And the winners are...

On Monday, January 18th at the American Library Association MidWinter conference in Boston, the Caldecott, Newbery, Coretta Scott King, and Printz Book Awards were announced. They are as follows:

Caldecott Award: Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney

Newbery Award: When you reach me by Rebecca Stead

More Fairy Tales

This week in grades K-3 we compared several of The Three Little Pigs classic fairy tales with many of the fractured fairy tales. We began with the retelling of the Three Little Pigs using puppets. Afterwards K-3 students enjoyed reading, The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, written by Eugene Trivizas. Talk about role reversal. We also did a picture walk through David Wiesner's, Three Little Pigs, which one a Caldecott Medal. Not only do the three little pigs take the pages of the story and turn them into a paper airplane...they fly into another story make up of nursery rhymes. It was hilarious! While introducing some fairy tales through playing the game "Name that Fairy Tale" a couple of classes became intrigued with the clues of Rumplestiltskin. So we read the story of Rumplestiltskin, written by Paul O. Zelinsky.

Fourth graders completed the story of Polar, the Titanic Bear and will be using computers next week to find facts about the Spedden Family and the Titanic. We will also go to the research site to learn more about artifacts of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of Blackbeard which sank off the coast of North Carolina.

Fifth Grade students who are studying the American Revolution viewed a segment on Ben Franklin. They were amazed that he had only two years of schooling, however was an amazing inventor, patriot, scientist, firefighter, founder of our first lending library...and also one of the country's founding fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence. Students were amazed at how he learned about "grounding" buildings and houses to avoid fires in regard to lightning strikes with so little education.

Displayed work in the Media Center

Mrs. Gregory's AG students displayed their projects after researching those who were not so famous, but did in fact sign the Constitution.

Snow Dudes

Ms. Ebels class wanted to make their own "snow dudes" after we read the book by Daniel Kirk. We compared Snow Dude to The Gingerbread Man. Many students had made a connection to Frosty the Snowman as well. Good job, Huskies!

It's "snow" cold outside...

The display cases in the foyer of our media center are full of books about winter, snow, penguins, and arctic animals. Students may select any of these books for checkout or choose among the other 17,000 books from our collection.

Our Highcroft display also showcases books that have to do with January's dates such as Martin Luther King, Jr. books, A. A. Milne books, as well as Caldecott and Newbery selections to remind students the newest award winners will be announced on Monday, January 18th. I can't wait!

Go for the Gold Bulletin Board

Each class is given a paw print sticker to correlate with the "grade" they received during media special. Golden paw prints are the very best, blue paw prints are given when a class could be a little better, green paw prints show needed improvement, and only a date is given a class is in need of definite improvement. Think of it as standards based grading.

I also award "top dog" stickers! This is given when a class exhibits golden behavior AND has no overdue books. I am happy to say that several "top dog" stickers have been earned by our Highcroft classes. So Huskies, let's go for the gold...and return those books on time!

Happy New Year!

Welcome Back to my blog!

I have been a little lax since last year and one of my New Year's resolutions is to be more diligent in posting to the blog. I am documenting this as a share all for those who are interested in what I do in the media center on a weekly basis. For those who think all I do is pull and read a book off of the shelf...stay tuned... I will dedicate an entire posting to what school librarians really do and how important our position really is in a school setting as well as what statistics show when a qualified, certified media specialist is at the helm of the school library.

(Of course, this is my own blog so I can toot my own horn)

Students and teachers at Highcroft were back into the regular schedule on Monday, January 4, 2010. In the media center, classes in grades k-3 were introduced to Fairy Tales and Fractured Fairy Tales. We played "Name that Fairy Tale"...(the hardest part was remembering to raise hands to be called upon.) We followed up our game with a retelling of the classic tale of The Gingerbread Man. After our retelling of the story we discussed several versions such as The Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby, and The Gingerbread Boy.

Once we discussed the elements of a classic fairy tale, we learned that to modernize a classic fairy tale is actually a "Fractured Fairy Tale." Students listened to Snow Dude by Daniel Kirk. Many students made their own snow dudes and several will be displayed outside the media center.

Fourth grade students learned about primary documents and artifacts from a story titled, Polar, the Titanic Bear. This is a true story of a boy named Douglas who was a passenger on the Titanic. He survived, along with his toy bear named Polar. The book shows many photographs of Douglas' travels around the world with Polar. Many facts about the Titanic were brought out which will be researched in detail over the next two weeks in media specials.

Fifth graders made New Year's resolutions of their own after viewing a short video on classroom survival skills. This was helpful in preparing them for middle school as well as aid in their own success as a current student. A short excerpt about the life of Ben Carson was shared. What a remarkable story. If you haven't read Gifted Hands by Ben Carson, it's a must read for everyone!

Also for those that are interested...Martin Luther King's Birthday is January 15! School will be closed to celebrate his birthday on Monday, January 18.

At 7:45am the children's book awards will be announced online....I can't wait! What was your favorite children's book of the year?

Also, A. A. Milne's birthday is on January 18th. He was the author of the Winnie the Pooh books.

Happy Reading!