrate Biblical principles into my lessons and how to share Christ with my students.  Even though I need to continue working on this, perhaps I have already modeled Christ more than I thought by making the library an inviting and kid friendly place.

I highly recommend that everyone, especially people who work with children, read this book.  It will give you a greater appreciation of children and how precious they are in Jesus’ sight.