Week 21

We returned from Spring Break and hit the ground running. Here is what we were up to this week.

Super Hair-O and the Barber of Doom by John Rocco

Big Bouffant by Kate Hosford

Both books read to: CDC and Pre-K classes

Skills: Compare and Contrast the two stories  

These two books are somewhat new to our library this year and since they are all about hair I knew I wanted to pair them together for a read aloud. After reading both books we practiced comparing and contrasting the two stories. When reading it to the first class, just by coincidence I noticed that each of the authors of these books put a picture of themselves on the back cover with the same hairstyle as the character in their story, so this was also really fun to discuss and compare. The kids loved seeing each author's picture, and it lead us into a great discussion as to why the authors wrote these stories. Some questions I heard were. Are the authors really writing about themselves in the story? Is it a true story or a fictional one? Great wonderings!         

Ribbit by Rodrigo Folgueria

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great by Bob Shea

Both Books Read to: Kinder and Primer

Skills: Discussing other's differences and friendship

With our Kinder an Primer classes we focused on the theme of friendship and accepting others' differences. In Ribbit! the pig continues to say the word Ribbit because he is trying to fit in and make new friends. However, the frogs of the pond don't get it, until he leaves to find other friends. 

In Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great the goat just assumes he doesn't like the unicorn and thinks the unicorn is just showing off. However, he soon realizes that he he really likes unicorn as he gets to know him. Both were great books in reminding the kids about our differences, taking the time to get to know one another, and how to be a good friend to everyone.      

Good News, Bad News by Jeff Mack

Read to: First Grade

Skills: Making Predictions and drawing conclusions 

In First Grade we continued to practice the skills of making a prediction and drawing conclusions. Last week we focused on two books that only used one word throughout to tell the story and this book was the same. This book is also written by one of last weeks' authors, Jeff Mack. As we read it together we took turns really studying the pictures on each page, making inferences, and then predicting what we thought would happen next. The kids are great at this skill and they always notice something that I had never seen or even thought about! They are so clever! With this book we also discussed that it could be used to practice the skill of cause and effect, and it also taught a lesson about the importance of staying positive. So all in all I give this book a big thumbs up!        

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever by Joseph H. Hopkins 

Read to: 3rd Grade

Skills: Celebrating Women's History Month, and discovering genre.

With 3rd grade this week we focused on March being Women's History Month. I decided to share this new book to our collection. This story focuses on a woman named Katherine Olivia Sessions and how she changed the city of San Diego, California. "After becoming the first woman to graduate from the University of California with a degree in science, she took a job as a teacher far south in the dry desert town of San Diego. Where there were almost no trees. Kate decided that San Diego needed trees more than anything else. So this trailblazing young woman singlehandedly started a massive movement that transformed the town into the green, garden-filled oasis it is today. Now, more than 100 years after Kate first arrived in San Diego, her gorgeous gardens and parks can be found all over the city." 

After reading this book we had a great discussion about staying strong and following your dreams.  

Obert Skye author study with 4th grade. 

Next week author Obert Skye will be visiting our school to speak with the 4th graders and middle school kids. So this week in class we did a small author study. We viewed the books he has written, read a little about him, watched a few trailers to get excited about his books, and wrote down any questions we wanted to be sure to ask him. Not many of our kids were familiar with Obert, but after learning about him, his books were flying off of the shelves! We look forward to meeting him!     

Obert Skye's First book in the Leven Thumps series: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

And finally, I just had to share this photo. For the 3rd and 4th grade classes that won the Bluebonnet party for reading the most books, one of the door prizes we gave out was a coupon in which you could become the "librarian for the day." So here is the lucky third grader that was super excited to cash in her coupon and check out her classmates' books. She did a super job and had fun! Maybe we should have a librarian for the day more often?!

Week 20 and Texas Bluebonnet Award

As I have mentioned a few times, our 3rd and 4th graders participate in the Texas Bluebonnet reading program. Every year twenty books are chosen as the "Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List" by the Bluebonnet selection committee. Then if students read a minimum of five books out of the twenty they can vote for their favorite title during the month of January each year. The author of the book receiving the most votes statewide is declared the winner of the Texas Bluebonnet Award.

So this year our kids read the Bluebonnet books like crazy. All twenty of the books were fabulous, so it was understandable. However, we also challenged all of the classes to see which 3rd and 4th grade classes could read the most Bluebonnets. We told them to record books as they read them, and in the end the two classes that read the most would get a special surprise. They were so excited!

So this past January we had 52 3rd and 4th graders vote. Voting ended on January 31st and the winning Bluebonnet book was supposed to be announced soon after. However, it kept being postponed due to other schools in Texas not being finished with voting because of inclement weather days.  It got to where the kids were really frustrated with me in thinking that I was just trying to torture them by not telling them who the winning book was, but I assured them that I was getting frustrated too! However, the winner was finally announced on February 19th, so I couldn't wait to make the big announcement to all of our kids at our Monday morning assembly this past week.

At the assembly I started off by reminding the students that we were not the only ones who voted. Actually, 181,734 students across Texas voted. That is a lot of kids! So with 28,398 votes the 2014 Texas Bluebonnet Award winning book is:

Ten Rules You Absolutely Must Not Break If you Want to Survive the School Bus By John Grandits    

Here I am showing the cover. 

I will say our kids were pretty shocked by the winner. Not many had read the book since it was one of the picture books. I think they got more wrapped up with the chapter books which is great, but this one just got a little over looked. Either way they still cheered loud and since then I have been sharing it with all of the classes and they really like it. I read it to a 4th grade class last week, and after I was done reading it someone said "well now I get why that book won."  

I then went on to announce the second and third place books as I know our kids would be curious to know. 

In second place with 21,662 votes and also the book that was most voted for by our students at Greenhill was:

Wonder by R.J. Palacio   

This got a really big applause! What a super book this is! The kids were really curious to know what book I would have voted for if I was voting and I told them that this would have been it. 

Finally in third place with 19,352 votes was:

Giants Beware by Jorge Aguirre

I then announced the 3rd and 4th graders that won the book contest for reading the most Bluebonnets. In 3rd grade the class that won read a total of 54 Bluebonnet books and in 4th grade the winning class read 83 books. That is a lot of great reading! Their prize was that they got to have a celebration in the library. 

On their celebration day when they entered we had them walk the "red carpet" or should I say the "read carpet?" Ha! Then in the background we had the song "We are the Champions" playing.  It was a nice touch. :)        

The "red carpet"

Then we had a little awards ceremony. We gave out prizes to the top readers and then we drew names out of a hat for the kids to have a chance to win some fun coupons and prizes. 

After the awards ceremony the kids enjoyed some popcorn and played some board games. 

4th graders playing. 

3rd graders playing.

The kids had a blast. I had several come up to me after school last week to say that they had the best time at the party, and that made me so happy. They sure earned it! Hopefully this will inspire the kids to read even more next year. 

             

Weeks 18 and 19

Things sure have been busy in the Lower School Library. I am combining what I did the last two weeks in this post because we had a few days that messed up our schedule. We had a snow day, a late start, and Valentine's Day, so here are some of the books we were able to read.  

The Biggest Valentine Ever by Steven Kroll

Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day is Cool by Kimberly and James Dean 

Who Will Be My Valentine This Year? by Jerry Pallotta

All books read to various classes  

This year for Valentine's Day we read a variety of great new books to our CDC, Pre-K, Kinder, and Primer friends. Most of the stories are just fun and great conversation starters as to why we love this holiday. Out of all of the books I have to say that Pete the Cat was the biggest hit. He really is a cool cat so the kids love when I can share a story about one of his latest adventures.    

Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

AH HA! by Jeff Mack

Moo! by David LaRochelle 

With other classes we shared some of these great books above, and I plan to share these stories with almost all of the grade levels soon. These stories are great because they help practice the skill of making a prediction and drawing a conclusion. The last two are even cooler because they are only written with one word, which is so fun to read aloud. The kids are really good at predicting what will happen next. They can also look for clues in how the reader reads the words and by looking at the pictures to draw conclusions about what is happening.  So far all of the classes I have shared these with are so good at noticing the little details and they can easily infer what is happening. This is a crucial skill for all readers and they are really getting the hang of it. Of course it helps to practice these skills with fun books like the ones above. Definitely ones to check out if you have not!            

Week 17

What a great week in the library it was! Here is what we were up to.

Secret Pizza Party by Adam Rubin

Read to: CDC Multiage Class

Theme: Pizza!  

"Hi, Pizza Man!" by Virginia Walter

Read to: CDC

Theme: Pizza!

This week with the CDC Multiage class our theme was all about Pizza! Who doesn't love them some pizza?! We read these two books above and they the kids laughed out loud! Secret Pizza Party is a new book to our library and it is hilarious because it is all about a raccoon trying to get his hands on some pizza. After reading both books we learned a song about how to make pizza. For the part of the song when the baker tosses the pizza in the air, I passed out scarves and the kids pretended the scarves were their dough. It was a fun time had by all! 

The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino

Read to: Pre-K

Skills: Continuing to discuss Change Makers

In Pre-K they have continued talking about change makers in their classroom, so this week I decided to share a picture book biography about Jacques Cousteau. It is a book filled with cool facts about Jacques Cousteau, but it is not overwhelming for our Pre-K students because it is not text heavy and has neat pictures. The kids easily caught on to why Jacques Cousteau was considered a change maker.    

Amazing Animals by Liza Charlesworth

2nd Grade

Skills: What is nonfiction and what are some features of nonfiction texts? 

In 2nd grade they will soon be starting a research project, so before they began, the 2nd grade team and I decided it was time to review what nonfiction means, and features of nonfiction texts.  We began by defining what nonfiction means and then I showed them several actual examples of nonfiction texts. This included things like magazines, newspapers, biographies etc. We then began reading and going through the above big book. It is a great nonfiction book that highlights nonfiction text terms on each page so kids can see what the features look like and how they are used. We did the first couple of chapters and plan to do more this next week.

Martin and Mahalia: His Words, Her Song by Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney

Read to: 3rd and 4th Grade

Skills: Discussing how Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahalia Jackson shared a message of peace and hope in the civil rights movement.

Last week we had a school holiday as we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr so I thought this was a perfect week to share this new book to our library.  Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahalia Jackson were partners in the civil rights movement. They both used their voices to make changes, inspiring people by using their gifts - he with his moving speeches and she with her songs. With this story I asked the students to think about these essential questions while we were read. 

What was the author(s) purpose for writing this? 

Why is this important? 

How does this affect me?  

These questions led us to some great conversations and discussions. With some classes I even managed to have time to share a you tube video of Mahalia singing. They loved it!    

Week 16

We had another busy week in the library!

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!            

Week 15

Happy 2014! We had a great first week back after a long holiday vacation. Here is what we were up to.

Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller

Read to: CDC and Pre-K 

Skills: Learn about making a resolution  

With the CDC multiage class and our Pre-K classes we discussed what it means to make a resolution. We read, Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller and then shared resolutions that they will try to make for the new year.   

ABC Letters in the Library by Bonnie Farmer

Read to: Kinder and Primer 

Skills: Understanding Alphabetical order and how our library is organized.

With our Kinder classes we are beginning to prepare them for when they will be able to go out to the main library to find and checkout books. So we began learning about how our library is organized, and we focused on the fiction section of our library this week. We read, ABC Letters in the Library by Bonnie Farmer to review the alphabet and we watched a quick video and played a game to better understand alphabetical order. The kids seemed to catch on quickly, and I know they are excited to soon be able to head out to the "big library!" 

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems

Read to: First Grade

Skills: Elements of a Fairytale and Compare and Contrasting similarities and differences.

First grade has been studying fairy tales in class so I decided to share a fractured fairy tale based off the the story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This story, Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs is written by Mo Willems and it is hilarious! Before reading we discussed all of the elements that make up a fairy tale and after reading we discussed if this story had them and it sure did! We also completed a Venn Diagram together that helped us compare and contrast this story to the original. The kids were able to think of some great similarities and differences between the two and they definitely got Mo Willems' humor in the story which is why I love him and why I love this book. A must read! 

      

Weeks 13 and 14

What a crazy few weeks it has been! After the Thanksgiving holidays not only did the time fly, but we had a few ice days were we didn't go to school. Even so, we still had time to enjoy some great holiday stories in the library.

Our theme in the library this month was to discuss and learn all that we could about different holidays that are celebrated during the month of December. Even if we didn't have time to share an actual book about every holiday, I really encouraged the kids to share what holiday(s) they celebrate and tell us about them. I think it is important for us all to learn and embrace different cultures and traditions.

We started off the month reading books and learning about the story of Hanukkah.

The Hanukkah Hop by Erica Silverman

Read to: CDC, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

Skills: Learn about Hanukkah

Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen

Read to: Primer, 1st, and 2nd grades

Skills: Learn about Hanukkah

With all of our classes I began by first telling the story of Hanukkah. We discussed the history behind it and why we celebrate it. We also showed the kids a Menorah, discussed how to light it, showed them a Dreidel and explained how to play the game, and talked about traditional foods that are eaten. Many of our students that celebrate Hanukkah then shared some of their own family traditions.    

Santa Duck by David Milgrim

Read to: CDC, Pre-K, Kinder, Primer

Merry Christmas, Splat by Rob Scotton

Read to: Primer, 1st, 2nd Grades  

Santa from Cincinnati by Judi Barrett

Read to: 3rd and 4th Grades

Skills: Enjoy a holiday story and compare and contrast stories of Santa to other countries' stories

Following our lessons about Hanukkah I decided to share some fun stories about Christmas. Many of the stories' themes were similar in which characters are trying to be good so Santa will visit them etc, but the last book I read, Santa from Cincinnati, was a little different then that.  This story, written by the same author of, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, writes all about how a little boy named Santa grows up to become the real thing. It is an awesome story about Santa's life before he became Santa,  and after reading it we had a great discussion of other stories we have heard about Santa as well as stories of Santa from around the world. It was really neat to find out about what children in other countries believe and compare it to our own beliefs.       

Overall we had a great couple of weeks leading up to the holidays!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!