NEW DATABASE ALERT

We have a subscription to a new database. I have yet to use it- it's that new. I'm told it's good for Science Fair projects, Maps of the World, Biographies, Current Events, and general fact finding. Email me for the password and log-in information. Give it a try and let me know what you think works well or doesn't.

SIRS DISCOVERER

Poetry 4 Kids

The first graders have enjoyed reading More Bears in the library this week. We've been able to discuss the importance of details and come up with quite a few descriptive ideas about chickens. (Ask your first grader.)


If you'd like to enjoy poetry by the author of this funny book, you can visit his website- Poetry 4 Kids. Ken Nesbitt is posting a holiday poem each day this month. Some of his poems have read aloud features and some have been made into videos. 

ENJOY!

Put a book on every bed

Yesterday I read this article in the paper. It describes how the first present every child should see on Christmas morning is a wrapped book on the foot of the bed. My son always receives books for Christmas, so I'm going to make sure they're the first present he sees. If you don't celebrate Christmas, choose a different day to give the gift of reading. I'm going to do it again on his birthday. I might do it again on the first day of summer.

The thought that a book is the special present you wake up to on your birthday or another special day in your family might remind our children how luxurious it is to spend the morning in bed reading.

If you want to start this tradition this year consider purchasing your book at one of our many local bookstores. There's Island Books on Mercer Island, Park Place Books in Kirkland. In Seattle, both The Secret Garden Bookshop and Mockingbird Books cater mostly to children. All of these stores have amazing selections and knowledgeable staff.

I'd be happy to make a personalized recommendation for your child.

Quotation of the Day

 Today a rather endearing first grade boy checked out this book. He held the book up to me, pointed to the flying astronaut, and said, "These guys are my bros." Not sure if that's the power of reading or the power of Lego.

Yet another reason to read to your children!

OK, I know I'm preaching to the choir. I'm sure if  you take the time to read your child's librarian's blog, you are reading to your kids. Thomas Friedman shares a report about the power of reading to your child and taking interest in his/her learning.

How does this quotation make you feel? 
"...just asking your child how was their school day and showing genuine interest in the learning that they are doing can have the same impact as hours of private tutoring."


Read the whole article here.

A rare movie recommendation!

The movie is coming, the movie is coming! I loved Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret so much that I think everyone should read it. And now the book is being made into a movie and it premiers in two, count them, two days! It better be as good as I think it's going to be.


Here's a link to how movies affected the book. 


Here's a link with information about the movie- trailers, theaters, etc.

Ready, Set, Read!

Love books. Your child can earn free books simply by reading. All your child needs to do is read a minimum 20 minutes a day for 20 days and then head over to the King County Library of your choice to turn in a Ready, Set, Read form.

Click HERE to download a form.

For more information on King County Library System’s Ready Set Read Program click HERE.

Storyline Online and David Shannon

You may already know of this fabulous web resource. The Screen Actors Guild has famous actors (and Al Gore) reading storybooks aloud with the text along the bottom. Who wouldn't want James Earl Jones to read them a story? The kindergartners were able to enjoy David Shannon's A Bad Case of Stripes read to them by Sean Astin. He reads it so well the students were engrossed.

Having another voice read them a story complemented our study of David Shannon. The kindergartners have heard me read some of his stories, watched a video of David Shannon reading Too Many Toys followed by a lesson on how to draw David. We learned why David's teeth are pointy, why his eyes are lopsided, why his nostrils are different sizes, and why there are no holes in his ears. Ask your child why.

If you would like to enjoy a story read aloud click here- Storyline Online.

Children Full of Life

A link to this video (part 1 of 5) was sent to me by a friend with these words of recommendation,

"I just finished watching this very special and moving documentary on youtube about a 4th grade class in Japan learning about compassion, understanding and friendship. I highly recommend watching it. It is in 5 short parts so you can watch the first part and then click on the next. Each part is amazing, amazing." 

It takes about 45 minutes to watch all five parts, but honestly, I couldn't pull myself away from them. It made me rethink my teaching, my parenting, my childhood. I'm not sure I have new answers, but I certainly have many more questions.

Children Full of Life

Please read to your child today, tomorrow and the next day...

The statistics in this report no longer surprise me, but they still make me sad. Read to your child. Make it a ritual. Make it fun. Ask me to recommend books that your whole family will enjoy. I know many of you read Harry Potter. There are so many more choices. The Toys Go Out, Winnie the Pooh, Ramona the Pest, Henry Huggins all apeal to younger children. There are tons to recommend to you to read to your older students.

Want to be inspired, read  The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma. It's about a single father who read to his daughter everyday until the day she left for college!

Teacher of the Year is a Teacher Librarian

I just had to repost this column. (Here's a link to the original article.)

Save the children by fighting 'truthiness'

The Web wilderness of information confronting children poses new challenges. Guest columnist Mark Ray, a teacher librarian and Washington's 2012 Teacher of the Year, says school libraries and librarians are a critical to helping children learn to discern facts from "truthiness."

By Mark Ray Special to The Times

TRUTHINESS is hurting America. And I'm not going to take it anymore.

According to Wikipedia, this term, coined by Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, is "truth" that a person feels intuitively "from the gut" or that "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness could be heard on a recent weekend when NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me" posed the following question:

"(Presidential candidate) Herman Cain ... said that even though 'I don't have the facts to back this up,' he believed:

A. If he were to capture Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geith-ner, Mr. Geithner would grant him three wishes.

B. The White House is orchestrating the Occupy Wall Street protests to distract attention from its own record.

C. Phil Collins is the greatest singer-songwriter ever.

D. Kittens are the snuggliest."

The correct answer is B. But any of the answers are correct, because with truthiness, the clause "I don't have the facts to back this up" permits anyone with a blog or microphone to fabricate "truths" that are published and distributed on the Web in nanoseconds. And if you read it on the "Internets," it's bound to be true.

On Oct. 3, I was named the 2012 Washington State Teacher of the Year. I am a teacher librarian. Since then, I have been fielding questions from reporters curious about what teacher librarians do and somewhat surprised that they even made school libraries anymore. Their core question is, "why do we need libraries and teacher librarians?"

It's simple. Among other things, librarians fight truthiness. And truthiness is bad for America. That makes libraries and librarians good for America. As a teacher librarian, my job is to ensure that students are effective users and producers of information and ideas. All teachers should be doing this, but right now, my classroom colleagues are working hard to make sure students pass their tests.

In this 21st century, we consume information by turning to a screen instead of a newspaper or book. In the past, we could go to the library and find materials that were likely to be accurate or at least balanced. While I'm not advocating a return to a time when libraries or books were the only place to go for information, I'm also sure that "The Google" is not a library. Today, we must make decisions about bias, currency and accuracy ourselves. Many students struggle with that.

Thanks to the Web, anyone can create ideas and information. For our students, this is a wonderful thing, vesting learning with authenticity and purpose and allowing them to use networks to collaborate, create and share their work and thinking with others throughout the world. But it is a learned skill and an awesome responsibility.

I teach digital citizenship and information literacy, which are about being safe, responsible, effective, informed and active as part of our society. These skills include both using and producing information with rigor, fidelity, fairness and purpose. While responsible adults would be loath to leave children alone on a dark suburban corner, they seem content to allow their children to attempt to make meaning from a screen and remain silent as districts close libraries and defer 21st-century information skills as something to be done tomorrow.

Truthiness is a pox on our society. Trading conjecture for the confirmed and sound bites for the hard work of research, scholarship and attribution, truthiness is a laziness of the mind. And like childhood obesity, it will cost our country far more than we realize.

Much has been written about the current political gridlock and social polarity that define the nation our children will inherit. Scholars contrast ours with earlier times when quaint words like compromise, concord and comity allowed us to do great things. Those great things were predicated on the ability to base decisions on facts and shared core ideas, not on our gut.

Getting to the truth has never been harder than it is today. The loss of libraries, teacher librarians and the ascendance of truthiness fundamentally hurts our nation. We are losing the expertise, resources and skills necessary to be informed voters and citizens. This is not about politics. All corners of the political and cultural debate contribute to our factually impaired fog. This is about fundamentally preparing our young people to be successful in work, college and life.

Truthiness is bad for America. And I have the facts to back that up.

Mark Ray is the 2012 Washington State Teacher of the Year. He is a teacher librarian and instructional technology facilitator at Skyview High School in Vancouver.

Book Fair Extraordinaire

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making this year's book fair a grand success. I don't have totals yet, but it's great seeing so many books finding homes with happy, willing readers. I found several books for our library that will be added next week. Come check them out!

Yeah! A new Fly Guy Book.

This book is coming home with me this weekend. Yes, my whole family will hear it tonight at the dinner table. We all love Skippyjon Jones!

The long lost Young Readers' Choice nominee. It was nominated and then quickly went out of print. We now have 3 copies of our readers.

Social Network Sites for Kids

This week the 4th graders and I discussed some guidelines for using the internet and information found there. One discussion came up in each class about asking parents before submitting any personal information online. Your child should have a user name that does not reveal his/her identity. Many students say they make-up a birthday but some make themselves significantly older (read 21). One student, age 9, asked what they should do if they had to be 13 to join a Social Network. I suggested, he wait until he was 13. Please check in with your children about the information they may be giving out online.

Here is a link for some recommended Social Network sites for 7 through 13-year-olds.Social Network Sites for Kids.

I'd be happy to provide further resources about online safety guidelines.

A new book by the author of Eloise!

OK, so I just learned that Hilary Knight, author of Eloise, is a Man! Not that it makes a bit of difference, but I am so surprised. I found this out because he has written and illustrated a new book.
Nina in that Makes me Mad, a graphic novel for early readers.

You can watch the trailer here...(just click on the purple here).

I am ordering two copies of this book for the library, so be on the lookout for them.

Award Nominees for 2012

Students in grades 1-5 have the opportunity to participate, read, and vote for a variety of award books.  Please encourage your child to participate in these votes. Below are the awards each grade may participate in plus a link to the nominees on each list.

Washington Children's Choice Picture Book Award: Grades 1-3


Beverly Cleary Children's Choice Award: Grades 2-3
(must read 2 titles to vote)   links to an animated ad

Sasquatch Reading Award: Grades 4-5
(must read 3 titles to vote)


Young Readers Choice Award: Grades 4-5
(must read 3 titles to vote)

All voting will take place at the end of March. Thank you to the district and the PTSA for purchasing the titles on these lists.

Bennett Book Club Reads through History

All 4th and 5th graders have been invited to join the Bennett Student/Adult Book Club. We will read six historical fiction novels that travel from the time of run away slaves in the mid 1800's through the turbulent Civil Rights Movement of the the 1960's. Along the way will learn about the Gold Rush, technological changes at the turn of the century (the 20th century), the Roaring 20's, the Great Depression, and life during World War II. All of the books are set in North America. Contact Mrs. Bolivar if you'd like an application.

Welcome to the 2011 - 2012 school year! Almost all the classes have made it through the library this week and have been fabulous. Here's a quick run down of what we've been doing.

Kindergartners: Have been welcomed to the library. They've heard Piggies by Audrey Wood. They don't know it but they've just been introduced of the first author study of the year.
First Graders: I read them Miss Brooks loves Books (and I don't) or Beatrice Doesn't Want To to let them know that it is my job to help them find books they will love.
Second Graders: We started reading Bonyo Bonyo, a true story about a doctor from Kenya who decided to become a doctor and build a hospital in his hometown after a family tragedy. We will continue reading about how hard he worked to fulfill his dream.
Third Graders: We read Ruby's Wish, another true story about a young girl growing up in China near the start of the 1900's. Her wish is to attend university like the boys in her family not be married like the  girls. This book led to very interesting conversations about what the students want to do when they grow up and where they want to go to college.
Fourth Graders: We created a word art on the site Wordle about the library. Students will be using this website later in the year on our new computers. We also reviewed how to use the catalog and understand how the call numbers indicate different sections in the library.
Fifth Graders: As always, the 5th graders have time each week to check out books for their reading pleasure.

Wonderstruck

I’ve come across a couple interesting articles in the last week. The first is titled, “PleasureReading Leads to Professional Careers, Study Says”.
 "According to our results, there is something special about reading for pleasure," says researcher Mark Taylor. "The positive associations of reading for pleasure aren't replicated in any other extracurricular activity, regardless of our expectations."


The second is a list of 7rules for online etiquette.

“The more my son gets into social media, the more we talk about being responsible online. But a recent incident made me realize that I had completely overlooked a basic tenet of appropriate online behavior: manners. Just as I teach him to keep his elbows off the table, I have to teach him to be courteous in his digital life.”

Follow the links if these articles interest you. If you would like more information about finding books for your child or teaching your child online safety, do not hesitate to ask me.

April is Poetry Month....But Poetry Can be Read All Year!

I'm not that keen on identifying April as Poetry Month. Perhaps it is because I was raised by a poet, but I think Poetry can be enjoyed all the year through. The official title of Poetry Month does let us give it some special focus though.

Many of the staff has been enjoying daily poems by a wide variety of children's poets, thanks to this wonderful blog- GottaBook. Take a peek at all the poems from the month. I think the poem from Earth Day (April 22) would be a powerful poem to read with your child.

4th Graders experienced listening to a story by focusing on the 5 senses. As I read Dogteam by Gary Paulsen, the students kept a list of the parts of the story they could imagine tasting, smelling, touching, seeing and hearing.

3rd Graders learned about Haiku- the importance of nature and a surprise or a twist- and then had the chance to author their own poems. We also enjoyed reading aloud poems of apology and forgiveness from the book, This is Just to Say: poems of apology and forgiveness by Joyce Sidman.

1st graders were able to enjoy poems animated and performed by such fabulous readers as Susan Sarandon, Gertrude Stein and Langston Hughes thanks to a DVD purchased for our library by the District, The Poetry Show: I'm Grown Up Now.

There are four days left in April. Read a poem today!

Bennett Book Club May 5th!

The Bennett Book Club will be meeting for our final (sniff, sniff) meeting of the year on May 5th. For this meeting students were given the choice of three, yes, three books to choose from:

Kensuke's Kingdom, Escaping the Giant Wave, and Robin's Country.

These books were recommended by other librarian's in the school district as great book club books. Mr. Drugge and I are looking forward to three wonderful conversations. Now we just have to figure out how to triplicate ourselves, so we don't miss any of the conversations.

If you'll be in 4th or 5th grade next year, keep a look out in September for the invitation to join the Bennett Book Club. We'll be reading through American History.

I'm Back!

Thank you voters! Thanks to the Technology Levy, I now have a laptop computer that is working and can access this blog. For the last month, my old laptop computer was dying a slow ugly death. Now that I have my new and functioning computer, I can let you know what we've been up to in the Bennett Library.

George Shannon visits Bennett

George Shannon spent today talking with our Kindergarten, First, Second and Third Graders. He shared the idea of "Maybe, maybe" where stories unfold by thinking of all the possibilities. You can say to yourself, "Maybe _________ happens, so ____________ happens next. Or  ___________ could happen." He shared a fabulous story with 2 classes about what would happen if you were to crack open a peanut and find three monkeys inside it.

He shared his writer's journals, his editing process, and many, many ideas. Ask your child about his visit. Come by the library and check out one of his books.

WorldOnline KIDS version

I've been having fun finding different types of information on World Book Online for KIDS. Click on the link to World Book under my bookshelf. Once you've logged on scroll all the way to the bottom and click on "KIDS". Click away. Let me know the best information you find.



And the 2011 Award Winners are......

The American Library Association has announced the 2011 winners. Students in grades 1-4 will be exposed to one of the awards- its history and winners- during their library classes this month.

Titles are listed below. There covers and summaries can be seen on my bookshelf to the right.

The Geisel Award (for easy readers): Grade 1
Blink and Gollie
Ling & Ting: Not Exactly the Same (honor)
We are in a Book! (honor- I've read this book and it is fabulous.)

The Caldecott Award (for illustrations): Grade 2
A Sick Dday for Amos McGee (I've read this too. It's adorable.)
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (honor)
Interrupting Chickens (honor)

Coretta Scott King Award (for African American writer/illustrator):Grade 3
One Crazy Summer (author)
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (illustrator)

Newberry Award (for most distinguished American children's literature):Grade 4
Moon over Manifest
Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night (honor)
Heart of a Samurai (honor)
One Crazy Summer (honor)
Turtle in Paradise (honor)

Robert Sibert Award (for nonfiction)
Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot

(Disclaimer: In order for the covers to appear on the shelf, I had to rate them. I have only read a few of them so far but decided that they each deserved 5 stars.)

ebook on internet safety

Help tweens ‘own their space’ online. Keep up with the latest computer and online safety issues and help kids learn to avoid them. In partnership with security expert and author, Linda McCarthy, Microsoft offers a free downloadable version of this new book written for Internet savvy “tweens” and teens specifically. It is also a useful resource for the adults they rely on. Topics covered in the book include Cyberbullying, Social networking, Phishing, and Spam.

To download the entire book or chapter by chapter click here:
Own Your Space--Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online" Digital Book for Teens by Linda McCarthy

4th Graders use their Information Literacy skills to research Civil Rights

4th graders researched seven topics related to Martin Luther King jr. and the Civil Rights movement during their library time last week. Cooperatively they used books and encyclopedias to answer questions about Civil Rights, Women's Right to Vote, Gandhi, Lyndon Johnson, Thurgood Marshall, Ruby Bridges, and Cesar Chavez. Students used the index and table of contents to help them zero in on the information needed. Many needed reminders that a print encyclopedia and an index list people by their last names.

This week in library each group will have a chance to present its information. The classes will have an opportunity to see how each groups' topic connects to the rest giving them a greater understanding of the struggle of for civil rights in our country and non-violent action. 

After discussing these topics, students will be read Kid Blink Beats The World. A true story that "details the events in the summer of 1899, during which hundreds of young news vendors stood up to two of the most powerful men in the U.S.--William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer." (Booklist review)

A Parent's Guide to facebook

"A July 2010 survey found that 37% of U.S. 10-to-12-year olds were on Facebook, which means that every one of these children had to lie about their age to get on the service." This quotation was taken from the report linked below.

A Parents' Guide to Facebook, by Anne Collier and Larry Magid, the Co-Directors of ConnectSafely.org, is a 34-page resource available online as a printable PDF file. It begins with an introduction to Facebook's features and uses, addressing topics such as "How do we parent Facebook users?" and "Digital footprints & good reputations," along with sensible suggestions. For example, "...the No. 1 safety tip is 'Talk with your child.'"

There is also an interactive feature, "Recommended Facebook Privacy Settings for Teens," available at ConnectSafely.org to help you and your teens choose the privacy levels that suit them best.

Databases for your children and you!

Happy New Year. As students visit the library this week, they are being introduced to different databases to which the Bellevue School District subscribes. All of these databases are linked on this blog and on the Bennett PTSA website, and all need log-ins and passwords. Your child will bring home a lime green information card this week with a link to the library catalog on one side and password information on the other. Primary students will enjoy PebbleGo and TumbleBooks- both sites that will read aloud while highlighting the text. PebbleGo has all nonfiction books while TumbleBooks has picture books.

Worldbook Online has translation and read aloud features that make researching easier for struggling readers or English language Learners.

CultureGrams is loaded with information on the countries of the world, the US states, and Canadian provinces. I'm a big fan of the recipe index.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you'd like help with any of our databases.