STORY TIME

Every week during term time Janet Watson has a story time session with some of our youngest readers.  This takes place on a Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 pm.

For the children we try to hold an activity throughout each of the school holidays.  Janet's Weekly story time is a big hit with our younger readers and their mothers. We all enjoy story time especially when the children really get involved with the story, it livens the library up!

VIDEO CONFERENCING LINK

ON

THURSDAY THE 19th DECEMBER AT 3:00PM   

BETWEEN

Bodmin Library/Madelyn Helling's Library Nevada City California

 THE VIDEO LINK WILL BE BETWEEN THE CHILDREN FROM YEAR SIX OF St MARY'S ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIMARY SCHOOL, BODMIN AND 5th GRADERS FROM THE MARGARET G. SCOTTEN SCHOOL, GRASS VALLEY OUR SISTER TOWN IN NEVADA COUNTY CALIFORNIA USA.

THE VIDEO LINK

Before the video link took place the whole class of year six from St Mary's School paid a class visit to our library on the 12th December to use our resources to find out as much as they could about our sister city of Grass Valley in California.  They used a variety of resources ranging from encyclopaedias, local history books, books on Grass Valley, maps and our computer suite to access various internet sites relating to Nevada County.  This exercise helped the children decide what sort of questions would be asked during the video conference.  David Cantin their teacher had the unenviable task of selecting only six children   from the whole class who would take part in the video conference.  We only have a small video conferencing room so we could not accommodate them all. 

Thursday the 19th December soon arrived Beth and I had everything ready, the children from St Mary's duly arrived and took their seats in readiness.  We then had a surprise! Chris Blount from our local radio station Radio Cornwall arrived to record the whole event for his radio show.  The connection was made and after introductions the children alternately asked each other questions and compared notes on a range of subjects from sports, food, fashion, pop music, and homework.

Here are just a selection of the many questions asked:

"How big is your school?" one of the children asked from Bodmin.  500 was the reply from one of the Grass valley students.

"How big is Bodmin?" Grass Valley has a population of 12000.  Approximately 14000 replied one of the St Mary's students, with some help.

"Do you have Pasties over there?" a lad from St Mary's asked.  Yes was the reply from Grass valley students.

"Do any of you have any relatives in Grass valley?" asked one of the Grass valley Students.  No was the reply, but one girl had a very distant relative that emigrated during the gold rush period to Grass Valley.

And so the questions went on for a whole hour until it had to be ended, it was 4:00pm here in the UK and the children had finished for the day but it was 8:00am in California and the students had yet to start their school day.  The children from St Mary's sang a Christmas carol just before we signed off. We then finished with a rousing cheer and applause wishing each other a Merry Christmas from all both sides of the Atlantic.

A big thank you to Alisa and Lucinda (Librarians of Grass Valley library), the students from Margaret Scotten School (Grass Valley), Sue Madigan (teacher Margret Scotten School Grass Valley), the students from St Mary's School (Bodmin), and David Cantin (teacher St Mary's School Bodmin).

Here are some pictures of the Video Link.

The connection is made

Margaret Scotten students on the screen from Grass Valley California

John Pengilley Library Assistant Bodmin Library and the students from St Mary's School Bodmin

The students from St Mary's School Bodmin with Beth Garvin our Study Support Officer (back right) about to be interviewed by Chris Blount from Radio Cornwall.

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