Back in Preschool: Storytelling at the CSC Miriam College

I was the guest storyteller in Miriam College's Child Study Center (CSC) yesterday. The library of CSC has a new librarian. He is young and a fresh graduate from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is none other than Mr. Nino Angelo Fernandez. In the CSC, he is fondly called as Teacher Gelo by students and teachers.

Teacher Gelo took over the CSC library last year and he continues on the tradition of early literacy development through library services and programs at the CSC. When he sent the invitation for me to tell stories to the Nursery classes, I immediately remembered the warm reception of CSC's faculty and staff in years past when I was their visiting storyteller. Despite my busy schedule, I said yes to the invitation  because I know I will be rekindling ties with old friends in CSC. Besides, Teacher Gelo is a PCScian like myself. The ties that bind are pretty tight.

With Teacher Gelo
holding a library copy
of My Daddy! My One and Only (Lampara Books)

As expected, I enjoyed my whole day storytelling with the Nursery students. The children loved listening to the stories I told! One student frankly said, "Ms. Zarah, you are funny!" My heart soared.

I started out with a read aloud of my book, My Daddy! My One and Only! As a pre-reading activity, I introduced the song Hi-ho Library-oh!

The song can be sung to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell

The author writes the book (2x)
Hi-ho Library-oh! The author writes the book

The illustrator draws (2x)
Hi-ho Library-oh! The illustrator draws

The publisher puts it together (2x)\
Hi-ho Library-oh! The publisher puts it together

After the read aloud, I reminded the Nursery students that books are available in the library. I moved on to a draw-and-tell story of Bingo the Dog. As a goodbye story, I ended with a cut-and-tell story of Mama Bird Laid an Egg. The students took home baby bird hats/sun visors as their souvenir.

But, before each class left the activity center, Teacher Gelo had a five minute library tour with each class. How practical of Teacher Gelo to introduce three basic library rules for the preschoolers.

Keep it simple and sweet!

I sure would like to visit the CSC of Miriam College again. I am inspired to spin new stories for their preschoolers. I started out as a preschool teacher and moved on to Xavier School as the librarian for its preschool department. I am now a High School librarian concentrating on Young Adult library services. But preschool education beckons to me like magic, once in a while. I submit myself to its enchanting spell.

Filipino Librarian: Romy Sebastian

Romy Sebastian of the Miriam College library looks like your typical librarian: soft spoken, unassuming and low profile. But hold the stereotype. The man is a genius.



I met Romy a few years back when LIBRO was in its fledgling stage. Now, it's undergone several revisions with a web scripting program to boot. It carries all the library functions from acquisition to cataloging; indexing to inventory; circulation and reader's profile; reports and statistics -- the works! No wonder, commercial IT corporations have been after his heel with proposals to buy his brain child. Romy would simply shush them away, holding on to the belief that he developed the system as an advocacy to help Filipino librarians and their libraries.



He claims he has no programming background. He learned Visual Basic through self studying. Over the years, tracking the feedback given to him by patrons and friends who uses LIBRO, he was able to improve and add functions like archiving and Web 2.0 features. One challenge that faces him in this time of rapid technological advancement is piracy. There have been cases when LIBRO's programming language was acquired with his permission. He dismisses this to fate and continues on undeterred.

I was privileged to view his newest creation, PLATONICXZ, a web based library integrated system. Impressive. Again he shrugged his shoulders and humbly told me that it's not perfect. In this world that's being flattened by technology every bit and byte, the word perfect no longer exist.

Storytelling @ Miriam Child Study Center

I got back to where I started. In preschool education, I mean.

I was at the Child Study Center of Miriam College yesterday. After a day's house arrest for colds and fever, I was back on my feet for storytelling to preschool children. It was like wearing an old skin that fits so comfortably. Only a few know that I began a career in preschool before plunging into the librarianship. I was a Nursery teacher until 1995 when I started organizing Xavier School's Early Education library. The rest, as they say, is history.

The "gig" I did for Miriam preschoolers was in line with their first library visit. The librarian, Teacher Portia, was very warm and welcoming. She's a one-man librarian in the preschool department catering to six hundred, more or less, preschoolers in Miriam College. The library was spacious and child friendly. It's one of the better preschool libraries I have seen. Will post photos soon!

So, for this event, I did a bit of library orientation for preschoolers.

Apart from the staple read aloud, I introduced to the preschoolers their library. And of course, a majority of the kids know what goes on in the library. Though it caught me by surprise to hear one preschooler say that a library is found at the mall. How can you differentiate a library from a bookstore now? Books in the library are borrowed, of course, while books in the store are bought. Interesting contexts, see?

After this brief introduction, I showed the kids my first library card and memories of my first library visit as a grade one student of Pateros Catholic School. From there I injected the library rules and expectations I "learned" from my teacher-librarian. Soft Voices; Quite movements; Reading books and returning them in their proper place; Greeting the teacher-librarian using polite words. These are but a few of the things I shared with the preschoolers. Of course, my years as preschool librarian helped a lot in crafting these library rules for preschool users. I kept to the basics. Too much information will clutter the concept of library use. Besides, these kids are first timers in the use of the library.

Once done with the basics, I proceeded to the story of the "hour". I read aloud Margaret Read MacDonald's Mabela the Clever. This book is precious to me a sit was given by a dear friend, Dianne De Las Casas! What's more, it's autographed! I ended the session with two handmade tales. The Handkerchief Man and The Great Enormous Turnip using a string to tell it. Again, thanks to Dianne for these wonderful storytelling ideas and strategies! The whole event ended successfully.

Miriam College's Child Study Center gave me a call back on another storytelling session for their Kinder students in August.

Aklatan ni Mika

Sometime in 2006, I had a telephone conversation with Lizanne Alcazaren who runs Aklatan ni Mika, a children's library in a halfway house for children with cancer. The halfway house is a shelter for children who go through chemotherapy and counseling sessions. At that time, I was still the President of KUTING. Lizanne and I were brainstorming on literacy activities for the children to do while undergoing treatment.

Dreams are easy to conceive, of course. Weaving them to reality is another matter entirely. For some reason, plans did not push through but Lizanne continued collaborating with Teacher Isa Bautista-Saplala of Miriam College. It is a small world. Teacher Isa is my kumare and former co-teacher in Xavier School.

Last month, Teacher Isa brought me to Akltan ni Mika for a storytelling workshop with the children they take care of. We did listening, speaking, reading and writing activities with the kids. They were very eager and perceptive. Teacher Isa's students from Miriam College lent a hand and joined in the fun. For nearly five years now, Lizanne and Teacher Isa struggle to keep the library and its literacy programs alive. I admire their tenacity and dedication. And so far, they and the children have been blessed. Donations and volunteers pour in especially at times when they are needed the most.