News From The Library--Feb 1, 2010

Clementine's Letter by Sara Pennypacker

A Book Review by Gabriela & Olive

Also in the Library this week...

Kindergarten---A cat building a nest? How can that be? In The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend, Jack the Cat has a hankering for omelettes. To lure a chicken to the barn he builds a delightful nest complete with pillows, a welcome mat, and colored lights. He gets his chicken all right but also a French speaking duck and a goose from the South! They all lay eggs and they all fight for the nest until he suggests they move to the next farm. What's left? Three lovely eggs. Three lovely omelettes, Jack thinks. But when the eggs hatch instead he finds himself the surrogate mother to three baby birds and he decides it was the perfect nest after all. Kindergarteners love the wonderful illustrations by John Manders making this the perfect read aloud for this age group.

First Grade--Owen wants to send a hug to his granny through the mail. Not a drawing of a hug but a real hug. The Giant Hug by Sandra Horning is a delightful story that also shows all the steps involved in mailing something from one side of the country to the other. And Owen's granny is so happy with her hug she sends a kiss back! Students love to imagine the story happening all over again in the opposite direction.

Second Grade--As part of our participation in the ADL program "No Place for Hate" I've purchased some new books for our collection. This week second graders heard Bullies Never Win by Margery Cuyler. This was the perfect book for this age group as they followed the story of how a little girl finally stood up for herself. I was amazed at how absolutely silent they were while I read the story. This was, I could tell, a subject they could all relate to. The message in the book was simple and really stressed how to handle a bully without "sinking" to their level. A great addition to our collection.

Third Grade--Teaching safe practices on the internet is so very important today and I feel we need to start as early as possible. Third graders discussed how to be safe when using the internet and then watched an excellent DVD called Faux Paws, Adventures on the Internet. This appealing video really stressed in simple terms how important it is not to reveal personal information on the internet and how to seek help from adults when encountering something that doesn't seem right. It's a lesson that will be repeated many times in our curriculum and this was a great start.

Fourth Grade, Fifth, and Sixth Grade--This coming Wednesday, Feb 3, will be our first official Battle of the Books lunchtime practice session. Students in grades 4-6 were reminded again how to join our Battle Team and watched a presentation about the Battle of the Book which will be held at the Santa Barbara County Schools Auditorium on April 15.

Sixth Graders also learned how to use Wonder Wheel on google. This is a great way to focus your searches on google. After you type in your subject and get your first results, you can click on the link that says "Show Options." Then click on Wonder Wheel and you get a graphic organization of many sub topics under your main topic. Students were also shown how to limit their searches to specific domains, especially .org, .gov, or .edu. This helps them narrow down results to websites that most likely will contain accurate information and be free of bias. To do this, type in your subject, then site:(domain you want). An example of this type of search would be: dolphins site:edu

News From The Library--April 28, 2008

Aliens Don't Wear Braces
by Debbie Dadey

A Book Review by Taylor and Olive

Also in the Library this week....

Kindergarten--Mr. McGreely decided to plant a garden this year with yummy vegetables but 3 little bunnies have a different idea. Listening to Candace Fleming's Muncha, Muncha, Muncha! made kindergarteners giggle with delight as the bunnies kept getting into the garden despite Mr. McGreely's best efforts. We learned many prepositions as the bunnies went under, over, and through to get to those vegetables. And best of all, in the end we learned the power of sharing.

First Grade--First graders were researchers this week as they prepare to do their animal reports. With the help of my new document camera (thank you, Parent Club!) I showed students the different parts of non-fiction book and how to locate specific information. After that, students chose from our great collection of animal books.

Second Grade & Third Grade--We had fun this week reviewing different types of reference books--encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs, dictionaries, and thesauruses. First we used the document camera to look at each book. Then we played "Name That Book" using a Keynote with clues about the different books. And finally, each student was given a scenario of a research problem and had to decide in which book could they find the answer.

Fourth Grade--We continued to work on our Tall Tales this week. Next week, students will be illustrators and we continue to put together our Keynotes.

Fifth Grade--We played a rousing game of Library Jeopardy this week.

Sixth Grade--Sixth graders wrote their rough drafts of their blog postings on their god or goddess. In a few weeks, we'll post their research along with a picture of the ceramic plate they made in art.

Also, on Monday our Cold Spring Team participated in the Santa Barbara County Battle of the Books. Congratulations to our Team: Makala, Katie, Siena, Baylor, and Lauren. These great readers read as many as 30 books, passed a test, and practiced on their lunch hours in order to represent our school. A great time was had by all!

News From The Library--September 17,2007

Do You Remember What Book Got You Hooked?

This summer I got an email about a program called First Book. First Book is a nonprofit organization with a single mission: to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books. They provide an ongoing supply of new books to children participating in community-based mentoring, tutoring, and family literacy programs.

This summer First Book was celebrating its 50 millionth book given to children in need. They put out a survey asking people to remember that one book that got them hooked on reading as a child and then they published a list of the top 50 books.

It’s available at : http://www2.firstbook.org/whatbook/top50.php

It’s really fun to look over this list….kind of like a trip down memory lane…..and I’m pleased to say that we have all those books in our Library today.

For more information about the valuable First Book Program, please visit their website at: http://www.firstbook.org/


And yes…it was Nancy Drew that got me hooked!!


In the Library this week, we had our first week of regular classes (except for Kindergarten which will start the week of Sept. 24). After going over the library rules, how to check out and return books, we were off to a great start. One change this year…..we’re going to try this out….each grade can check out as many books as their grade! Kindergarten and first grade will both have one book for one week, and all the other grades can check out the corresponding number of books to their grade for two weeks.


Here’s what went on this week in each class….


First Grade—As this was our very first meeting we got reacquainted with how the library works and how to find and check out books. It was great to see all the students again and hear how much they read and traveled over the summer!

Second Grade—The students at Sunrise Elementary school have a new librarian this year in Carmen Agra Dreedy’s The Library Dragon and watch out…..she’s really a dragon when it comes to protecting those library books. Nothing can be checked out, nothing can be touched until one little girl stumbles into the library and transforms the “dragon” into a wonderful librarian. After all, the library is for the children, but we can’t forget there’s still a little dragon in all librarians when it comes to protecting the books. This was a fun way to remind the students about book care practices and that taking care of the books means that they will be there for everyone to use.

Third Grade—Last year I purchased a wonderful book entitled Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen. It’s the charming story of a lion who enters a library and has a little trouble following all the rules. When the librarian gets hurt, a rule must be broken, and the lion is the one who saves the day. Before we read the story, we had fun looking at a Keynote presentation I made on the two lions—Patience and Fortitude--that “guard” the entrance to the New York Public Library. They are featured in the illustrations in the book.

Fourth Grade—Our Librarian Won’t Tell Us Anything! is the humorous book by Toni Buzzeo about Mrs. Skorupski who won’t tell fourth graders where the books are in the library…..she makes them look it up for themselves in the online catalog!!! This was an introduction for fourth graders into how our catalog works and how to find books on their own. Using our projector, students had a chance to practice how the catalog works and then they were off looking up books on their own!

Fifth Grade--This week fifth graders heard The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter. First we used Google Earth and started at our own school library and traveled to Basra, Iraq. The difference between our locations was sobering. Then I presented a Keynote with some actual pictures of the Central Library of Basra which was destroyed during the invasion of Iraq in April of 2003.

This interesting picture book tells the true story of Alia Muhammad Baker who saved over 70% of the books in the Central Library of Iraq by removing them night after night in her car and hiding them in her house and the houses of friends. Even though the library was destroyed by bombs, Alia managed to save over 30,000 books.

Books "are more precious than mountains of gold" says Alia, and the message of this book is both the great importance of books in our lives and the terrible effects of war on everyone. A portion of the book's sales will go toward helping rebuild Basra's library and if you are interested in helping this worthy effort you can do so by contributing to a fund administered by the American Library Association. Make checks payable to ALA with "Basra Book Fund" on the memo line, and send them to International Relations Office, ALA, 50 E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611. (For more information, contact the ALA's International Relations Department at 1-800-545-2433 x 3201.)

Sixth Grade—Sixth graders were introduced the Battle of the Books Program this week. They saw a Keynote of a previous Battle and we discussed the list of 30 books that are this year’s Battle books. To access the list you can visit the County Schools website at: http://www.sbceo.org/~ims/botb/index.html

The Battle takes place in April 2008 so there’s lots of time to read as many of those books as possible!



Until next week……happy reading and I’m so glad we are Back to School!

Readers Do Battle!

Battle of the Books!

On Thursday, April 26, our Cold Spring Battle of the Books participants had a wonderful time celebrating their love of reading and their incredible knowledge and enthusiasm. Our Battle Team this year consisted of four fourth graders and one sixth grader. These avid readers began reading the list of 30 books as early as last summer. In January, they started meeting with Mrs. Pedersen on their lunch hours in the Library to prepare for the Battle. On the 26th, they went to the County School Auditorium to participate with hundreds of other children from all over Santa Barbara County. Each member of our team was on a team with 4 students from other schools. After four battles, the final battle took place after lunch. Contratualtions to all on our team for their dedication, great sportsmanship, and hard work.

Plans are already underway for next year's Battle! The list of books will be posted on the Library webpage and copies will be available in the Library. We're already looking forward to another successful Battle of the Books '08!

Also in the Library this week...

Kindergarten--Oh that wolf.....he wants to fatten up the chicken for his favorite meal, chicken stew, so he bakes and cooks and secretly delivers food to the chicken hoping to make her plump and delicious. In The Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza, the wolf finds out that he's been feeding a flock of baby chicks instead and he just doesn't have it in his heart to eat them!

First Grade--Poor Blabber Mouse! He just can't stop talking and he surely can't keep a secret. True Kelley writes a wonderfully funny story with a rather touching ending as Blabber's friends find a very loving way to make him lock up his secrets.

Second Grade and Third Grade--Rumor has it that there is some testing on the horizon, so for fun and review we played a rousing game of "Name That Book." Second and third graders really know their reference books now!

Fourth Grade--Hollister Ranch and Disneyland were too much competition for the Library this week. See you next week, fourth graders, and we'll work on the illustrations for your tall tales books.

Fifth and Sixth Grade--Because Thursday was Battle of the Books and I was a judge, fifth and sixth grade missed library this week.