News From the Library--January 18, 2010

There are Bookworms in the Library!

This week we started our very popular Library Book Clubs for grades 1-4. In first and second grade, students can be in the Bookworm Club and choose books from our beginning reader section. After reading the entire book, they come in and read their favorite page to me. For each book, they receive a sticker and after every six books a small prize. An official personalized bookmark is given with the first book read. This is one of my favorite parts of the year as I watch those beginning readers blossom.

Third graders move up to more difficult books in the Red Dot Book Club and can do a variety of projects based on their book choice. Book reports, multimedia slide shows, and video book reviews are among the projects. After each project is completed they receive a small prize.

Fourth graders love the Mystery Book club and can read any mystery in our Library. They also have a number of options for book projects and receive a prize for each completed one.

Watch for video book reviews on this blog in the near future!

Fifth and Sixth graders don't have a club but participate in the county-wide Battle of the Books in April.

The goal for all the clubs is to encourage reading for pleasure and fluency and students are guided to books that are at or just slightly above their independent reading level. Above all, we want to make reading fun! That's the number one rule for all the clubs.

Also in the Library this week...

Kindergarten--We can't get enough of Tacky the Penguin and this week we read Tacky Goes to Camp by Helen Lester. In this rollicking story of the penguins at camp, once again Tacky saves the day--this time with his love of 'smores. He is an odd bird, be we all agree, a nice bird to have around.

Fifth and Sixth Graders worked on website evaluation using websites I have chosen as examples of good or bad in relation to whether or not they are reliable sources of information. After seeing a presentation about how to evaluate a website for accurancy, currancy, and objectivity they could choose from several on our Skills Blog and they wrote written evaluations of those sites. If you'd like to look at the lesson on the Skills Blog scroll down to the one entitled "When in doubt, doubt!"


Hope you are enjoying the Martin Luther King holiday this week!

News From The Library--January 16, 2009

Happy Bookworms!

Book Clubs Have Started in the Library!

This week our ever popular Library Book Clubs have started and already we have some enthusiastic members! Grades 1-4 have special clubs and grades 5 and 6 will have the chance to do blog reviews this year.

The most important rule for all the clubs is to have fun reading! Books are chosen at a student’s independent reading level so that reading for the Book Clubs is a pleasurable and relaxing experience. This also builds confidence and fluency as the children have the opportunity to practice the reading skills they have learned in the classroom.

Each grade level has a club and the “rules for membership” vary. Personalized bookmarks are given to members after they have read and reported on their first book. Following is a brief summary of the clubs. If you have any questions, please feel free to stop by the Library or email me. We’re off to a great start!

Grades 1 and 2 are the Bookworm Club. Members read books from our Easy and Beginning Reader section. After taking the book home, or keeping it in their desk at school, and reading the entire book, members make an appointment with Mrs. Pedersen to read their favorite page either before school, at any recess, after school, or during their library time. This year I’ll record their reading in a podcast format if they’d like so we can track their fluency improvement. Each time a book is finished it is entered on their “official” log and a sticker is awarded. After each 6 books are read, members can choose a special prize.

Grade 3 is the Red Dot Book Club, so named for the red dots on the spines of many books in our collection that are especially chosen for readers who are ready to read chapter books. After reading a “red dot book,” members write a book report or a do a multimedia project using their laptop and submit it to Mrs. Pedersen. After completing a book report or a project, members can choose a special prize.

Grade 4 is the Mystery Book Club and members choose from the wide array of mysteries in our Library. Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books are among the all time favorites for this club. To report on their books, members have several options. One is to write a book report or do a multimedia project on their laptop and turn it in to Mrs. Pedersen. One option (and one we are very excited about!) is to record a video report to be posted on our blog, Voices From the Inglenook. Students will use our stuffed animal dolphin as their avatar—named Dectective McDolphin for the club—or they can dress in one of our two Detective McDolphin costumes and perform their report. After completing a project, members can choose a special prize.

Grades 5 and 6 has an individualized book club in which students can read a particular genre or author and do a video review for our blog. Also, many of our 5th and 6th graders are participating in Battle of the Books.

Book Clubs are one of my favorite parts of being a librarian at Cold Spring! It’s such a joy to see students excited about reading.

Fifth and Sixth Grade--This week we began our unit on Website Evaluation entitled "When in Doubt, Doubt!" After viewing a Keynote, we had a discussion about what to look for in a good website including its authority, currency, purpose, and objectivity. In the next few weeks student will have a change to evalute actual website.

News From The Library-January 14, 2008

When In Doubt, Doubt!

How do you know if a website in reliable? With the enormous amount of information available to all of us through the Internet, the skill of evaluating websites is critical. This week Fifth and Sixth graders worked on part one of our lesson in website evaluation called "When In Doubt, Doubt!" First students viewed a Keynote presentation that gave them "markers" to use when looking at a website--the most important of these being authority and accuracy, currency, and objectivity. Using their laptops and our research blog as a starting point, students reviewed two websites with me and discovered the difference between one that looked okay but wasn't one you would want to use for research, and one that had all the hallmarks of a site that was valuable. If you want to see the lesson and the websites for yourself, go to our Skills Blog and scroll down to the week one lesson with all the question marks entitled "When in Doubt, Doubt!" Next week they will evaluation sites on their own.

Also in the Library this week....


Kindergarten--What happens when all of Bear's friends want to have a party in his lair while he's hibernating? Karma Wilson's charming story, Bear Snores On, delighted the kindergarteners this week with its rhyming text and gorgeous illustrations. Before reading the story I showed them a Keynote presentation on hibernation and they chose where they would like to hibernate. Sleeping bags were certainly preferred!


This was Book Club launch week! Students in grades 1-6 were introduced to their respective Book Clubs. These are voluntary books clubs and the emphasis is on reading for pleasure. I've added a technology component to each club this year and we're already looking forward to some multimedia projects! Using Garage Band, I'm recording the Bookworms each month so they can hear how their fluency improves. If you'd like more information about the clubs please go to the Cold Spring School Library Website and click on BookClubs.

News From the Library--January 22, 2007

It was a busy week in the Library with lots of new Book Club members in both the Bookworm Club and the Red Dot Club. We also had some great sessions in fourth and sixth grade learning how to research with our new Encyclopedia Britannica Online and how to evaluate web sites.

Kindergarten--It was cold this week in Santa Barbara and a lot of us were imagining what it would be like if it snowed. We're not used to those chilly, chilly temperatures! Kindergarteners loved hearing Steven Kellogg's The Missing Mitten Mystery and trying to figure out what happened to Annie's mitten. Was a mouse using it as a sleeping bag? Could she plant her remaining mitten and grow a mitten tree? In the end, the mystery is solved in a "heart-warming" way as her mitten turns up as the heart of the snowman she had built.

First Grade--Almost all of us have heard the story of Jack and the Beanstalk but Steven Kellogg's version is by far one of our favorites. The illustrations are wonderfully detailed and add great dimension to his rollicking text. I'm not sure who had more fun--me reading it or the children listening to it. This is the beginning of a unit for first graders on what has been called "essential children's literature" and in the coming weeks we'll discuss what makes a story a classic and read some of the best examples. In our high tech world of today we sometimes forget what makes a classic story and Jack and the Beanstalk is a stellar example.

Second Grade--On the surface, David Shannon's story, A Bad Case of Stripes, is a funny tale of a girl who finds herself changing in the blink of a eye to correspond to what those around her say. The illustrations, with their amazing color and sense of humor, add to the dramatic rhythm of the story. But underneath the story is the gentle reminder that we should all be ourselves, most especially if we want to eat lima beans when none of our friends do.

Third Grade--We continued our multi-cultural exploration of Cinderella stories with The Irish Cinderlad by Shirley Climo. This one really turns the story on end by having the main character an Irish goatherd with very big feet. The fairy godmother turns out to be a speckled bull and the ball is not a dance but a dragon slaying!! There's no glass slipper and the princess not the prince does the searching with a big black boot. But of course, she finds her "Cinderlad" and they live happily ever after. We had fun finding the similarities and differences in the plot and third graders are getting a clear understanding of this literary element.

Fourth Grade--Fourth graders were introduced to our new Encyclopedia Britannica Online and learned how to sign in on any computer and then research a topic in the appropriate encyclopedia, in journals and magazines, and in the websites that are vetted and linked to the encyclopedia.

Fifth Grade--This week we played our very low-tech version of Library Jeopardy! and had a lot of fun. (Sometimes it's nice to take a break from those laptops much as we all love them) Students break into two teams and each team member chooses a category. I give the answers to a question relating to our Library. This has become a really fun way to learn some of the....how shall I put this....more boring aspects of library skills instruction. In one group the boys had a healthy lead only to be tempted by a "daily double" and betting all their points. They lost everything on this question. Can you do it? The answer is: The first name of the man who invented the numbering system for non-fiction books. So the question would be.....(see the end of the post for the answer)

Sixth Grade--Using our Cold Spring School Library Skills Blog sixth graders went through the first part of the lesson on Web Site Evaluation. After reviewing the criteria for evaluation-- currency, accuracy, authority, and purpose--we evaluated two websites as a group. Next week students will have a chance to put their critical thinking skills to use and evaluate websites on their own. If you'd like to look at the lessons, just follow the link to the Skills Blog and look for the lesson entitled, "When in Doubt.....Doubt."

Until next week.....

Oh, yes....the Jeopardy answer.....the correct question would be: What is Melvyl?