Friday, October 23, 2009

News From the Library--October 26, 2009

BibMe!


This week fifth and sixth graders used their "book dissections" from last week to enter information into an incredible time-saving web based applications called BibMe. (Where was this at 3 A.M. when I was typing bibliographies on a manual typewriter in the late sixties!) This program allows students to enter the information about books used in a report, then formats it into a bibliography that can be downloaded to Microsoft Word (if you register). All for free! It also has formats for all other types of media you might use in a report. We didn't register here in the Library but students practiced entering data and watching the bibliography appear. It even has a feature whereby you can enter a title, author, and/or ISBN number and it will find all the information about the book and then format it for you! I did, however, have students use the manual entry mode so they would know how to do that if the book couldn't be found using the auto mode. They actually enjoyed doing this but I must say they aren't nearly as impressed with this as I am. Maybe I should have made them hand write those bibliographies first???

Also in the Library this week...

Kindergarten--Kindergarten missed Library this week because of the Move-A-Thon.

First Grade--Two escaped convicts try to hide in a haunted house in Erica Silverman's fun story The Halloween House. As well as being delightful to read, it is a counting story and students loved joining in as we counted down from ten to none.

Second Grade--What can you do when your family wants to keep making your Halloween costume every year? In Susan Wojciechowski's book The Best Halloween of All, Ben takes us through a "photo" album of his past six Halloweens from being a clown to a bunch of grapes. He knows his family means well, but this year is going to be different as he designs and makes his own costume--not as elaborate as in past years--but best of all, his very own creation.

Third Grade--We had fun this week with a new Halloween book, Miss Smith and the Haunted Library by Michael Garland. I made a "book trailer" using animoto to introduce the book and then we read it. It was so much fun finding all the characters from other stories--the Headless Horseman, Captain Hook, the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk, to name just a few. The illustrations are fantastic and there is even a little chart at the end explaining where all the characters came from.

Here's the book trailer:



We're planning to use animoto in the spring when students do projects for their book clubs.

Fourth Grade--Another new book this year is Halloween Night by Marjorie Dennis Murray and illustrated by Brandon Dorman. A take off on the Night Before Christmas this book delighted fourth graders with its creepy inhabitants and rhyming verse. And again, the illustrations are magnificent.

Fifth and Sixth Grade--see opening post.



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