What a great week for books! I LOVED every single title I am booktalking this week (pictures included in the gallery). I think Sunny Side Up, the new graphic novel by award-winning author Jenni Holm, is a contender for the Newbery. WOW! WOW! WOW!
Switching gears, next week begins our Fall Scholastic Book Fair. Families, please remember to visit our online book fair, link included in the websites section, for quick and easy shopping. Happy Reading! This week, in addition to FAIR testing, I've been introducing our third graders to the SSYRA challenge. I love seeing them so excited about reading and this statewide program, in particular. The SSYRA challenge is our library's most popular reading incentive program. We promote the SSYRA challenge the entire year and it culminates in a special celebration in the springtime. We also included many wonderful new books in to our booktalk portion of the lesson. Students, please view the gallery below to review some of the new titles we discussed.
We're already super-busy in the media center! Just yesterday, we had more than 150 students visit the library on pass. I'm so happy because the students seem to like the space theme, and we're all eagerly awaiting the release of Star Wars 7 in December. Orientation lessons for students in grades 3 through 5 ended with book talks for the titles included in the gallery below. We added close to 300 books to the collection this month but Isle of the Lost by Melissa De La Pena has proven to be the title for which everyone is clamoring. I definitely need to buy more copies of that one! Next week, I'll read You're Finally Here! by Melanie Watt to the second graders. It's one of my favorite lessons of the entire year and I look forward to it all summer. I'm going to share a new book with the firsties titled First Grade Dropout by Audrey Vernick. I learned about that title on Twitter, so I have high hopes that they will love it. The kinders have already visited the library for their first lesson. We read Chu's First Day of School by Neil Gaiman and Panda Kindergarten by J. Ryder. I love hearing their sweet, little voices laughing-out-loud when Chu reveals his special "talent". Happy New Year, everyone! Our school campus is always humming with activity at the end of May. It's a time for celebrations and reflection. We celebrated with our kindergarteners during our annual Kindergarten Challenge. Every kindergartener was recognized for their effort in reading and received brag tags, Pete the Cat bookmarks,and a certificate of achievement. We enjoyed a snack together and talked about all of our favorite books that were shared this year. Pete the Cat was a definite favorite of our youngest readers along with all of Mo Willems' books and, of course, Fly Guy. Additionally, I ended the year with our older students by focusing on summer reading goal-setting and plan-making so they left prepared to stem the summer slide. The last week of school was spent celebrating all students with end-of-year recognition and Reading Counts trophy ceremonies. Finally, I'll be participating in #bookaday on Twitter this summer, so please feel free to follow along and tweet about your summer reading. Happy reading!!
April is always a busy month in the FES library. It's the month when we celebrate the SSYRA program with our middle grade students. All of our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students participate in the program with close to 80 students earning an invitation to our celebration. Our students in 4th and 5th grade are also working their way through our Newbery Challenge.
It's been another busy month in the Freedom library. We celebrated Read Across America week in addition to hosting our spring Scholastic Book Fair. Freedom classroom teachers also participated in a Write the School event in celebration of students' hard work and efforts in all areas of literacy. We also hosted celebrations with our first graders and second graders who successfully met the criteria for our February reading challenges. Way to go, Freedom! You really rock!! Getting ready for another busy month in the library. Come by and check out our new displays, submit a guess for our monthly estimation station, or compare your height to President Lincoln's.
We are celebrating literacy in Florida this week. We decided to hold a door-decorating contest. The winning teachers were awarded gift certificates to our spring book fair. Congratulations to Mrs.Cohen, Mrs. Bouchard and Mrs. Richling for your award-winning doors. Also, a great big thank you to everyone who participated. More Celebrate Literacy Doors: |
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