It's Monday! What are you reading?

I am wrapping up Black History Month and easing into Women's History Month by reading a historical fiction novel that's been on my to-read pile for awhile.

Stella by Starlight, by Sharon M. Draper, is the story of Stella, a young Black girl living in a small segregated North Carolina town.  It opens with a Klan gathering, cross burning and white sheet-clad men spied by Stella and her brother from a distance late at night.  Stella is well aware of the prejudice against Blacks and the inequality that accompanies such bigotry, but she has never witnessed Klan activity before.  Upon Stella's discovery, her father immediately rounds up the men in the community for a meeting; Stella is put out on the doorstep with her friend, Tony, left to ponder what this means for her family and her town.

Just a few chapters in, I know that Stella's family is poor--the children have no shoes, and the house is insulated with newspapers glued to the walls.  Her father reads three newspapers a day, and so does Stella, who sees the papers as her window to the world outside her town.  Stella is a writer, too, but I am just finding out about that; it will be interesting to see if that plays a bigger part in the story.

It's Monday, and I'm reading a historical fiction novel that has the same title as a popular song of the 1940s; I wonder if that will play a part in the story, too!  What connections have you found while reading a book lately?

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

Look what got delivered yesterday!

We are now seven days away from opening our Spring Scholastic Book Fair!  Flyers are going home this week.  Be sure to set up an eWallet to make shopping quick and easy for your scholars.  Instructions can be found on our book fair homepage:

https://www.scholastic.com/bf/armadillobookfair

Shopping hours next week are:

Wednesday through Friday-- 8a-230p for scholars

Thursday Parent Shopping Event--445p to 630p

Online shopping runs March 1st-14th, via our homepage.

The Dillo Readers' Advisory Club helped Ms Margocs spend Scholastic Dollars from the last book fair to purchase new books for the library!

It's a read-aloud and lesson week for all grades:

PreK is listening to either Fergal and the Bad Temper or Families, depending on their current curricular connections.  Fergal learns many ways to cool down when he's angry; we learn that families may look different, but members care for each other and celebrate together!

Kindergarten classes have a book about animals--tigers and worms, in What About Worms?  Can Tiger and the worms get over their fear of each other?  Why are worms so important to our gardens?

First and second graders are making connections with what they've learned about animals as we read A Polar Bear in the Snow.  We're talking about why camouflage is helpful, making guesses about the polar bear's actions based on its needs...and we're learning that animals sometimes need more than just food, water, and shelter.

Third grade classes are practicing their email etiquette this week by writing business-appropriate emails to their teachers with curricular content.

Fourth and fifth grades are brushing up on their nonfiction reading skills with text features, main idea, and supporting evidence practice.  Talk to your scholars about the nonfiction books they've chosen to check out!

See you next week at our Spring Scholastic Book Fair!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I was determined to finish one of the books I started last week, so I plunked down on the couch with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

I'm not sure I went into book coma mode...just started skimming faster and faster, feeling like I had to wrap up this complicated story of family dysfunction and connection.  Even though it is written as first person memoir, Walls just glances over traumatic childhood events with the same shoulder shrugs and moving on as the child she once was did to survive.  I wanted some kind of social justice conclusion, but there was none to be had; it was what it was, end of story. The way Walls describes it, at least three of the grown children have walked away from the chaos seeing it clearly in retrospect, without replicating it in their current lives.  There was chaotic dysfunction and addiction, yes, but there was also a consistent undercurrent of love, and the family has maintained its connections because of it.

This complex ending left me feeling a bit disoriented when I finally closed the book and got off the couch.  Maybe because the story hit a little too close to home, with the blame game played out daily in the news, or maybe because of the underlying collective depression many of us (myself included) seem to be feeling as we ride out the pandemic.  Maybe because it made me wonder how many of our students in our classrooms and libraries are experiencing chaos outside of school, and how that is affecting learning--and teacher retention--with this climate.  I'll have to sit with these feelings awhile, but in the end, I think I'll just have to accept them...the way Walls has accepted her own history. 

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

We have a new club in the library--the Dillo Readers Advisory, and the members have been busy the past couple of weeks helping to update our collection!  Last week, they practiced putting books in shelf order, then worked on applying yellow label covers on our beginning chapter books.

This week, they helped Ms Margocs pull books that hadn't been checked out in TEN years.  We then started on evaluating them and put the books in four piles:  definitely discard, find newer editions/ information, definitely keep, and put on display to check out or be discarded in a month.

Several of our club members were surprised about the books not circulating, noting that they would have checked them out if they knew about them.  Hopefully highlighting their picks will get some of these books back in circulation!

We are in testing season; this week, third through fifth graders will have STAAR interim tests in preparation for the end of year testing in May.  The library will be in use by testing groups during these weeks; Ms Margocs and Ms Moss also have testing duties.  Please pardon the interruption to our regularly scheduled library visits.

Today we had a virtual storyteller visit with Toni Simmons!

Ms Simmons visited with PreK, kindergarten and first graders via Google Meet.  She told wonderful folk stories from Africa and the US, and had the scholars singing in Swahili and dancing to the djembe and axatse!  Ms Simmons also gave us some facts about famous African Americans such as Garrett Morgan, inventor and Mae Jemison, an astronaut.

If you haven't turned in your Waves of Pages reading logs yet--they are overdue!  Hand them over to your teachers ASAP; reading must have been done before February 7th to qualify.

Invitations went out to several scholars to try out for our Battle of the Bluebonnets Team; wish them luck!  We'll announce the team in next week's blog post.

Keep on reading, Dillos!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

After successfully finishing two books last week, I was back to my scanning ways.  I brought books to read on a trip to the Hill Country, and ended up reading one that was already in the tiny cabin:

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had been on my to-read list for decades.  I didn't have enough time or focus to finish it on my trip, but I did read the first third or so, the last chapter and the author's notes at the beginning and end.  I will have to revisit it in the future, because it certainly led me down some paths of thought I wasn't quite ready for yet; the practice of philosophical wondering went by the wayside with adult responsibilities and parenting, I think.

I didn't pick up any kidlit books this week; the other book I dipped back into was Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, which already has me thinking of my relationship with my own deceased mother.  I will try and make it my regular nighttime reading this coming week...if I can handle the grieving process alongside the author's.  

I also started The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which already has me cringing at the details of the author's childhood; that one may go back into the read-later pile.  I'm not sure I can handle daily doses of family dysfunction along with the grief that permeates H Mart. 

It's Monday, and I was drawn to three memoirs (Zen is memoir-ish) that provoked deep thought and tugged at my heartstrings this past week.  What books have provided deep connections for you?

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

 It is the one-hundred-first day of the school year, Dillo Readers!  It was so much fun to see kindergarteners dressed up for the hundredth day of school during their library visits.  We were already in Valentine's mode in our Story Castle, though!

Read-alouds and lessons this week:

PreK and kindergarten love Pete the Cat, who is late in making his Valentine's cards.

First and second grades are discussing character change and insight with Unicorns Are the Worst!

Third graders have a checkout week, except for our Thursday and Friday visitors who will be making up the lesson on the Britannica School database that we missed due to ice days.

Fourth and fifth graders are reviewing how to use the EasyBib add-on in Google to make bibliographies for their projects.

This Friday, second through fifth graders can log into a Zoom author visit with Aaron Reynolds!  He has a new series out called Fart Quest (any book with a fart in it is bound to be funny, right?).  You can order his books from BookPeople, and they will be delivered to our school.  

Link to shop:

https://www.bookpeople.com/school-events/spring22/event/rrisd/aaron-reynolds

Reminder:  Students, get your Schlitterbahn Waves of Pages sheets turned in to your teachers this week, so we can order your tickets!

Our Spring Scholastic Book Fair is less than one month away!  Stay tuned for details and the shopping flyer, coming soon.

See you in the stacks, Dillo Readers!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I finished not one, but TWO books this weekend!  (It helps that we had Thursday and Friday ice days to squeeze in a little more reading.)

Both of these books have been in my to-read pile for awhile!

When Stars Are Scattered is a graphic novel jointly written by Victoria Jamieson (of Roller Girl fame) and Omar Mohamed, a Somalian refugee who has settled in the United States via the United Nations relocation program.  I can't imagine Mohamed's story being told in a more appropriate format for middle grade readers.  I typically have trouble reading graphic novels, but this story held me captive. I was rooting for Mohamed as he waited over a decade in a camp that was supposed to be temporary lodging, caring for his younger brother who has a medical condition.  They were both under the age of five and alone when they arrived in Kenya; we don't find out for sure what happened to their father and mother until Mohamed has to recount the horrifying story to the UN relocation staff.  If you are worried that this is too much of a "heart" book (hard on emotions), know that it has a satisfying ending...really, just another beginning, as the refugee crisis is far from over.

Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park gives us a glimpse of Little House on the Prairie days from a Chinese-American perspective.  As can be (sadly) expected, racism against non-white settlers and indigenous peoples features prominently in this story.  Hanna has heard racial slurs all her life as the daughter of a white father and Chinese-Korean mother.  Since her mother's death, she's had to learn to live with the daily looks and comments on her own, as her father is busy making a new life for them in the midwest.  Hanna is growing into a confident young woman, sure of her skills and her place in the world but unsure how to confront the biases of the white inhabitants of the town, who see her only as a "Chinaman".  Park provides an extensive author's note at the end, talking about her childhood love of Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie series--despite its racist parts--and how it inspired her to write this story.

It's Monday, and I'm happy to add these diverse titles to my "done" pile.  What reading did you accomplish during our unexpected long weekend?

 

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

February is full of celebrations and learning!  Happy Lunar New Year to our Dillos who celebrated earlier in the week!  Of course, we have books about this holiday:

Valentine's Day is coming soon, and we are already getting requests for related books:

And it's Black History Month, of course.  We are featuring nonfiction historical books and biographies, as well as fiction books featuring Black authors, illustrators, and characters. Ms Margocs is almost finished with this month's bulletin board:

Read-alouds and lessons this week:

PreK is discovering a different way to express their feelings as we read Niko Draws a Feeling by Bob Raczka, illustrated by Simone Shin.

Kindergarteners are looking for a change in a goblin's attitude toward unicorns in Unicorns Are the Worst, an Armadillo Readers' Choice book by Alex Willan.

It is checkout week for first, second, fourth, and fifth grades; they have their entire library visit to find good-fit books and spend some time reading them.

Third grade is preparing for their biography reports by exploring our Britannica School database.

Important library dates:

Waves of Pages--Reading ends next Monday, February 7th!

Campus Battle of the Bluebonnets--TBA

Kindness Week--February 22nd-25th

Spring Scholastic Book Fair--March 1st-7th

District Battle of the Bluebonnets--March 8th

Enjoy your snow/ice days, Dillo Readers!  This is good weather to snuggle up with a good book.