Week 2

Week 2 in the library got off to a great start by discussing book care with our younger students, and the meaning of fiction with our older students.

Mr. Wiggle's Book by Paula Craig and Carol Thompson

Read to Pre-K, Kinder, and Primer

Skills: Bookcare

With our Pre-K and Kinder students I stuck with an oldie but goodie book that I actually read last year, because it does such a great job of showing students the many different ways a book can be accidentally damaged. The kids always fall in love with Mr. Wiggles right away, and they begin to feel sorry for him and his damaged book. At the end he asks "will you be my friend and protect your library books from now on?" They always respond with an overwhelming, "YES!" So I know I have gotten the point across. Thanks Mr. Wiggle! What would I do without you?

With my slightly older students we discussed the same concept but I read them a different book that got the same point across while also adding a bit of humor. 

Never Let a Ghost Borrow Your Library Book:Book Care Guidelines From the Library Secret Service  

by Karen Casale

Read to: Primer, First, and Second Grade

Skills: Book Care

This book is so great for teaching kids how to take care of their library books as well as reminding them of good library manners. It also works for slightly older kids because it adds humor to the book care tips that are suggested. I am also realizing that any book that has the word "ghost" or a picture of a ghost in it is a big hit and it doesn't matter what time of year it is. Aren't kids funny?

With my 3rd and 4th Grade classes we went a different route and began to discuss the meaning of the word fiction. We also discussed how fiction is organized in the library and we played a game pretending to be the librarians as we worked to put fiction books in order. We discussed the word genre, and I explained that fiction is one of our main genres of books in our library collection. In this lesson I wanted the kids to understand what fiction meant, so we didn't go into more detail about the different types of fiction, but we will soon. We learned that fiction is organized by alphabetical order and practiced putting a few books in order before we broke into groups to try it on our own.

For the game they had to separate the books by our three main fiction shelves in our library, and then they had to put each section into ABC order.

  

For the first couple of classes I had all of books mixed up on the tables and the kids were to sort them and then put them in order. However, I could tell some were having a tough time with this so I smartened up and used some library carts and just had a few of the books in the wrong section. I  wanted them to understand the alphabetical order aspect of the lesson to help them when they are searching for library books. I learned that having the books strewn about the tables was a little overwhelming to the kids as I can understand, so I found a better way to do it. You live and learn! Overall, I think the kids got the hang of it and I plan to this same lesson, but on smaller scale, for my younger students soon.

Week 1, Happy New Year!

Welcome Back! School officially began this past Tuesday and we survived our first week! I saw 24 classes, (still have 5 to go), and loved seeing both old and new students! The kids were excited to get back and eager to visit the library.

The first week we focused on rules, expectations, and procedures. I also reminded the students where our books were located by taking them on a brief picture tour. I did this to not only remind them where things were, but to also help make their first check out a tad easier. We will of course be reviewing this a lot this year. Here was our set up.

     

Beginning of the year powerpoint.

The library picture tour to remind kids where certain types of books are located and what sections they can visit.  

With the younger students we also read this book to help them with our library rules.

  Manners in the Library by Carrie Finn

Read to: Pre-K, and Kindergarten

Skills: Library rules and procedures

I enjoyed reading this book to the younger students because it gives some great examples of how one can always use their best manners in the library. This might be some of the students' first time in a library so it is a great introduction.  

It was a great start to the year and I look forward to seeing what the second week will bring!  

Last Month of School

What a wonderful year it has been in the Lower School Library! I cannot believe that it is already Memorial Day Weekend and the last week of school is upon us. Where did this last month go? As always it has been busy busy. Here is some of what we were up to and a few of the books we read.  I think if I listed everything we had going on you might be reading this blog for a few hours, so I'll spare you!

This year we have added so many great books to our collection and it just so happens that many of them go great together. In a few of our last lessons we practiced how to compare and contrast, squeezed in an author study, and continued to practice other skills such as making predictions. We also discussed how we would continue to read throughout the summer and I introduced or reviewed how to access our eBook collection.

I'll start by sharing two new books to our collection that I shared with several classes.

Open Very Carefully: A Book with Bite by Nick Bromley

Warning: Do Not Open this Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt

These two books were a big hit with our students. Kids in general love books that tell them not to open them, and all of my classes agreed that when a book tells us not to open it, we can't help but break the rules! These books were super for practicing making predictions and fun to compare and contrast. If you are going to share them with your students or children, I would read Open Very Carefully first and then read Warning: Do Not Open this Book! second. I think you will see why when you read it! 

Another couple lessons that I did were an author study all about, you guessed it, Mo Willems! I cannot tell you how popular Mo Willems' books are with our students. We can't keep them on the shelves so I thought it would be fun to share some aloud.    

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Mo Willems

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog! Mo Willems

I decided to share two of his pigeon books because it is one of his main characters that he is known for. The books are just laugh out loud funny and they are great to compare and contrast because Mo Willems does many of the same things in his books.  He uses the speech bubbles to show the characters talking, and he uses the tornado symbol (or that is what we called it) to indicate that the character is frustrated or mad. The kids also noticed when the symbol would get bigger and they made the connection that it meant that the pigeon was getting even angrier! The list goes on. I also had fun showing them a few of Mo Willems'  other books that we have in our library where he likes to sneak small pictures of his famous pigeon throughout. I now think our kids will forever be searching for the hidden pigeon in all of his books!         

With summer upon us I couldn't help but share these two books!  

The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli

Watermelon Day by Kathi Appelt

When I think of summer one thing I think of is watermelon! As a child this is what I ate all summer long, so I decided to share some books about it. In the first book, the character accidentally swallows a watermelon seed and worries what will happen to him. Many of the kids shared that they too were once told that swallowing a watermelon seed would make one grow in their stomach and other fears that the character faces, but everything turns out alright. In the second story the little girl is patiently waiting for her watermelon to grow so she can have a watermelon day. After both stories it was fun sharing aloud what other foods we enjoyed eating during the hot summer months.    

Finally, to encourage as much summer reading as possible, I introduced and reviewed how to access our eBook collection. This year we have added so many great new titles, but they don't do anyone any good if they can't get to them. As you can see from the picture after we discussed them with the classes our kids were checking them out like crazy, and that always makes me happy!

I hope everyone has a relaxing and wonderful summer!    

 

 

Week 22 and TLA Conference

This past week I traveled to San Antonio for the yearly TLA (Texas Library Association) Conference.

 I attended some great sessions and enjoyed exploring San Antonio as well! 

One session I went to was called "Speed Dating With the Texas Bluebonnets" and we got to hear  many of the authors speak from some of the nominated books on next year's Bluebonnet list. It was neat. At the end of the session I was also the lucky winner of some free books to bring back to the library so that was a fun treat!       

Here is my (not great) picture of James Ponti, author of Dead City, discussing his book. 

I also attended other sessions about how you can get your class or students to easily Skype with authors and how to turn your library into a maker space. The short definition of a maker space is basically creating a place where kids can come and make or create things. It is a really cool and new idea that libraries are trying these days. So many neat things to think about!

When I returned we hit the ground running and began our celebration of National Poetry Month in the library. 

National Poetry Month is a celebration of poetry that was first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It is celebrated every April in the United States and Canada.   

With Primer through fourth grade we had a chance to read and study different types of poetry together. Here are some of the books we shared. 

Doodle Dandies: Poems that Take Shape by J. Patrick Lewis

A Poke in the I: A Collection of Concrete Poems by Paul B. Janeczko

With the Primer, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders I decided to focus on one form of poetry this week and that was concrete poems or shape poems.  I shared how to write a concrete poem and read a few examples from each book. Then I encouraged the kids to try writing their own concrete poem.     

Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It by Gail Carson Levine 

This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness by Joyce Sidman

With the 4th graders we focused on False Apology poems. Based off of the famous false apology poem by William Carlos Williams, Gail Carson Levine and Joyce Sidman, as well as others, have created two really fun poetry books filled with false apology poems. You could describe a false apology poem as a poem where you say you are sorry, but you don't really mean it! In This is Just to Say not only do they have false apology poems but they also have response poems so it is neat to see both points of view. Again with this lesson I encouraged the kids to try writing their own false apology poem and have a friend respond to them. 

After I was done sharing poetry with each of the classes, it was their turn to have some fun and participate in our Poetry Picnic! The poetry picnic included activities such as reading poetry on their  own or with a friend, writing poetry, and creating poetry with magnetic letters or cutting words out of a magazine. I really encouraged the kids to get creative and have fun!   

      Here was our set up. 

Students working hard as they write some poetry and enjoy the poetry picnic.

With the Pre-K and Kinder classes we didn't read actual poems out of a poetry book, but we read two stories that could count. 

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo by John Lithgow 

Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo comes with a CD of John Lithgow reading it, so we enjoyed hearing him read along with the great music that accompanies the story.  

Yes, Yes, Yaul! by Jef Czekaj

Yes, Yes, Yaul is a story where the two characters, Hip and Hop, are rappers. They meet a porcupine named Yaul who never seems to like anything and he constantly says "No" to everything. However, through their rapping and other funny events they convince Yaul to say "Yes" and try new things. I shared this story because it has a great lesson, but also because the characters rap throughout the story. Together we talked about that rapping or singing songs could be a type of poetry, so we thought it was a perfect book to read during poetry month. 

We will continue to check out some great poetry as the month continues so stay tuned!        

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!