It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

Fifth graders are rockin' the library this week!

Several fifth grade classes helped out with kindergarten library orientation, and then again this week to make sure our littlest Stallions know how to use those shelf markers and checkout system.

Ms Gagliardi brought her classes in to use our interactive board and explore Google Earth for social studies. There were oohs and ahhs as the program zoomed in on lakes and cities in the United States.

Kindergarten and second grade classes have been in the Book Nook listening to our first Armadillo book of the school year:

We've been exploring the story and talking about book care, the parts of a book, and solving problems in ways that everyone wins.  Mrs. McSween's class even connected the win-win theme to the work of Dr. Martin Luther King!

First grade classes are checkout only this week; they will have read-aloud time next week.

Third graders are learning about book genres and Bluebonnet Award Nominees, while fourth and fifth grades are diving into our research resources in preparation for upcoming classroom projects.

Mrs. Roberson's fourth grade class is also learning tips to use their Google Drive, with the goal of making a get-to-know-me PicCollage project soon.

We've got lots going on in our Sommer Library!  Looking forward to seeing our Stallions for their next lessons and checkouts!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

School has already begun, and I'm still working on my Bluebonnet Award nominee reading goal! Yesterday, I finished The Bicycle Spy by Yona Zeldis McDonough.

Marcel is a schoolboy living in occupied France during World War II.  His family owns the town bakery, and Marcel is frequently asked to make deliveries on his beloved bicycle.  He discovers he is delivering more than just bread, and finds out that a friend is keeping a life-threatening secret.  These two discoveries come together in this exciting historical fiction novel in which a boy and his bicycle learn they can make an important difference in the lives of others.

I find it interesting that Refugee by Alan Gratz and The Bicycle Spy, both Bluebonnet nominees, feature World War II time periods at a time when extremism is in the news on a daily basis.  McDonough's novel includes facts about the war, on the world stage and particular to France, and concludes with additional nonfiction resources.  

It's Monday, and I still have four more Bluebonnet nominees to finish before January.  What awards do you like to follow and read? 

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

Orientations and checkouts have begun in the library!

(And Ms Margocs forgot to take pictures...)

After reminders about inside voices and using shelf markers, students are checking out their first books of the school year.  It's been especially heartwarming to watch our fourth and fifth graders helping our kindergarten students learn how to find great books to read and scan them out at the circulation desk.

Book checkout limits:
Kindergarten--1 book
First, second, third grades--2 books
Fourth grade--3 books (NEW limit!)
Fifth grade--4 books (NEW limit!)

Kindergarteners and first graders receive a labeled 2.5 gallon zip-close bag to keep their books safe from water and food damage.  Parents, please make sure they keep these bags for the school year to transport their books to and from home.

Students visit the library every week with their classes, but books are due every two weeks.  Students may also visit the library independently with a pass from their teachers.

Our displays through September will be the books considered for "weeding"--older books and those that haven't been checked out in four or more years.  If they are still hanging around at the end of September, they will be discarded for classroom and pop-up library use, or sent to the warehouse for donations.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the NEW titles that will be available once our student weeding is done:

Want to help us add new books to our collection? Make a birthday book donation of $15!  The details and online form can be found here.

We can always use volunteers to help shelve in the library!  Training will be coming up soon; please visit this blog each Wednesday for library updates.

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It was move-in weekend for our collegebound son, so we had a road trip to and from Denton--time to read in the car!

I started The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman.  

It's the first book in a series about adventurous Librarians who travel to alternate universes to procure unique works of fiction.  The books and manuscripts are then stored in The Library to be processed and studied and cataloged.  

I've been introduced to Irene, daughter of Librarians and a junior Librarian herself who has been given a mission to find a Grimm manuscript while training Kai, a Library student.  The manuscript is in an alternate London where vampires, werewolves, and the Fae are common.  Only four chapters in, and the game is afoot!

The Invisible Library was recommended to me by the Pflugerville Public Library.  It's Monday; what book recommendations have you received and read lately?

It's Wednesday! What's happening in the Sommer Library?

The mural...that's what's happening in the library these days!  Betsy Melton has done an amazing job, and now we have horses running along our library wall!  We've been watching in wonder over the last two weeks as she transformed the space into a beautifully diverse herd of stallions.  

Ms Margocs, Mrs. Woodul, and a host of volunteers helped our newest members of Sommer--kindergarteners and newcomers--take their ID photos during supply drop-off yesterday.  We took around 300 pictures!

Library orientation lessons will begin the week of August 20th.  We know students are anxious to check out books again!  There will be a special surprise for fourth and fifth graders...And speaking of fifth grade, they will be helping our kindergarteners with orientation again this year.  Everyone had so much fun last year combining those first visits that we decided to do it again.  Thank you, fifth grade teachers and students for volunteering your time to help our newest Stallions!

Our first library display of the year is made up of books that were on the weeding list because they are older than ten years or haven't been checked out in four or more years.  We have a LOT of books on display.  Please consider them before checking out books on the shelves; any that are left at the end of September will be weeded from our collection!  Teachers, you may also pull books from the display if you feel they need to stay.  Don't worry; we have lots of new books to fill our shelves.

Welcome back to school, Sommer Stallions!  Can't wait to share our library with you!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

School starts this week!  Tomorrow, I will get to meet many of the incoming kindergarteners and students who are new to our school as they visit the library to get their pictures taken for their IDs.  

This past week, I spent time skimming through our Armadillo Readers' Choice and Texas 2x2 books to come up with a read-aloud plan for kindergarten through second grades.  Some, like Oliver Jeffers' Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, are going to tug at my heartstrings.

Others, like Lucy Ruth Cummins' A Hungry Lion, or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals and Mac Barnett's Triangle are going to give us all the "oooohs", with some giggles.

(We already have Square ordered; this is going to be a fun trilogy!)

I have already shared Niko Draws a Feeling with my art teacher, and will be reading La Princesa and the Pea back-to-back with Who Wants to Be a Princess?: What It Was Really Like to Be a Medieval Princess to compare fiction and nonfiction.

It's going to be a great read-aloud year at Sommer.  Welcome back, Stallions!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

10...9...8...7...6...Are you counting down to the first day of school?  We had our first district librarians' meeting for the school year last Wednesday...which means we picked up our first round of review books, too!

Trudy Ludwig brings us another book to help us examine and discuss our behavior; in this case, talking so much that we forget to listen.  Owen's loquaciousness is annoying his friends and ruining class projects.  He doesn't know what he is missing until a case of laryngitis forces him to listen.  Quiet Please, Owen McPhee, illustrated by Patrice Barton, is a quick read-aloud that comes with discussion questions--great for a social-emotional learning lesson.

Hawk Rising by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Brian Floca, gives us a sunrise-to-sunset account of a day in the life of a suburban red-tailed hawk.  A girl and her sister watch as the male hawk flies overhead, searching for food to feed his three chicks.  As the day goes on, the spare text conveys the sense of urgency caused by his failed attempts to catch any prey; will the chicks have food to eat?  The circle of life is complete in this story, without the gory details that may scare away younger readers.  Gianferrari includes more facts about hawks and hawk-watching at the end, as well as book and website sources for research.

I'm happy to add these two new books to our library collection!  Stay tuned for next Monday's post; I'll reveal the reading I accomplished over the summer. Stallions, you still have ten days of summer left, so keep on reading!