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Halloween and Worlds of Words lending resources and programmes


October 31

It’s Halloween today and it has been fun seeing people out and about wearing, if not full costume, then a bit of makeup, some cats ears or a pumpkin earrings. Even university students have come to study wearing some costume, and when I entered the lift this morning there was cobweb with spiders display!

After completing final sign of my grading for Semester B courses at home, I have enjoyed a day of starting to give my complete focus to thinking about my work here. I have been working on my talk for next Tuesday here at the University of Arizona and for a workshop I have been invited to give at the University of Georgia in January at their Journal of Language and Literacy Education conference. I’ll be talking about ‘Bilingual Books’ Why Layout Matters’.

My host and colleague, Kathy, talked me through some of the resources Worlds of Words lend out from the Worlds Of Words library, including Global Story Boxes for K2 (kindergarten year 2)  classes, and Language and Culture Kits for Kindergarten to 8th Grade classrooms. These boxes provide a set of children’s books along with maps, a few artefacts and a handbook of ideas for ways to use the books in the classroom to promote the development of Global Awareness. They even have a New Zealand Language and Culture Kit including many fine examples of picturebooks in Māori and English. 

There are also family story backpacks containing books (local and international) around themes to encourage the telling of family stories which draw on family Funds of Knowledge. Of course here at the University of Arizona I am at the home of  Professor Luis Moll who first developed the idea of Funds of Knowledge  A writing journal is included in each family story backpack and families are encouraged to share some of their family stories in the journal before the backpack is returned.

Some of the programmes run from Worlds of Words include a monthly book fiesta in which undergraduate students read an author’s or illustrator’s books to attending children, the author or illustrator then talks about their work and lastly there is an activity for children to participate in. There is also a Teen Reading Ambassador programme where teenagers who love reading (and are accepted into the programme) are given a copy of a recent YA book, come into the university and discuss the book and learn about ways of promoting the book and an event to meet the author with their peers using flyers and social media before coming back to meet the author with their friends.
I haven’t even mentioned the annual Tuscon Book Festival which Worlds of Words is heavily involved in. http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/

You can see there are so many programmes and resources here, all focused on the power of stories, and the importance of developing global awareness from an early age. It’s a very inspiring place for me to beJ

Comments

  1. Unknown20 November 2019 at 13:23

    Kia ora Nicola,

    Thanks for this post on the Worlds of Words Library, it sounds like they are developing some fantastic resources. I love the idea of the Family Story Packs encouraging families to reflect, on and tell, their own stories. I was very surprised to see they have so many NZ juvenile literature resources. I wonder why, and how, they came to have such a comprehensive kit for little NZ down here at the bottom of the world? Was there a personal connection, or do they have similar collection for all countries great and small?

    Cheers, Amy

    ReplyDelete

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