A folktale from Panamá

Just today, the librarian read Conejito: a Folktale from Panamá, written by Margaret Read MacDonald and illustrated by Geraldo Valério. The book seemed like a perfect read for two reasons: first, the librarian’s school’s fourth theme is  ”We Share Stories of the World“, so a story from Panamá would be a good beginning. Second, since the folktale contained many words in Spanish, it would be easy to translate to Spanish as she read it to the students.

As soon as our friendly librarian began reading the book, she noticed that the song the main character sings was very familiar to her. As it turned out, it is a very popular children’s song that most of the students at the librarian’s school knew. The original song is in Spanish, while the verse written in the book is in English. Suddenly the librarian knew what she would do next. After reading the story to all third grade students, she would post information about the experience in the spider’s blog. And that is what she did.When the librarian searched online for a picture of the cover of the book, she found two extra resources:

• Margaret Read MacDonald’s website
• Links to lesson plans for the book, grades K-3

Coming up soon: the translated story is placed in a podcast (including the song).  Stay tuned!

Who is this mystery author?

Just today, Sophie came across two pages that were left by a third grade student at the circulation desk in the library. At this time we can’t divulge the student’s name; we can only say that he does exist and he appears to be quite a talented writer. The two pages capture something that recently happened at the library. This is what he wrote:

Fp! A change of light! The book in front of my lunch was suddenly pulled away… a monster lumbered away with it. Well, it wasn’t a monster. It was a human. But you could call them monsters if you were my size. See, I am an ant. I live in the library. Don’t ask me how I got here, because I don’t know.  Well, the human walked past what they would call an old man (I’ve picked some stuff up, here at the library), and he gave the book to an old woman by the desk. Then she shined a narrow red line on the book (I’ll never know why they do that), and gave it back to him. What he did next, I have no idea. I turned around to finish sucking the juice out of a piece of apple I had found.   Then I found a piece of wood that led down to the floor. I climbed on to it, and began to walk down. Yes, straight down. For any humans who read this, ant feet are very sticky. When I reached the floor, humans came down the hall. Enemies! Predators! Then I controlled myself. I knew that most of them probably didn’t want to hurt me, but they could on accident. I scrambled onto a sideways piece of wood.   Then, when they were gone, I jumped off the piece of wood, dodged two more humans, and then scurried up the leg of a table, and then walked up to a book. I just stood there and stared at the strange markings and dots that made so much sense to me as saying that ants are felines.  “Hey, you!” a voice called. “Who are you?” I spun around to see another ant facing me. “I don’t have a name. Neither do you. You know that ants don’t have names!” I answered. She smiled. Then, she looked at the book. “D-do you know how to read?” she asked. “Well, to be honest, no.” I said. “Do you want me to read you this story, ‘cause I know how to read.” “Sure!” I cried with glee. I was going to hear a story! That never happened to me before. Then, that ant began to read a story about a silly court jester and a comedian that made the king laugh so much that the walls began to shake. It was so fun. Now, I know something I didn’t know before: Reading is great.

The librarian and her friends try to podcast!

Here we have the first podcast the librarian and her friends did. They were putting together an assignment for their digital media course and decided to package it in the form of a podcast. Go to Podcasting534 and click on the Podcasting 534 tab. You should be able to listen to a few good reasons to podcast with your students.

I bet the librarian is going to try to put together her own podcast soon! Both Sophie and I have a feeling that it will have something to do with books. Aren’t tarantulas smart?

Krista’s close-up

Here I am after the librarian took my photo. Don’t I look just adorable? Take a look at those segmented legs!

The friendly librarian snapped the picture in the morning, right after she had provided both Sophie and I a tasty meal of tiny crickets.  I had been trying to listen in as she explained to a coleague about a new page she is adding to this blog. The page will be called Digital Media and it will contain information she will eventually use in technology instruction at the library. The librarian just put her hand in my cage, turning the camera upside down and clicking away. She wasn’t even looking through the viewfinder!

Look for this page on the tab titled Digital Media.

 

Library spider or library lion, which one will it be?

Here is proof that I, baby Krista,  have been paying attention to what the librarian does. In this photo you see how the librarian was reaching for a book while I watched carefully. I know for a fact that she was getting ready to read a book titled Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes.

In the book, Miss Merriweather, head librarian, first meets Lion when he goes into the book stacks. She declares that as long as the lion breaks no rules, he is welcome to come to the library. After being scolded by Miss Merriweather for making noices in the library, the lion promises to reform. He dusts with his tail, licks envelopes, and serves as a stepstool for small patrons. Everyone appreciates him–except Mr. McBee, a library clerk. When Lion lets out another tremendous RAAAHHHRRR!, the man bursts into Miss Merriweather’s office to snitch–and there he finds her on the floor, having fallen from a stool and broken her arm. Lion has saved the day, but he is so embarrased by his own rule-breaking behavior that he doesn’t return to the library. People miss him. Even Mr. McBee. The story provides the readers with a  feel-good ending and a reminder that sometimes, there is a good reason to break the rules.

Now both of us spiders agree that as much as that was a great book, we rather have library spiders than library lions. We tend to blend with the environment a lot better than that that hairy mammal.

Spiderlings or Spiderlinks, which one will it be?

The latest news around here is that the librarian has just begun a page at a place called Eurekster. She is trying to humor us spiders by coming up with a page full of spiderlinks. Well, wouldn’t you know what she titled it? Spiderlings Now, how predictable can she be! We are honored, of course, and decided to share her unfinished work here. Let the reader beware: the site is not finished! So do go check out the swicki.

While viewing this swicki, we had a tremendous idea… why don’t we create a page with useful information about spiders? This information would be for people like the librarian, who have this thirst for knowledge about arachnids like us. Just a bit ago, we had a chance to visit a page by Dr. Linda Rayor, at Cornell’s Department of Entomology. The page, titled  Spiders in Classrooms - Ideas from the Web is full of very useful information that we can’t wait to read [yes, we know tarantulas can't read, but we can "hear" what the librarian talks about]. So comments about Dr. Rayor’s page,  would be located on the new Spiderlinks page we are to create soon. If you are just interested in links, then visit the swicki Spiderlings .

We know this is a bit confusing, just bare with us. Communication between arachnids and humans is going through a transformation…

About a dog, the moon, the internet, Buzz Aldrin, and a monkey in a space suit

What I, Sophie Titina Tarantula, chose to describe today is a true story, one that illustrates clearly how the same book has a different effect on different groups of same-aged children. It is the perceptive teacher that notices this, and is able to facilitate the children’s inquiries and wonderings, while keeping to the prescribed academic content.

Recently our librarian friend chose to read a new book titled Moondog to the first grade students. I noticed she wasn’t as thrilled with the book as she usually is, I couldn’t tell if it was the illustrations that she didn’t like, the simplicity of the story, or what ????? that was preventing her from showing her usual exhuberance over a new book. Regardless, the time came, and the first group of first graders came in.

Since she never reads books to me, or to my pal Krista, I had to rely on paying close attention so I could get the storyline. Using simple words, the book describes a dog that lives on the Moon and keeps it clean, dusting the craters and overall making the Moon shine. —I don’t know if the librarian was thinking this, but I immediately thought about The Little Prince , who goes out each morning to take care of his planet. —

 One day, a monkey in a space suit lands on the Moon and explains to Moondog that he was sent by the Earth’s scientists to collect a piece of rock and take it back. People on Earth have not taken care of their planet and now need to explore other options. Moondog, afraid that his Moon will be ruined by this, offers to trick the scientists by sending a dog biscuit instead of a piece of the Moon. Back on Earth, after testing the “rock” with a multimillion dollar power blaster and smacking it into millions of pieces, the scientists decide that they will instead take better care of the planet Earth while they have a chance to do so. At that point I realized why she was reading the book: the current theme at the school is “We can take care of  planet Earth”.

 When the librarian finished the story, instead of taking the usual turn and discussing with the children the message in the book, or other books like it, she mentioned that while she was reading the part about the monkey arriving on the moon, she remembered a photo she had seen about a monkey that was sent to space. The monkey was wearing a little spacesuit in the  photo and had a scared look.  Immediately the questions and the conversation ensued, why would scientists send monkeys into space, was it really true, how did the monkey know how to get there, and so forth. Time in the library was running short and the children had to go select books and check out. While they did this, the librarian took a quick trip to the computer, searched online and printed a picture of the monkey in a space suit. “Oohs and aaaahs” were this class’ exiting comments as they lined to leave the library and  looked at the photo of the real monkey that went to space.

After the next class came in and the book was read, a different conversation ensued. Is it fair to send monkeys into space to test the spaceships? Did the monkey die? Did the monkey come back? The librarian didn’t have the answer to these questions, she just let the children speak  to each other and express their curiosity. Once again, the children lined to leave the library and looked at the picture of the monkey in the space suit.

By the time the third first grade class came in, the librarian had a chance to pull out a beautiful biography of Buzz Aldrin Reaching for the Moon  and after she read Moondog, talked about the monkey in the space suit, then quickly showed several pages from Buzz Aldrin’s book. This class was not as interested in the discussion, but wanted to go and check out the dinosaur books they had an eye for since the previous week.

The last first grade class to come to the library listened to the story, saw the pages in Buzz Aldrin’s book, saw the picture of the monkey in the space suit and listened attentively to find out that there were 32 monkeys sent by the United States to test the effects of space travel.

How far did these discussions go in the minds of the students? What would they remember later, the book about the dog that cleans the Moon, the scientists that decided to take care of the Earth, or the 32 monkeys in the little space suits that made it possible for the Buzz man to step on the Moon?

Traveling in a circle of hands

This doesn’t have to do much with libraries and books, but we thought you would like to know what a great spider Sophie is. A few years back, she took a trip around the room in the hands of several  first graders. After the librarian showed them how to hold Sophie, she took the trip all around the circle of children, and only two boys declined the offer to give her a ride. The trip was quite an experience for all and made for a good conversation about whether it is spiders that hurt people or people that hurt spiders. The last photo shows how the last girl to hold Sophie placed her gently back in an adult’s hands.

Hello web!

Welcome to our own first blog. We aim to voice the happenings at a library in an elementary school in the midwest of the United States. We are two tarantula spiders who reside at this library, in two separate houses, of course. We don’t do much all day but eat crickets, listen to stories, and watch the marveled children gape at us. We wish we could tell the children how much we appreciate their interest, but as most of you know, spiders, especially tarantulas, don’t talk. We don’t even see that well!!! We usually feel the students’ presence, sometimes hide, other times do a bit performance. Just today, one child watched as Krista, my Mexican Red Leg pal, ate six crickets in a row! He was astounded.

Some great things that happen in the library will be recorded here, and some that have not been so great. We want to describe what we see, so the friendly librarian that manages the library will remember, then either improve or discard the activities she has planned.

Sometimes, if we get inspired, we might write a few spider stories, riddles, or jokes. We hope that will be the icing on the cake, or as we call it among us arachnids, the dew on the web.