Hey everybody, we are back and I am here with my friend Wendy and I am excited because I saw this idea that Wendy had shared out and she was just taking some pictures from her library and they were so cool and I was so excited by this idea and I'm so glad she shared a share. So Wendy, welcome, thank you for being here. Why don't you take a second, tell folks who you are, where you are.
Alright, I think Steve, my name is Wendy Garland and I teach in Dedham, Massachusetts, which is right outside of Boston and I am a pre -k to five librarian. and we're gonna get to the lesson in a second, but before we quite get there, I'm just kinda curious, what was your path to school librarianship? Because I think, well, I'm curious, how did you end up in the library? Totally accidentally. Why don't we call me the accidental librarian?
I would call it a series, an unfortunate series of fortunate events. Yes, yes. So, right, right, totally. Because I had a plan. Right out of high school. My plan was to become a professional ballet dancer and on my journey I landed myself a job as an apprentice with a ballet company, which was pretty phenomenal But as apprentice you only get paid when you are performing and for a very small company.
That's not all that frequently so most of the time I needed to make some kind of an income and So I piecemealed. Where did I go for work? Well, my public library, well not mine, but in the town where the company was. So I was working in an inner city public library and that's what I, I shelved books for 19 and a half hours a week. That was something.
And when the career came to a halt and I just decided that was not for me and was walking away, I told the librarians, I was like, just to let you know. I'm gonna be leaving at the end of this year. I'm going to college. And they're like, well for what? So you're all done dancing? And I said, yes. And I said, I have no idea. And it was this very lovely children's librarian who said, well, you should go, have you considered being a librarian?
And I was like, actually that thought had never crossed my mind. She goes, well, I don't know why, because you came to us because you told us as a kid, you grew up in your library, then you volunteered in your library and here you are phenomenal. We love having you here. just would seem, and that was it. That was the moment where I was like, I had never even dreamed of that career path. It's only because my first career. failed me that I just, and you know what?
That failure was my biggest success. That was, that led me to where I truly feel like I'm supposed to be. So I am here accidentally, and it was a series of really fortunate and really unfortunate events that landed me here. So I am grateful every day for all my failures, because that's how I succeeded in finding the best job on earth. of it. It's funny, there's so few people that I get the chance to talk to that say like, I knew from when I was a kid that I wanted to be a librarian.
Like so many people are kind of back into it in different ways or find themselves kind of coming at it sideways and it's just, it's a career that some people seem to really love when they're there but it just seems to not be something people have at the forefront of their mind as a possibility when they're younger. But I will say to you though, if you were then to interview my dad, my dad would disagree with everything that I just said.
And he would tell you that before I learned to walk, he knew I should be a librarian because he said I would crawl over to the shelves, pull all the books out. And then every time my parents would put me down for a nap, they'd have to put all the books back in the shelf. So my dad loves to tell the story that he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't know you were supposed to be the librarian, but your mom and I, we did. You So my dad would differ. My dad would disagree with you on that one.
Yeah. love that. so we're going to be talking about your lesson. And I'm curious, like, where did this lesson, what was the sort of the backstory? Like, where did this come from that you said, this is something that I'm going to bring to my students? Yeah, so we're chatting about origami, which origami has really evolved for me because it wasn't always part of a lesson. Origami started for me with after students check their books out.
I had some choices out and I would leave some paper on a table with some directions and one or two kids might stop at the table. And I just was like, Okay, so this doesn't work. You you try something and you're like, okay, let me tweak it. Tried tweaking it, really didn't do much. Then I was offering for a while what was considered an open library situation. Think like a makerspace, but I tried to open the doors because I did just have some kids who didn't want to go outside at recess.
They just wanted to like hang with their friends and I wanted that to be okay. So I had an open library and I had again a station. And a lot of kids really seemed to be excited about this. And that's when I was like, but I had more time. We sat down at the table together and we folded together. And then I taught this one and that one taught their friend and that one taught their friend. Then next time we have open library, they bring more friends. Like it was starting to pick up.
So. I felt like, okay, it didn't work as a standalone session. Now that I got some buy -in, now it's interesting. And then I said, well, what would happen if I integrated it with something? So for example, in 2022, read for the record was Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon. So I read the book to the entire school and then I taught them how to make a very, very simple corner bookmark. It is like the easiest thing ever. A couple of folds and you're done.
Okay. you have the basic bookmark, then we just took paper, glue, scissors, and we turned them into dragons. I put some ideas on the board. We had horns and fangs and like all kinds of things. Well, that just took off because I realized as I was learning, as I was teaching it, that if you give them something somewhat complicated, it's not gonna fly. If you make it so simple, like I was like, this is stupidly simple. This is just not. I don't see why they would enjoy it.
They do because it's easy. They can do it over and over and over again. I had kids leaving with stacks of these bookmarks. So if it's easy and repetitive and then they're handing them out to people. So it was that moment that when I integrated it into like reading, I don't know if it was that moment. I feel like there were other things that I did beforehand, but you read a book, fold something simple. And for me, the trick was having it simple enough that they could do it.
Now all their friends are doing it and now they need paper and they want to take it to recess. It just took off. Once you get that word of mouth going, you know you've got them. Right. And it tied in because it was like, well, here's the book and here's the associated fold that we're going to do with it. And I just knew it has to be simple enough. And then you have the more advanced ones.
So then they learned, OK, so now that once I had established a culture, then I knew like, all right, so now I've got to level this up. I've got to leave out. OK, well, here's the easier one. Here's the trickier one. And let kids choose what they wanted. to do, it really became the key to that was integrating it as part of the activity. Optional, but like we read our book, we got our books, now you have a choice.
Last year for our cyber smackdown, we read books mostly about like the environmental impacts on animals. So I took that opportunity every time we read a book to introduce one to two new animals. So that by the end of, so four weeks later, we had eight animals under our belts. And then as our last piece of artivism, we created art to raise money for students rebuild. And one of the options of course was origami.
We also did collect bottle caps and you could make bottle cap art, but a lot of kids went back to the origami because I had built. I had scaffolded in, we've already learned how to fold eight animals. So it wasn't like, now I have to figure this. No, you've been doing it. So they were like, but I really want to do that koala from a couple of weeks ago. Great. All the QR codes are over there. You have all the directions to all the animals. Knock yourself out.
And then all my artivists, they had a choice. Gee, what kind of art do I want to make? And a number of them chose to fold. Yeah. that's super cool. I'm just imagining like zoos full of origami animals in library. Well, you talk about that zoo and that zoo, I can honestly give my husband all the credit for that because when my children were very young, when I went back to this school where I'm teaching now, my husband, we switched jobs. I was staying at home.
I left to come back to school and he stayed home with the kids and he stayed home with the kids in an origami book. I came home and the mantle was filled. with every animal. He used to sit there and fold with the kids. And then he even taught an after school program at my school with origami. And truly, that was the moment where I was like, huh, I have my three and four year olds folding paper. Well, not me, my husband does. I was like, these seven and eight year olds can do that.
So it's just been a series of like. things that have happened in my life and I am, I'm an engineer, I'm a crafter. So folding paper is very satisfying to me. So it's satisfying to me. I've watched my own children do it. And so I said, why not? Why can't we at school? But it didn't take off until the conditions were right. And I created really successful, simple, and that was it. It was the simplicity. Make it simple. that foundation that they could build on, that totally makes sense, yeah.
Right, once they knew how to make, once they knew like, we start with the triangle. I start with this. Then those things were just part of their repertoire. We had to build a vocabulary. really, origami is like a vocabulary. We have to learn how to, you know, like, okay, everything has to meet very nicely. It has to line up. We're gonna start with a triangle. Okay, now make your snow cone. And like. I had like words for things and once they had that, then I mean it just took off.
Yeah, man, and as you're saying this and as you're bringing in like the idea of the engineering aspect of it, my mind's already going like, talk to your math teachers. Like what a great math connection this could be for like the precision and measuring and talking about, you know, shapes and, you know, polygons and all that good stuff. Huh, wow. What a cool thing. And what's also fascinating is watching how kids learn. Because when I started this, had out, would print in color directions.
No words, just the directions and leave them on the table. And our spatially aware students loved that. But not everybody did. So I learned at some point to put out iPads and QR codes. so that they could follow videos. And you have some students who that's really their thing because you can watch it. that, they're always like, I don't get it. And I'm like, okay, well, what can you do? I gave you a tool. I gave you a video. What could you do? And they're like, I could watch it again.
And I was like, yeah, and watch. I only watched these seven seconds and I pause. I have to catch up, figure it out. And then I press play and then I press pause. So it was really interesting. Watch it. And some like the books. with the description of bring the points to the top. So it's really fascinating watching how different students learn in different ways. And I do have to say the most phenomenal experience was watching how I will say folding. takes away all barriers.
I sat at a table with a child who had just, she was in first grade, had just come to the United States, did not speak a word of English. We literally could not speak to one another. I smiled at her, she smiled at me, but we sat at this table and we folded. And we had a very lovely recess together because we could not talk, and these are prior to like the Google Translate days. So, I had no iPad to do this.
We simply just sat, we folded, and it was so lovely that it does not matter what language you are speaking because you're speaking origami. And universally, we're folding the same way. And I just love those moments where I've had, there was a child who for a number of years, it was very hard just for him to even stay in the library. He was a runner. Mmm. would leave. And it was through origami that he ended up staying.
And one day he stayed and he folded a couple of these little like puppet figures. And then he gave them names and it was this and after that moment, he stayed in the library. So it just to me, origami has wiped out all kinds of barriers and not it's not for everyone. Some people get really frustrated and don't want to line the the corners up and they get frustrated that it's not going the way they want.
So I'm not saying it's for everyone but I just feel like when you do give it a chance it is really beautiful to watch kids grow and it doesn't matter that you have a hard time understanding the other students in your class because you are learning the language. Right. beautiful when you have, I've had some really difficult behavior situations and the kid who the kids are scared of, I've been the one to say like, you're not sure how? so and so can teach you.
And that part, you know, and now all of a sudden people want to go see that child who prior to this, they're a little scared of that person. Cause they never know when that one's gonna, you know, act out, yell out. And now I've just asked that person to be a coach and they are so happy to help. So I feel like what it does for relationships, what it does for language is just phenomenal.
Yeah, and I have to imagine that the kids, mean, some of our students are not great at the, some of the requirements of school of like sitting still and being quiet and staying focused on just one person as they do something. And I imagine being able to work with your hands like that for those students is a really great opportunity for them to.
maybe get out some of that energy, focus it in on something that's right there in front of them, and yet they're also part of the community that's doing this at the same time. So it's not like they're doing something different. They're doing something that everybody's doing and they're fitting in in that way that they might not always feel they could.
Wow. been a really interesting journey for me because, as I said, when I just started doing it, we had some very ancient black and white, OK, maybe yellow and white origami books. And I was like, these are so not inspiring. And I tried just finding new ones, and they didn't go anywhere. And I'm like, well, maybe this just isn't our thing. And as I tried things, I've learned a lot. feel like I've been on a very, long journey with origami.
And I'm so grateful that I stuck with it because it's just, it's on fire. It's really beautiful to see the things that have emerged from our time folding. love it. I love it. Now, I've also heard you mention Storogami. How does that tie in? So this is, this, okay, this was perfect for me because as much as I love to fold, I have a problem remembering things and keeping it straight. So I would have to fold something, I don't know how many times before I can commit it to memory.
But storagami, what happens in storagami is you're telling a story and as you tell the story that reminds you what happens next. So you talk about, Here's a child who was going up the mountain and then you make a triangle and you hold that up and went up the mountain because they wanted to try out their new sled at which point you fold the parts up, which remind you, yeah, yeah, here I'm going to make the sled. But this wasn't just any sled.
It was a sled that went especially fast because it was so aerodynamic. That means folded over one more time to make it skinnier. Like there's a storyline and it directs each of your folds. Huh. And for me, it was a great way to remember how to do it. And how beautiful is it that when I've done this with students, I tell the story and I fold while they watch. And then I'm like, okay, so now we're gonna do it together. Then we all do it. And then my favorite part is once they've done it, right?
You go, okay, great, go get another piece of paper, go do it again, but tell the story to the person sitting next to you. Hmm. And I will also say though, I've never done that with like a class of 20. I've always had like a small group after school or I've done this in the summer. So I will just like warn you that I don't envision that happening with a group of like 20 ish students, but it's a beautiful way of my love of stories and my love of folding have come together.
And I just think it's a brilliant way to teach origami. Yeah. I found some books and I found someone who, I mean, the book that I have, I think is at least 20 years old, but it has a number of them on there. And I've Googled store agami and I found some videos. But yeah, once I found that, I was like, well, this is a brilliant way to learn how to fold something because tell me the steps in order and. I don't know, the chances of me remembering them are slim to none.
But if you give me a story to tell, I got that. I can do that. as an idea. I mean, I love it. I love that as an idea period, but I'm also now thinking like, what a cool tool that could be with even older students to be able to say like, we're gonna do this and then you're gonna come up with a process and you're gonna tell the story that helps people understand the process.
Like turn it into a lesson on how do we help other people understand something that we know how to do, but they may not know how to do. Right, right. There are so many possibilities and I can really see the value in this. know, so it has really triggered, like I do think like, what else could I do with this? Where does this go? Yeah, boy, boy.
And what a fun lesson to bring in your ELA teachers to say like, hey, we're gonna make stories about make your own origami, make your own folding thing and tell a story about how it goes. And now we're gonna write the story out and how does that work as a story? And boy, so many fun things you could do with this. Man, I love it. So you had already kind of mentioned how you don't necessarily need to have strong. language proficiency in order to do this.
I'm curious, are there any other sort of differentiations that you might do for students who might have other difficulties with what we might think of as traditional school elements? So I have discovered that it does help to, sometimes they like the paper version, like let me look and see how to do it. But the videos are phenomenal. And I found so many videos that don't even have, that don't even have like direction, oral direction, like they're literally just, you see hands folding.
Because you don't really need to know, like, fold this in half because you're just watching it being folded in half. The one, so in terms of the learning, as long as I feel like I can give an easy, fairly basic one, once you end up with these folds of in, out, up, and over and push, oof, that's too fast. That's too much. So I just say. leaving the easy ones accessible and really giving some time to develop a good vocabulary will help. But yeah, for me, it's just offering different styles.
So read the directions in the book or watch the video. But also, so my issue has also been access to paper, right? Because I have bought so many origami books because so many of them have gone missing. Hmm. You know, they went out and they just never came back. So I spend a lot of money on origami books. They're not cheap. But then my revelation was like, well, wait a minute. Here's a makerspace item. I'm buying all these books. I'm spending money on these books.
These students are taking the books home, but if they don't have paper and or scissors, this book is useless. Hmm. So that to me then warranted, how do I provide access? And at first I started buying origami paper, which is not cheap. And so then I was leaving out like envelopes and filling them with these and you could come in at any time and take an envelope. Well, it got really popular and these envelopes, I couldn't keep up with them and just put it to stacks, but then those were leaving.
But it was something as simple as like, I remember I taught a number of kids, we took copy paper. and I taught them how to turn a rectangle into a square. All right, you're gonna take this, you're gonna line it up, and then we're gonna cut off the end. And there you go, now you have a piece of origami paper. That was great. It's also a little big. So the size wasn't great, but that's when a local company donated notepads to our PTO, and they were like, yeah, we don't want these things.
Any chance you need them in the library? And I was like, no, I don't want like your junk. And then I was like, wait, hold on. What size are they? They were like, I'd say probably about six by eight notepads that said the company's, know, dermatology on there. And I was like, yes. So I took an entire box. mean, thousands of sheets of these. And then I put out the paper cutter and the volunteers.
chopping off the side that had the name of the local dermatologist office, and we made thousands of sheets of origami paper. And then when those all disappeared, I'm like, no, what do I do now? Until I realized, my goodness, what have I been thinking? We're a library. Do you know how many graphic novels, do know how many Dog Man and Wimpy Kid books die over the course of the year? and by the way, the yellow ones. the square, their fact books, goodness gracious. I got nothing.
I'm gonna think of it. They're yellow, they're square, and they're square. It's perfect. You just pull them out because those things, the bindings in them are horrible. The kids love them. And you pull them out and they're just squares. And the kids love a good dog man origami, because guess what? How many of those do we toss? Because the pages are falling out. I used to recycle them. Well, now I really recycle them. We take the pages out and we cut them into origami paper.
And I have bins filled with... Mostly Wimpy Kid and Dog Man because that's, but the Guinness World Records, just found a Ripley's just came in and the pages were all over the place. So we are soon to have Ripley's Believe It or Not. And those are fascinating. As you're reading, I mean, as you're folding your reading because I mean, it's Ripley's Believe It or Not.
I love that and I bet the colors too on the on the color pages are really something to see when they've finished folding whatever they're folding they're gorgeous. I don't know if you know Q the librarian, Karina Kilantan. has, I've seen her at several conferences and she has this amazing headband that somebody made for her.
an origami headband or like a crown and it's made out of colored, different colored pages from different books and it's just, it's a beautiful thing to look at just because it's, I mean, A, the origami is beautiful but the colors of it because they're all color printed pages, it is such a neat thing. So. That's boy. More good uses for our leftover materials. love it.
This boy hopefully people have got lots of great ideas here because there's so many cool things that you can do with this and so many great ways you can facilitate it in your space. So OK I know people are going to want to do this. Are there any things that like first timers should sort of have in mind as they're getting ready to try this out for the first time. Yes, you must, you must, must, must do it yourself first.
Because there's nothing worse than having someone come to you and saying, I can't do this, can you do it for me? And you're looking at the directions for the first time. pressure. So I always make sure that I have folded it myself because even if I previewed the video and I'm like, that's a piece of cake. Well, if that part of like folding it to the back, or whatever the fold is, don't quite understand or have it quite right, that can really make or break the deal.
So I always fold everything a couple of times before I give it to my students because inevitably there's one little tricky thing and I like to always be able to say like, okay, so this is the only tricky part, watch this. And so they know because there's nothing worse than, because students will do that. They'll bring me a book and be like, Can you, I wanna make this, can you help me?
And the other thing that I will say is also know what level it is because like I do like the origami books that like will level them out for me, easy, medium and hard, because I will have a student with five minutes left in the class hand me the book and piece of origami paper and the difficult one and say, I wanna make this. You I know there's no way I can figure this out between now and then.
So I like having this is, well, this is the activity that we have today because I've previewed it and I've done it a bunch. I am an expert. I can troubleshoot it for you. And there's an easier one and a harder one, but like that's what we're going to do today. And that makes life so much easier because some of these things are a little complicated. Yeah. Especially if you're not super familiar with origami, you're going. a squash fold? I have no idea what that means.
Yeah, no, I'm totally with you on that. It's funny, I am pretty much against level readers, but this sounds like a really good case for them. Man, this is such a cool lesson and thank you so much for coming to share it. We are now gonna take a 90 degree turn. We're gonna head into our book break. So the book break you get to share any book that you think people should know about, personal, professional, whatever it is, be for the adults, could be for the kids, whatever works for you.
What's something that you want to let people know about? Okay, so book break, will, so this is, can I turn this into an author break? Okay, because I will, I think I've read almost everything Susan Hood has written. Susan Hood to me is just, she blows my mind because she writes poetry, she writes nonfiction. She can write anything and she has managed to break my heart. Lifeboat 12, she just ripped my heart out of my, I I sobbed. I sobbed when I read Lifeboat 12.
I'm super excited that Lifeboat 5 is coming out in the beginning of October. So you know I will be one of the first to read that one when that one arrives. But I loved the way, so middle grade, right? It's written in prose, beautiful. historical fiction, but she also can write things like shaking it up the poetry in there about the different women who have shaken things up over time. That that was phenomenal. Last year, I read with students a couple of poems of hers from last straw.
When she was she wrote about plastic in our environment. Things that I wouldn't necessarily say students would have picked up on their own, but I share with them and they're so invested. So Susan Hood, my goodness, I will read whatever Susan Hood writes because she can write for anyone. She writes for the very young and she writes very complicated and deep, powerful, powerful books for all ages.
So I... I will drop everything and read a Susan Hood book and I cannot wait for Lifeboat 5 to come out beginning of August. No, that would be October. I want to say October 8th. Okay, this, I don't think that I've heard of Susan Hood before. I'm definitely gonna have to add her to my reading list. Hmm. to me after you've read Lifeboat 12. I can't say too much because there's a moment in that book and it's just so special.
Lifeboat 12. Nice. So not only do I have a new great lesson, I've also got a new great author to check out. This is awesome. Cool. Thank you so much. I cannot thank you enough. I really appreciate the time. I really appreciate you taking the being willing to share this out with other folks so they can learn from what has worked and maybe what hasn't worked as well, but that we have learned from. So that's awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.