It's Monday! What are you reading?

I've read my first Bluebonnet Award Nominee for the 2019-2020 school year!

I received a signed paperback copy at the "Speed Dating the Bluebonnets" session of our Texas Library Association's Annual Conference last week.  It seemed like the perfect Sunday-read-on-the-couch book.

Teachers, the introduction and notes alone are worth reading and promoting The Dragonslayer: Folktales from Latin America. I would use this book to begin a genre unit on fairy tales and folktales, sharing those sections to spur discussion on the importance of storytelling, morals and lessons. I'm not usually one who leans towards graphic novel read-alouds, but these short tales would be fun to do as readers' theater, assigning characters to students to read as the pages are shown on a document camera/ projector. 

For more lesson ideas involving the Bluebonnet Award Nominees, be sure to visit the committee's website.  Past resources are available here, and the new activities will be posted soon! 

One Bluebonnet Nominee down, nineteen to go!  I've already started on my next BB nominee-- Shadow Weaver by MarcyKate Connolly.  It's Monday; what reading list are you going to tackle this coming school year?

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

Ms Margocs has been at the annual Texas Library Association Conference this week, so Ms Mensing--our resident library student/ 3rd grade teacher--has been subbing!  She and Ms Melton have been doing a great job running the library.  On deck this week:

Kindergarteners have been exploring animal details in Who Am I? An Animal Guessing Game.

First graders are exploring the many types of seeds and the plants they grow into with What Will Grow? .

Second through fifth grades have been completing the end-of-year library survey.  Ms Margocs is getting the message loud and clear that students like BOOKS!!!  Good thing she's picked up a few more at the conference!

More on the conference to come...(including some details from two of our TEACHERS who attended TLA today!) but here are some AUTHOR PHOTOS!!

It's Wednesday, and Ms Margocs will see you in the library when she returns next Monday!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

A colleague picked this book up from the review table at our librarians' meeting last month...but graciously gave it to me, given my connection with Japan these days (my daughter lives and works there!).

Mayumi's grandfather built her a garden of sand and rocks, shrubs and trees when she was born.  Each summer, Mayumi and her parents travel back to Japan, and Mayumi learns more and more about taking care of the garden--how to prune, weed, and rake the sand and gravel into place.  One summer, they arrive to find the house and garden unkempt; Ojiichan is no longer able to live alone.  Mayumi is angry about losing this special place that has bonded her and her grandfather, but finds a clever way to keep the memory of the garden alive for her grandfather--and herself.

Ojiichan's Gift by Chieri Uegaki, illustrated by Genevieve Simms, is a story with many classroom applications:  an introduction to Japanese culture; connections with a dual-culture family; social-emotional topics of shared family activities, anger management, problem-solving, and acts of kindness.  I'll be happy to add it to our library collection at Sommer.

It's Monday!  Have you read a book lately that's a window into another culture?

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

We had a busy March in our library--three author visits!

The library was open 15 days last month--we averaged 377 checkouts a day!

It's time for our state standardized assessments, and the library is being used for small group testing today (as it was yesterday).  You may drop off books or broadcast applications in the morning before the tardy bell.

On a brighter note--we've got new books to share when we reopen tomorrow!

The majority of the books are the 2019-2020 Bluebonnet Award Nominees.  Second through fourth graders can get a jump start on reading them for next year; signature pages are coming soon!  The I Survived series books and Riordan's graphic novels were purchased by recommendation of our Stallion Readers' Advisory Club, which meets quarterly to review our library collection and make suggestions for improvement.  Our last meeting is April 25th.

Due to testing in the library, we are just having check-out time for classes this Thursday and Friday.

Next week, Ms Margocs will be attending the annual conference of the Texas Library Association, right here in Austin.  While she's away learning and collaborating with lots of other librarians from across the state, her substitutes will be doing read-alouds with kindergarten and first grade, and helping the second through fifth graders complete our library end-of-year survey.

We only have one more round of lessons in the library after Ms Margocs returns; the school year is flying by fast!  All books will be due for inventory on May 10th--just four weeks away!

It's Monday! What are you reading?

It's not often I come across a local author I personally know when choosing a review book at our librarians' meetings, but when I do, I have to grab it!  I was excited to see Carmen Oliver's newest release, A Voice for the Spirit Bears.

Oliver's previous book is meant for younger readers--I had her present to our kindergarteners at our school--so I was expecting the same from this book.  With much more text on each page, I soon realized that this is meant for slightly older children--environmentally-conscious elementary to middle school ages who are in search of a hero to inspire them.  A Voice for Spirit Bears is based on the life of David Simon Jackson, an environmental activist who found his passion as a child.  The story opens as Simon is scouting for bears at Yellowstone at the age of seven.  Caring for all kinds of bears, he raised funds and sent letters to halt the deforestation of brown bears' habitat in Alaska, and later ran a campaign to help save the rainforest in British Columbia that is home to the rare Spirit Bear.  Oliver includes an afterword featuring a more detailed biography and photographs of Jackson, the bears he's trying to protect, and information on the foundation and programs he runs as an adult.

The illustrations by Katy Dockrill are quiet, spare and introspective, lending emphasis to the text.  A Voice for the Spirit Bears is a wonderful example of the difference children can make, and makes a nice read-aloud for curricular units on habitat and conservation efforts.  

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

We've had a wonderful week in the library!  Liz Garton Scanlon came to visit last Thursday with our first graders.

Ms Scanlon talked about how she writes, the editing process, and how long it takes for a book to be made and published.  She read us some of her stories, too; one isn't even out yet!  It's a counting book about a murmuration of starlings, and we can't wait to get a copy in our library.

Ms Mensing, one of our third grade teachers, is also Ms Margocs' mentee.  She passed her library certification test! Ms Mensing will graduate with her MLIS degree this summer.  We practiced cataloging this week, and she added nine more books into our collection.  She also decorated our library with Triangle, from the eponymous book by Mac Barnett (see read-alouds below).

We got our first batch of the 2019-2020 Bluebonnet Award Nominees in, thanks to our Sommer PTA!  Signature pages are coming soon for next year's 3rd-5th graders to get a jump start on reading our Bluebonnets.

April Book Displays

Read-alouds this week:

Kindergarten is learning about plant life cycles in What Will Grow? by Jennifer Ward.  It has wonderful fold-out pages for tall sunflowers and pine trees, and below ground carrots.  This is a great book to accompany their science experiment of growing plants.

First graders are paying attention to factual details in the nonfiction book Baby Penguin's First Waddles.  How many facts can they remember after listening to the book?  The record so far is twenty!

The second half of second grade is getting caught up with Triangle by Mac Barnett.  One student thought it should be made into a cartoon; Ms Margocs agrees!

Lessons this week:

The second half of third grade is finding text features in nonfiction books about food webs and sharing them with their tablemates.

The second half of fourth grade is hearing about all the different jobs on our KSTAR broadcast team, and applying if they want to join for next year.  On-camera position applicants will be auditioning before the end of this school year.   Last week's application parent permission slips are due this Friday; this week's application permission slips are due April 12th.

The second half of fifth grade is discussing our new-this-year four-book checkout with Ms Margocs.  The consensus so far is that it should continue for next year, but with more emphasis on wider reading and stiffer consequences for overdue books (fifth graders can be more strict than the librarian!).

Next week, the library will be closed on Tuesday, April 9th and Wednesday, April 10th due to STAAR testing.  We will have checkout only on Monday, Thursday, and Friday.

Many thanks to our shelvers who keep our return carts from overflowing!

Picture by Ashashyou [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

It's Monday! What are you reading?

I picked up some great books from our monthly librarians' meeting review table last week! 

Klawde:  Evil Alien Warlord Cat by co-authors Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth, has illustrations sprinkled here and there by Robb Mommaerts.

Klawde is a quick read, with back-and-forth chapters between the main characters:  Raj, a homesick New Yorker who's relocated to Elba, Oregon; and Klawde, aka Wyss-Kuzz, an evil feline warlord from another planet who's been banished to Earth.  Raj is having trouble dealing with nature and the suburbs after growing up in an urban jungle, and Klawde...well, he just thinks humans are stupid giants, and wants nothing more than to build a way back to his planet.  Will Raj survive the outdoor camp his mother is making him attend, and will Klawde make it back home to take over his planet again?  

I'm going to recommend this book, and the second in the series, Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat: Enemies #2 (which I also picked up), to my readers of Wedgie & Gizmo from this past year's Bluebonnet Nominees.

It's Monday!  What fun, silly series have you read that you want to recommend?