26.10.2021

G5 students create their own library

By Bruna Cronfli

Literacy at Beacon occurs in a structured, meaningful, and contextualized way. As a bilingual school, we seek different conceptions and approaches to literacy, in order to reflect and consider the commonalities and uniqueness of the process in Portuguese and English languages.

In the second semester, G5 students started a book-writing project. In conversations during the Portuguese Language and Brazilian Culture classes, the groups initially identified their characteristics – cover, that the story has a beginning, middle, and end, author and editor.

Students then began to create their own story, sketching the ideas in their notebooks. Then, they started writing on the pages of the books they had made. Each one was organized in a specific way, some students elaborating page by page and others illustrating each text after writing. During the process, they talked to the teachers that everyone was learning to read and write and, therefore, greater care would be needed with the illustrations – as we also read through the images. Children were encouraged to feel capable and powerful to take risks within their writing hypothesis.

After writing the texts, they had the opportunity to put their photo in their production, sign their book and stamp it with Beacon School Library’s stamp.

The next step was to create the book launch event. The groups raised hypotheses about what elements were needed in a bookstore, such as money to buy the books, bookmarks as souvenirs, signposts, and furniture where the books would be displayed.

Launch day was a huge event! The children had fun handling the fabricated money, giving change to pretended buyers, reading their classmates’ books, and organizing this very special and meaningful moment.

The school recognizes the power of students to conduct their learning experience. Therefore, Beacon works for them to develop autonomy, initiative, and self-confidence through proposals that demand involvement, participation, and interaction. The student-agent is at the center of the learning process; they have voice, choice, and ownership over their intellectual paths.