"Well, dogbite my buttons!"

"Well, dogbite my buttons!"

Third graders immensely enjoyed hearing Diane Stanley's two books, and Raising Sweetness and Saving Sweetness over the past two weeks. The books are a hoot to read aloud as they are peppered with hilarious similes and metaphors that spring like water from the mouth of the sheriff of Possum Trot who narrates the stories. We had lots of fun counting all the figures of speech as well as chuckling over the irony of the story. Our favorite saying of all was "Dogbite my buttons!" uttered by the sheriff after learning the "applebet" has 26 letters.

Also in the Library this week...


Kindergarten--Oliver, the cat, wants to stay out all night and play in the garden and his owner decides, after calling him in over and over, that he can do just that. Night Cat by Margaret Beames and Sue Hitchcock tells how Oliver eventually changes his mind when the garden gets spookier and spookier, and finally after it begins raining he wails to come inside. When his owner lets him in, he tries to convince himself that he's only doing it for her. Spoken like a true cat!

First Grade--Do you ever wonder what your dog does after you go to sleep at night? In The Night I Followed the Dog by Nina Laden we find that one dog has a whole other life---one that surprises his owner. This delightful story is has wonderful illustrations and the text itself has illustrated words. This is one of our favorite books!

Second Grade--Pigasso paints in an unusual manner and his friend Mootisse paints in his own way as well. When the two meet and become friends all seems well until they begin to criticize each other's painting style. What transpires is the building of a fence between their two houses but in the end the fence itself becomes a work of art that brings them back together. When Pigasso Meets Mootisse also by Nina Laden is a wonderful way to introduce the work of Picasso and Matisse to young children, but it also sends a message about how to express an opinion and that friends can be very different and still get along.

Third Grade--see opening post

Fourth Grade--With great excitement we wrote the first drafts of our own tall tales this week. Mr. Orr's class penned "Harold, the Hardware Hero" which takes place in Honolulu and Mrs. Edwards' class created "Carlitos, the Colossal Cook" set in New Mexico and complete with an enormous recipe at the end. Next week we'll start to put illustrations to our stories and then they will be created using iPhoto and sent off to be hardbound. These books will be cataloged and be part of our collection, and students will be able to check them out for years to come!

Fifth Grade--Ah, the wonders (and frustrations) of technology.....fifth graders were slated to begin their blog research project this week but after our windstorm last week, our Internet connection was, to put it mildly, on the "cranky" side. Repairs were made Friday, so we will begin next week. I demonstrated what the project would entail and we did have the opportunity once again to discuss ethical use of blogging and email. Our rule of thumb: Don't ever put anything in an email or a blog post that you wouldn't want your mother to read on the front page of the newspaper!

Sixth Grade-This was a "catch up week" and Ms. Gradias' class finished their commenting on the Research Blog. Ms. Zannon's class finished their posts and will do their commenting next week and that will complete the project. If you'd like to see the project so far, go to The Research Blog. I'll summarize the project and its goals next week. If you are a member of blogger.com, please feel free to leave comments if you'd like! (I made this blog closed to anonymous comments for safety reasons)

Until next week....