Bluestem Award Goal Setting: Stumbras

As I finish book talking the Bluestem and Rebecca Caudill Nominees, students have the opportunity to discuss the books.  Ms. Stumbras's class discussed all the nominees with their table groups and then decided which book their group would most like to read.

Preparing for Eric Carle Illustrations

First graders have been exploring Eric Carle's books and learning how he creates his illustrations.  Our final project for this author study will be to create a piece of artwork in the style of Eric Carle using tissue paper as he does.  This week students have been getting their materials ready.  Tissue paper has been such a fun medium to try out!

Stay tuned to find out what this paper will become...

Author Studies: Eric Carle

Now that the Global Read Aloud is over, first graders are getting back into author studies.  Next up is Eric Carle.  We started by watching the slide shows on his website that show how he creates his illustrations.

Then we read the book The Mixed Up Chameleon and students had a great time coming up with their very own mixed up creatures.

Lion Bird Robot

Giraffe Monkey

Eagle Tiger Chicken

Cat Human Chick

Duck Alligator Platypus

Lion Alligator Elephant

Starfish Tiger Penguin

Author Studies: Mo Willems

First graders will be working on author studies throughout the year.  They will explore the different styles of a variety of authors and start to learn the words to use when discussing the work of different authors.   The first author we studied this year was Mo Willems - always a favorite!  We learned that he was a stand up comedian and a writer for Sesame Street and Cartoon Network before he started writing and illustrating books.  We explored his websites:
Go Mo
Pigeon Presents

We also learned how to draw our very own pigeons using his directions.
How to Draw the Pigeon!

Pigeon drawn on the back of an old catalog card.

Bluestem and Rebecca Caudill Hall of Fame!

Wondering who has been reading the Bluestem and Rebecca Caudill Nominees?  Check out the hall of fame posters in the front of the library to see.

Illinois Children's Choice Awards

The Disney library is happy to be providing our students the opportunity to participate in the Illinois Children's Choice Awards.  These awards ask students to read a certain number of books from a list of nominated titles and then vote for their favorites.

The Monarch Award is open to students in Illinois in K-3 who have read at least 5 of the nominated titles.  I will be sharing these books with my second and third grade classes.

The Bluestem Award is open to students in Illinois in grades 3-5 who have read at least 4 of the nominated titles.  I am book talking these titles to my students and they will have the choice to read the books in time for the vote in March.  

   

Bluestem Nominees

Bluestem Nominee Spines

The Rebecca Caudill Award is open to students in Illinois in grades 4-8 who have read at least 3 of the nominated titles.  I have book talked these books to my 6th-8th graders and they will have the choice to read the books in time for the vote in February. 

Rebecca Caudill Nominees

Rebecca Caudill Nominee Spines

We have several copies of the books here in our library and they can be found at the public library as well.

The links to the individual award sites as well as past Disney winners are on our library wiki.

Library Wiki Bluestem, Caudill, Monarch Awards

Happy reading!

New books!

We are so thrilled to have had a shipment of books from Scholastic through funds donated by the PTA.  Thank you!  We are hard at work processing all of the new books and will have them on the shelves for checkout soon!

GRA: Optical Illusions

One of the students' favorite things we did with the book Duck! Rabbit! was explore optical illusions including the duck rabbit illusion on which the book was based.

Take a look at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences optical illusion page.

Dry But Important: Citations

Middle school students have been learning APA style citations at the request of their teachers.  They will be required to use APA style for an upcoming science project/paper.  Remember that you must cite EVERY source you use for a paper.

Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders have been practicing completing APA style citations and reference lists.  In the coming week(s) they will learn how to quote something that they are reading using an in-text citation.


To find resources related to citations please visit the Bibliography Tools page on the library website.

Dry But Important

I think many of the things that we do in the library are fun.  I definitely do not believe in the old-fashioned stereotype of the silent library where the librarian spends all day behind the desk shushing anyone who speaks.  Like any classroom, sometimes the library is quiet and sometimes a visitor should hear lots of excited voices talking about what they are learning.

Even though we do lots of really engaging interesting things, not everything is fun.  Sometimes, it's "dry."

A few weeks ago we worked with the 6th-8th graders on the Newbery Award as the 6th and 7th grade POD prepared for their CAC unit.  As we discussed some of the older Newbery winners the kids noticed that some of the book covers looked, for lack of a better word, boring.  I don't think there's really anything wrong with a kid saying a book is boring except that the word itself is a little boring, but I thought perhaps it was time to try a different word.

I explained that rather than saying a book is boring it might sound nicer to say that the book is a little bit dry.  It's like saying the book is not very interesting.

When I started grading their Newbery papers I smiled every time one of the students mentioned that a book looked dry (or was dry after reading a chapter.)  Dry did sound nicer than boring.

All of that to say that sometimes we have to do things in the library that are not that interesting, but are important.  The magazine The Week has a small column called "Boring But Important" so this is a nod to that.  Dry, but important.  

Next up: what is dry but important in the library? I would say middle school students are working on it right now: citations.

GRA: It's Not Fair

The second graders read this fabulous selection during their "tables" week (we take turns in the computer lab) and created their own versions of what's not fair in little paper booklets.  They chose either "Fall" or "Halloween" as their theme and then picked nouns to use in their book.  They wrote "It's not fair that..." from the point of view of whatever nouns they picked.

GRA: Exclamation Mark continued...

Third graders made individual exclamation mark mini-posters.  They wrote exclamations of their own, exclaimed what they were good at, and shared how they would make their marks on the world.  Their posters did a great job of expressing who they are.