Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile by Gloria Houston
Read to: Pre-K
Skills: Change Makers in our community
In Pre-K this month they are studying change makers. So for this week I decided to focus on that topic, but rather change makers in our community. I chose to read this book because it talks about a librarian, Miss Dorothy, who made an impact in her community by driving a bookmobile so that those in her community and in surrounding communities could have library books. It is a wonderful book, and the kids really seemed to like it. Next week we will continue to focus on this concept, but I wanted to start small and with something that maybe Pre-K could better relate to, before I went too big.
We're Going On a Book Hunt by Pat Miller
Read to: Kindergarten
Skills: Learning how to navigate the library
In Kindergarten we continued discussing all that we need to know to get ready to go into the big library to check out books. We read this book because it is very interactive and has lots of movements and motions to help kids remember how they behave, and what they do when they are in the library. As you can see it is based off of the book, We're going on a Bear Hunt by Helen Oxenbury, but this time it is the bears going on a book hunt. It discusses using shelf markers to mark our spot on the shelf when we are looking at a book, so that we know where it goes back, and how to choose "just right" books. It was fun acting out the story and hopefully it will help the kids remember key things when they are looking for and checking out library books.
Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner
Read to: Primer
Skills: Distinguishing Fiction from Nonfiction texts, and Asking Questions
Primer has been currently studying animals in their classroom and starting some research on those animals. So I thought this was a good time to review fiction versus nonfiction texts, and review how to ask questions with question words. This book is a great book for that because it looks as though it is a fiction book, but in the back we learn all about animals that live in the Subnivean Zone. Is always an interesting read and I love reading books where I learn something too!
Learning about TumbleBooks
First and Second Grades
With our First and Second grade classes I reminded them of a great resource that our library provides for the school, and that is TumbleBooks! TumbleBooks is an online collection of animated talking picture books that they can read and listen to wherever and whenever! This is our second year to provide this to our students and they really seem to love it! Each of the books is narrated by different people, they offer a variety of different types of stories, and they continue to add more and more books to the collection. Definitely a great learning tool for beginner readers or those that want to practice their reading skills with a new book to read everyday.
Finally this week was Bluebonnet voting time for the 3rd and 4th graders! Starting this fall the 3rd and 4th graders had the opportunity to take part in the Texas Bluebonnet Award program. This program, developed by the Texas State Library Association,
encourages reading for pleasure for students in grades 3-6 in hopes to expose
children to excellent writers across several genres. Twenty titles are
nominated by Texas teachers and librarians with the ultimate winner chosen by
students in January. In order to be eligible to vote students must read a minimum of five books out of the twenty titles.
So this week we conducted our voting online and students voted for what book they felt should win the Texas Bluebonnet Award. The committee will announce the ultimate winner at the beginning of February and we can't wait to find out which book won. I will for sure keep you posted!
Here were some of our 3rd and 4th grade students voting!
