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.