Ercong-Bunz

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 4:30pm 9th March 2014

To my surprise, NLB already have an interactive station for the kid, these kiosk are named <Interactive Digital Story Telling Kiosk>. I have tried out the Kiosk myself and it contains several category, mainly: Story books, Digital E-Books, Games. Some of the storybooks have the audio feature that will read the story to the kids. Parents would just sit by the child and let the computer read the story to the kid. Most of the time, I see younger kids were assisted by their parent in operating the machine. Especially for games, the parents took over the role as the player while the kids watches and occasionally tapping their finger on the touch screen. Kids who used the station was engrossed in their own world in that little screen, ignoring their parents and other kids around them when they are trying to interact. And most of the time one kiosk is only occupied by one child only. 

For the older ones approximately age 4-7 years old, they seem to be very familiar with the device. They were able to navigate the pages without any trouble. To my surprise, these interactive stations were not very popular, you do not see anyone queuing up to use it, and for quite a period of time, a few machines were actually empty. 

I also observed a boy approximately 5-7 years old, he was playing a game on the kiosk machine. 

Boy: " I am too good for this game"

Quickly finishes it.

Boy: "Bye"

and he just left, he only occupied the machine for less than 5 minute and he seems lost interest in other functions this machine can provide. 

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:30pm 9th March 2014

There was a second story teller who took over later on, the reason why I video it down is because I see a big contrast in the way kids react two different kind of interaction. 

At the start of the story telling, the story teller moved behind the desk and wanted to set-up the projector for his lap-top to work. The desk created distance between the kid and the story teller as he appear to be more like a teacher rather than a story teller as compared to the first session. Unfortunately, the project failed to work and he tried to explain to the kids the projector does not work so now he have to tell the story without the projector. At this point in time, the kids were still engaged even though some of them appeared agitated and restless. 

When the story teller proceeds with his story, some kids started leaving. The topic was on human organs and the responses to the question posted by the story teller were not well. The kids were moving around, talking to each other, not paying attention to what he was saying. It got slightly better after a few minutes. However, the questions posted by the story teller might be too difficult, and also due to the fact that the projector failed to work thus he could not show the kid visually what he meant, the engagement level was low, as only a few of the kids were answering his question and it tend to be the same person. The younger ones were left out. The younger ones could only stare at that few person who were answering the question and more started leaving after a while. Only those few who could answer his question fight to answer the questions posted. Towards the end,

Boy A :"Is your time is out?"

The boy wanted the session to end and he asked the story teller if his time is up. There was a big difference in engagement level comparing the two session. 

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:30pm 9th March 2014

I was lucky as there was a story telling session organised by NLB at 2:30 pm to 3:00 pm. I entered the room late and the story telling session has already started. The story teller was an Indian lady, most of the kids aged approximately 3-9 years old were gathered in front of the story teller and they were sitting on the floor. She had a few props with her while she was telling her story, a soft toy and a hand drum. She used the toy to mimic the animal in the story, and she played the hand drum as the story goes "The monkey played the drum". I can see the kids were very entertained and engaged in the process as their eyes were glued to the soft toy and the hand drum, one of the boys even went to play the hand drum while the story teller is narrating the story. 

The story teller pauses occasionally to ask questions about the what happens next. The kids were eager to answer, but there were only a few is engaged, people who answered her tend to be the older ones, they shouted out their answers loudly, the brief pause allows the story teller to interact with the kids. When she finished her first story, she asked the kids,

Story Teller: "What story do you want to hear?"

Boy A : "What about a horror story"

Story Teller " No no no, there are too many young kids!"

Boy A: "Horror story..."

The story teller interrupted the boy and continued to her choice of story. The request was completely ignored. This is the moment when some kids started to stand up, and ran to there parents, roam around the room, the room became quite noisy and the story teller had to raise her voice to ask the kids to sit down. 

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 3:40pm 9th March 2014

Learning behavior might differs for younger kids who are not with their parents. I observed another pair of brother and sister who is approximately 2-3 years old as well. 

They were sitting on the floor, in front of a bookshelf flipping through the books themselves. The brother is holding on to two story book, one placed on his lap, as he was reading another. He quickly flipped through the pages, then chucked the book aside and dig out a new one and started flipping again. His attention span on each page is minimal as he is only attracted to the images on the page which might appeal to him. 

The younger sister on the other hand, was mumbling to herself, she was holding on to another book, but clearly she was not reading it, she was in her own little fairy tale world as she was mumbling imaginary speeches that might/might not be in the book that she is holding. She did not bother to open the book at all but drowns herself in her own role-playing world while her brother is busy flipping other books.

At one point of time, she tried to snatch the book which was owned by her brother on his lap, but her brother did not allow that to happen, he quickly grabbed it and snatch it back. The little girl then roamed around the library, and she tried to snatch the book almost 3 times. But the brother was very persistent to the ownership of the book and did not allow her younger sister to take it.  

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:30pm 9th March 2014

I walked to another side of the library and noticed another pair of father and son doing similar things of what I wrote in my post #18. But in this case, the kid is slightly older. ( Approximately 2-3 years old)

The dad and the kid was sitting on the floor as well. A colorful book is being presented to the child. There is a picture of a cartoon character with his mouth open and there are germs in his mouth.

Dad: "So, Morning you want to brush your teeth?"  Pointing to the cartoon character.

The kid reacted to his dad, he opened his mouth and nodded his head. 

Right after, the kid took another book and flipped open, a book with fruits. ( I must be lucky)

Dad: "What is this?" 

Son: "Mango!" 

Dad: "This is grape, 葡萄“ 

The son nodded again as a form of acknowledgement. The process repeated until there was one fruit the dad does not know.

"I don't know this." The dad said and he took out his mobile phone and wanted to search for it. 

At this moment, his daughter carrying quite a few number of books approached. 

Dad: "你可以读的完吗？ 读完才可以借.” （Will you be able to finish all these? You can only borrow them if you can finish it) 

Daughter: " Can one la" and she left to search for more books. 

The dad continued to teach his son other fruits on the book. He did not pursue the fruit which he didn't know and explain to his son.

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:20pm 9th March 2014

I took notice of a younger kid sitting with her Mum, sitting on the library floor. She is approximately 1-2 years ok.

The parent was holding on to a small book which is about fruits. The book is very colorful, and the fruits popped-out from the book.

Mum: "圆圆的，红红的，是什么？“ (Round and Red, What is it?)

Mum asked, pointing to the picture on the book. The kid looks confused, she was touching the pop out picture on the book, she appears to be attracted by the picture. 

Mum: " Apple"

The parent reads the word on the book to the child to teach her what this fruit is.

Kid : " Apple"  

The kid recited it loudly. 

The process repeated for the next few images. The kid's eyes were glued to the picture and she kept touching the pop out picture on the book each time her mum flipped to a new page. 

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:15pm 9th March 2014

So I took a stroll around the library just to get a feel of how the children's library is like. There are a few areas with small table and benches which allows parents and children to sit. Most of the occupants are kids aged approximately 5-10 years old and most of them are accompanied by their parents. As I was walking around these tables, I can see most of these children are reading lengthy books that are full of words and occasionally they will ask their parents what does certain words mean. Some parents also took up the role of a teacher to teach their kids simple mathematics and problem solving skills as some parents borrowed books of puzzles for their kids to solve. In contrast, I see a lot of younger kids aged approximately 2-3 years old roaming around the library, they seem very distracted and could not sit still for long.  

Older kids from 5-10 years old could sit down and focus on their reading for a much longer time. They seems to be much less distracted by their surroundings, and they do not post a lot of questions to their parents unless it is necessary. 

Location: Woodlands Regional Library

Time: 2:00pm 9th March 2014

This is the entrance of the Woodlands Regional Library, when you walk into the library, the first thing you will see is a giant mock-up tree right in the middle of the library. There are mock up tree trunk benches and mushrooms as seats around the tree. The amount of children around the tree is significantly more compared to the other sections of the library. Most of the children in this area are accompanied by adults, and most of them sit by their parents while reading their books, occasionally they will stand up and run around the big tree, hop around the trunks, playing some kind of game with their friends while their parents continue to read them the story. New kids who just arrived at this floor rushed to reserve a place for themselves under this big tree.

It was already 1pm when I reached the art's canteen on Thursday, 13 Feb. The canteen was packed as usual, I manage to find a corner seat so I can observe the people around. As I was finding my seat, I found something worth noticing. The reservation of the tables using bags, tissue, laptop case, books etc.  This is considered a "common practice" in singapore, leaving a pack of tissue on the table, symbolizes this table is taken. This practice may appear rather ridiculous to foreigners, but to us, it seems pretty normal.