Term 2 of the Libraries in Schools (LiS) program brings action packed classes. How one might ask? GAMES! [Not to say we haven’t had them since school began, but we’ve incorporated them with much more this term!] Who? and Where? 
In each of our schools, SEVEN of them! Games that are played before, after and maybe even during a story read aloud to enhance the story. How? Since every Resource Person plans their session with a story book of their choice, they have to come up with their own game to introduce the idea or theme of their chosen story. 
Imagine this: different people reading a different book out loud would also bring a different game idea to the class. LiS lesson planning is the rich ingredient that goes into this program.
These games are designed to encourage whole class participation, movement, drama and a good sense of fun that we believe should be part of every learning opportunity. The games encourage spelling, drawing, along with helping children begin to predict the story, get familiar with the vocabulary as well as context that might appear in the chosen story. The LiS Team is also extremely creative when we have to adapt a game to suit the various constraints we face in our respective classrooms like space, time, number of children, reduced ‘period’ timings, alternating spaces from indoors to outdoors and what not. The games also give children a chance to support each other as they urge team members on with spelling and vocabulary. And so it came to be. What? At Auxilium Carona, Isa came up with an interesting fruit game for the book Handa’s Surprise that had each of the children become the fruit on the chit before them. They had to read their fruit name, stand and clap when she called out the name of the fruit. Since they were given as the children entered the class, children sitting in random places stood up to be pineapples and mangoes and so on!
For the same book, I chose to do a fruit relay in my class- each row was given a sheet of paper with fruit stuck on it. A child had to run the board where the sheet was stuck, write the names of the fruit on it and run back to give their pen to another child. The children loved the competition!
In a new school that we’ve included in our program Smt. Sunandabai Bandodkar High School, Krystal played a game of opposites for a book she chose The Bad King Who Became a Good King. The children on each bench were made a team. These little teams, united to make a larger team with their row. The little teams of 2 were given a word, the children had to fill in the opposite of that word, run to the board and write it down and finish before the other rows did! The excitement is huge! 
The Six Blind Men and the Elephant has been done in almost all the schools and the games keep building up, if someone thought Pictionary was challenging enough, think about doing it blindfolded (in keeping with the theme of the blind men). Across schools this game challenges them to draw out the words they read as well as makes them wonder how blind people ‘see’.
For the same book Priya brought a different game to the class, to demonstrate how blind people touch and feel objects. She put stuffed animal toys in a bag and the children who volunteered to be blindfolded to play, had to feel the object to guess what it was. The class was in splits with the guesses from each child. 
Sujata took the boys of Std 2 in St. Thomas Boys School outdoors and played a match-the titles of Books to Alphabet Chits that she placed on the ground before them. Searching, matching and fun amidst reading!
Also Colour Bingo was a super hit in Sujata’s class, in Auxilium Carona for the book Brown Bear Brown Bear, What do you See? The children had fun placing counters over the colours in this class.
Action games are our solutions to our time and space constraints. There’s almost every book that has an action game to go with it. Bindi Su has the driving of the car action, The Seed allows the children to be little seedlings and mime the different stages in its growth while Rain has the children making the sound of rain with their fingers!
To get the children to calm their excitement we also channelize this into snapping of fingers, waving their hands in the air (soundless clapping so as not to disturb neighbouring classes) and the sit stand type of game as well.
We’re constantly pushing ourselves to make our Library class a fun learning space and we allow our ideas to be shared before our sessions as well as after the session as well, to keep improving our classes. Game on LiS team!
