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

 First of all, we want to say...

We surpassed our sales goal by $2000 dollars--our ending total was over $8200 in gross sales!  Your shopping will help provide books and library activities for our students, including the Bluebonnet reading program, author visits, and supplies.

Our onsite book fair may be packed up and ready to move on

The cases are a lot lighter on the way out!

but you can still shop online through April 2nd, with proceeds still benefiting the library at a higher percentage than the rest of the year!  Click here to find even more fun books to read.

We're back to regular library operations this week.  We are nearing the end of Women's History Month, but we still have some of those books on display, as well as stories about spring and Easter, and baby animals.

PreK is learning about bugs in class, so Ms Margocs is reprising her best Gilbert Gottfried impression with a favorite book, The Very Impatient Caterpillar.  Please send kind thoughts for our library assistant, Ms Moss, as she has to listen to this cacophonous retelling one...more...time.  

All of our other students, kindergarten through fifth grades, are finally getting to make their reading journals with supplies from the PIE Grant Ms Margocs won in September!  They will be adding stickers of the books we've shared and they've read this school year, and recording responses of their choosing.  The journals will remain in the library until the end of the year, when they can take them home.

Our Discovery Girl Scout troop met this week and learned all about the Texas state flora and fauna, as well as ways we can conserve energy to protect our Texas wildlife.  They even posted a reminder in our library:

Glad to have you back in the library to check out books, Dillo Readers!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I had a slow reading week!  I haven't finished any of my books yet, so I'm still catching up with my March reading pile.  I have noticed a theme in the books I'm choosing--empowerment of women, with some magic and mythology thrown in the mix.  Maybe because it's Women's History Month, maybe because reading about strong women makes me feel a bit stronger myself--a bit of bibliotherapy!

We had our Spring Scholastic Book Fair last week.  It was fun to see the books our students purchased.  Dog Man, Captain Underpants, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid are still popular, as well as graphic novels and books with favorite TV show characters like "Paw Patrol" and "Gabby's Dollhouse".  Nonfiction books about dinosaurs, rocks, and animals were favorites, too.  Journals and diaries were also flying off the shelves--I hope that means lots of great writing will happen over the summer!

June may be months away, but I'm starting to think about my summer reading pile.  I know I'll be reading next year's Bluebonnet Nominees, do a little bit of professional reading, and definitely some books just for FUN!  Have you started thinking about your summer reading plans?

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

 It's our Spring Scholastic Book Fair--

that's what's happening in our library this week!

We still have plenty of books in stock, with more on the way!

Shopping hours for the rest of the week:

Thursday, 8a-5p (staying open late before the PTA meeting!)

Friday, 8a-3p (last day for at-school shopping!)

AME Book Fair Homepage:

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

(you can shop online through April 2nd!)

Your purchases help fund library activities such as book giveaways, author visits, our Bluebonnet Reading Program, professional development, and more!

Thanks for supporting our AME Library!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It was so nice to be able to read whenever and wherever I wanted to this past week!  I finished Zane and the Hurricane, one of our book club books.  If you haven't read this fictional account of Hurricane Katrina, I highly recommend it--though be ready to have your heart wrung out a time or two.  There are some great notes at the end with factual information about the storm, as well as the socioeconomic inequities that became glaringly obvious in the disaster response. 

I'm working my way through Atomic Habits by James Clear.  My goal is to read four to five chapters a week.  I really like the idea of habit stacking, since I already have some good routines in place.  I need to incorporate more good habits at work to increase my productivity in the behind-the-scenes library tasks that are filling up my office right now!

I totally ignored my planned "fun" read for this month, and instead picked one off the top of my TBR (to-be-read) pile--When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill,  recommended for young adults and older.

I was expecting a full-on fantasy like The Girl Who Drank the Moon, another Barnhill book that is a favorite of mine.  Instead, this story offers a magical response to real-life oppressive patriarchy.  I would offer this as a companion read to The Change by Kirsten Miller, another magical book about women coming into their power.  Both are apropos for the month dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of women, if only to help light the fire to fight for the changes that still need to happen in obtaining equal rights.

It's Monday, and I accomplished kidlit, self-improvement, and just-for-fun reading this spring break.  What did you read while we were away from school?

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

 We are continuing to celebrate Women's History Month with a new bulletin board display outside the library!  Ms Margocs will continue adding pictures of books from our collection that correspond to the display.

We got one of our last shipments of new books for this school year.  Graphic novels, picture books, and paired English and Spanish titles, and award winners are on display in the library.

Lessons and read-alouds this week:

PreK is learning about making and keeping friends with Emma hace amigos by Stuart J. Murphy.

Kindergarteners are watching how Norman deals with a new tree friend in Norman Didn't Do It! (Yes, He Did) by Ryan T. Higgins.

First and second grades are checking out good fit books this week.

Third through fifth graders are taking a tour of the nonfiction section and comparing the order of topics to what we understand as we grow from babies to fifth graders:  facts and feelings, family  and cultural traditions, fairy tales, language and math, earth science, fossils and dinosaurs, wild animals, jobs and technology, domesticated animals, cookbooks, creativity, poetry and jokes, history and geography.

The big library news this week is our Spring Scholastic Book fair!  It will open the week after Spring Break.

Shopping hours are:

Tuesday, March 21st 8a-530p (Parent Literacy Event)

Wednesday, March 22nd 8a-3p

Thursday, March 23rd 8a-5p (PTA Meeting)

Friday, March 24th 8a-3p

You can set up your ewallet or start looking at the online flyer now on our book fair homepage:

https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bf/andersonmillelementarysch

Enjoy your Spring Break, Dillo Readers!  See you at our Spring Scholastic Book Fair in a couple of weeks!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I was buying a book online for the library the other day (from my own wallet) when an offer came up to purchase another hardback picture book for just five dollars.

Why not?  I added it to the cart, fully intending on donating it to the library, too, after looking it over.

Then it arrived in the mail, and I choked up as I truly looked at the title, and read the brightly illustrated pages.

I could hear my grandfather saying those exact words to me--"Go get 'em, tiger!"  That was the nickname he gave me, for reasons unknown.   As an adult, I have a hard time relating to the moniker, but as a child I must have delighted in the stuffed animals and figurines I received.

And the book?  Full of encouragement, recognizing the ebbs and flows of accomplishments and energy, with reminders to rest and play and pursue your dreams.  A great message for anyone at any age--including someone starting their fifty-eighth trip around the sun.

It's Monday, and I'm feeling inspired by a picture book!  I'll keep this one on my shelf at home and look for a vendor copy for the library.  Have you ever bought a book as a gift but then decided to keep it for yourself? 

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

Our library is the place to be this week!  Three of our fifth grade IB Exhibition groups presented in the library on Monday.  Visitors to our school included parents, district personnel, and IB-PYP representatives.

On Tuesday, our campus Battle of the Bluebonnets team competed against all the other elementary schools in a Google Meet, hosted by Brian Mays, KVUE news anchor.  They had a lot of fun testing their knowledge of this year's Bluebonnet Nominees!

Speaking of Bluebonnet Nominees--the 23-24 titles are on display and ready for checkout.

Also on display: biographies for Women's History Month. We have a lot!

We saw our usual Thursday morning classes today, in order to clear our schedule for the Westwood Vertical Leadership Team meeting.  Administrators from the schools that feed into Westwood High School will be in attendance in the library tomorrow.

We are only seven school days away from Spring Break!  We are asking all students will overdue books to please return them by next week in order to check out new books to read over the break.  Students often think they've lost a book, when it is somewhere in the classroom or tucked away at home--please look on bookshelves, ask other classmates to look in their cubbies or bins, or ask siblings if they've taken the book at home.  We would much rather have the book back than bill you to replace it!

This week, third through fifth grade have checkout only in the library.

PreK is practicing prepositions with Joey and Jet by James Yang:

Our littlest readers really enjoy their time in the story castle!

Kindergarten is watching a baby sea turtle's journey from nest to ocean in Run, Sea Turtle, Run:  A Hatchling's Journey by Stephen R. Swinburne, an Armadillo Readers' Choice book:

First and second grade classes are figuring out why Marvin and Henry don't get along with Hamsters Make Terrible Roommates by Cheryl B. Klein, illustrated by Abhi Alwar--another Armadillo book!

Our Spring Scholastic Book Fair will be held the week after Spring Break!

We are abuzz with excitement over the chance to purchase new books and support our library program!  Flyers will go home right before break so that you'll have time to choose your favorites and set up your eWallet accounts.  Our homepage can be found here:  

https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bf/andersonmillelementarysch

Keep on reading, Dillos!