January 31

Learning About Coral Reefs with the Kinders

One of the best parts of my week is when I get visited by our K1 and K2 classes for storytime.  They’ve been working hard with Morah Yaffa learning all about oceans and sea life.  After a conversation with a kinder during morning care who talked about his upcoming vacation to a place that has a coral reef, I decided it was the perfect topic for our next storytime.

The book we read, Coral Reefs by Jason Chin, is gorgeously illustrated and talks about both the science and the importance of reefs to the ocean.  The kinders were fascinated by the illustrations and asked lots of questions and shared some of their own knowledge on oceans and on food chains, which was quite impressive.

They then had a chance to examine real coral and see the tiny polyps that comprise coral.  They were very into it and we had so much fun exploring this topic.  Can’t wait for next week!

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January 17

The OJCS has read over 2170 books so far!

The OJCS Reading Challenge is in full swing and every class is doing an incredible job.  Books are flying off the shelves in the library.  I’ve never seen students so excited about reading and sharing about what they’ve been reading.  Students have been posting book reviews on our catalogue and also sharing flipgrid videos.  There has been a tangible shift in reading culture at the school and everyone is working hard to continuously motivate the kids.  The kids are also working hard to motivate each other.

Each grade is reading books that are appropriate for their age and grade level, so of course, the older the kids, the bigger the books and the longer they take to finish.  Here are our numbers so far…

Grade 8 – 26

Grade 7 – 68

Grade 6 – 72

Grade 5 – 56

Grade 4 – 330

Grade 3 – 945

Grade 2 – 261

Grade 1 – 397

K – 15+

These numbers are enough to bring tears of joy to a librarian’s heart.  I need a tissue.

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September 14

Our Library Catalogue is Online!

We are so excited to announce that the OJCS Library catalogue is now online!  Students and teachers will have access to browse our collection from their classrooms, home, or even on your device as there is an app available for download.

Please check out the new site, formal training is coming very soon!

https://theojcs.booksys.net/opac/ojcs/

If you are too eager to wait for the training session, Log Ins for students and staff are uniform: first letter of first name, a period, then last name.  Password is books.

So for example mine would be:

Username: b.ruel

Password: books

Here is an example of what a full record in the new system looks like…

Teachers will have the ability to create book lists for their students and students will be able to write book reviews!

I can’t wait to show you more, but for now I will leave it here.  Have fun exploring!

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