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 28, 2008

(please press play)

Our First Video Book Review Of The Year!

We are having lots of fun in our book clubs this year and one of the choices for students in grades 3-6 is to film a video book review of the book they've read. Georgia in fourth grade was our first brave video blogger! Students are given a "script" to fill out and after practicing we film using Olive, our Library Cat as an avatar. This is to practice good internet safety as blogs can be seen all over the world and it adds a sort of whimsical touch to the review. Thank you Georgia!


In the Library this week:

Kindergarten--Not everyone progresses at the same rate and in the lovely book Ruby In Her OwnTime by Jonathan Emmett children are encouraged to understand that being a little slower isn't necessarily a bad thing. This book was a nominee last year for a California Young Reader Medal and it's easy to see why it was a favorite. The pastel illustrations are beautiful and underscore the gentle theme.

First Grade--Fee, Fi, Fo Fum......there's something so scary and funny about that ogre in Jack in the Beanstalk. First graders love Steven Kellogg's version of this classic fairy tale with its fantastic illustrations. Once again I was amazed at their rapt attention to a story many had heard several times before. There is something about those classic fairy tales that remains compelling for generation after generation.

Second Grade--David Shannon is one of my favorite authors because he has such a subtle way of imparting a valuable lesson. A Bad Case of Stripes is one of the best and as the children watch how Camilla Cream tries desperately to be what others want her to be with a disastrous outcome, they are ready to cheer her return to being herself--even if some people still think she's a little weird for loving lima beans!

Third Grade--It was off to the Third Grade Library Skills Blog again and this week students went to the World Book Online Encyclopedia to do research for their project. They took notes on their topic and I will put these away for a few weeks before we return to the project. I do this so they will have to be able to read their own notes and to encourage their use of original thoughts when writing. We'll be using Comic Life for our projects and to further encourage originality, they will become their topic!!

Fourth Grade--Atlases can be a lot of fun--great for imagining the places you can go. Using our United States Atlases this week students learned how to navigate an atlas, find interesting and valuable information, and best of all, how to use the index and the letter and number coordinates on a map to find a specific location.

Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade--Continuing with our lesson on website evaluation, fifth and sixth graders evaluated two websites on their own this week using the criteria we discussed last week. One of the favorites sites was "Save the Northwest Tree Octopus." Hmmm....common sense came in handy with this one! If you'd like to see all the sites we evaluated, please go to the Cold Spring Library Skills Blog, scroll down to the lesson "When in Doubt, Doubt!" and
click on the links for Week 2.

News From The Library--January 21, 2008

Martin's Big Words

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King and although we aren't in school today I had the chance last week to share a beautiful and moving picture book with the fourth graders entitled Martin's Big Words. Written by Doreen Rappaport and illustrated with incredible collages by Bryan Collier, this is a powerful and poetic history of Dr. King and how his message of non-violence and the worth of all human beings was expressed through his use of words. It gave us a chance to discuss metaphor in both visual and print and to trace the trajectory of Dr. King's message. We also had one of those wonderful "teachable moments" in which our access to the internet deepened and enhanced our study. One of the illustrations in the book contains four candles and in the illustrator's notes it tells that they are symbols of the four girls who were killed in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombings. One student asked for more information about the incident and within minutes the two of us used my laptop, found a reliable website, and got more information.

Also in the Library this week....

Kindergarten-We started out this week by closing our eyes and imagining what it would be like if at recess we went outside and the entire playground was covered in snow! Snowmen were imagined. Snowboarding fun, skiing, ice skating, snowball fights and snow angels were enthusiastic ideas. Then we read Louise Ehlert's charming book Snowballs. The rhythm of the story and the detailed collage illustrations gave us lots of chances to practice our skills of observation and sequencing.

First Grade--What would happen if a kind hearted hunter decided to share his cabin on a cold snowy night with a hare, a fox, and a bear? Could they all trust each other? In Tilde Michels's poetic story Who's That Knocking At My Door? they do make it through the night but one by one sneak out in the morning so as not to tempt fate. We had a nice discussion of harmony and tolerance as well as enjoying the rhyming story and lovely illustrations by Reinhard Michi.

Second Grade--"You're too small." This is a remark that second graders are all too familiar with and in Margery Cuyler's book The Biggest Best Snowman, little Nell finally proves that with the help of her animal friends she can build an amazing snowman, big enough to impress Big Momma, Big Lizzie, and Big Sarah.

Third Grade--Third graders brought their laptops to the Library this week to begin a 3 part lesson on research. This week I introduced them to their very own Third Grade Library Skills Blog and they bookmarked it and made a folder on their desktop for library work. Next week they will use the blog to get to a link to do research and the following week present their research using their laptops and Comic Life.

Fourth Grade--see opening post

Fifth Grade--We started our two part lesson on Website Evaluation called "When in Doubt, Doubt!" and after seeing a Keynote presentation about website evaluation, they went to their Library Skills Blog and together we evaluated two websites using the criteria presented in the Keynote--accuracy and authority, objectivity, and currency. Next week they will evaluate websites on their own. This skill--critically evaluating information--is so important for students to master and we will take time to practice it often in the Library.

Sixth Graders--I missed them this week as they had a makeup Art lesson.

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--October 22, 2007

Balancing Books and Laptops

It's very tempting when doing research to simply "google it" but this week in the library third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders found that when doing their spider research, a book was the best source of detailed information. After each team of students picked the name of a spider out of a hat, we started our research with our online encyclopedia. Some students found the answers to their research questions quickly, but others realized that the encyclopedia article was simply too general. The books about individual spiders that we have in our collection provided not only detailed information but had incredible illustrations and photographs as well. At the end of our hour, student agreed that the books were a better source for this kind of information and that they could trust that the information was accurate.

Just to make a final point I "googled" tarantula and showed the students that there were 1,390,000 web sites returned!!! Although the internet is a fantastic resource, it requires careful evaluation and quite a bit of time and patience to find the same information that was in the books. One of my goals this year is to provide students with a balance between books and computers and to help them understand that each "venue" of information has its unique and valuable characteristics.

Also in the Library this week...

Kindergarten--Kindergarteners are on the way to the pumpkin patch tomorrow so to get read ready we read Big Pumpkin, by Erica Silverman and S.D. Schindler. This delightful tale reads a little like This is the House That Jack Built, only this time it's a witch, a ghost, a goblin, a vampire, a mummy and a little bat all trying to get a huge pumpkin off the vine in order to make pumpkin pie. Great messages here too....the value of team work and the smallest might be the one with the solution to a large problem!

First Grade--We all remember the song "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." In Lucille Colandro's and Jared D. Lee's There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat the progression goes from a bat, to an owl, a cat, a ghost, a goblin, some bones, and a wizard until finally she shouts "Trick or Treat!" and ends with a burp! This delighted the first graders as you can well imagine.

Second Grade--One of my personal favorites for reading at Halloween is A Job for Wittilda, Caralyn Buehner and Mark Buehner's charming tale of a witch who has so many cats to feed she has to find a job. The perfect one? Delivering pizzas on her broom. The story is complemented with wonderful illustrations and the chance to find a spider on every page. There's even a little sub-story going on with a cat chasing a mouse at the bottom of each page. This book is always a hit with this age group and I never get tired of reading it.

Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth graders---see opening post.

Until next week.....

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?

News From the Library--December 3

How Good is That Website?

This week fifth graders had a chance to put their critical thinking skills to use as we delved into what makes a good website. Our challenge is to sort through the enormous amount of information available on the internet and decide what is accurate, authoritative, and non-biased--especially if the information is being used for research purposes. Our lesson started with my telling the students 5 facts about myself (in an authoritative voice) and they had to determine from their prior and common knowledge which of the 5 facts were true and which were not. For example, I told them I love working with computers. Obviously true. Then I said my wedding anniversary was on April 31. After realizing that there are only 30 days in April, they concluded that that statement was untrue. Next we went to the Cold Spring School Library Skills Blog. After visiting the first site on the blog lesson, we evaluated it using a worksheet with specific criteria. We checked the domain type, the author, the author's credentials, the copyright date, the last update date, and looked for advertisements or commercials. If you go to the Skills blog, you'll see that the two sites we studied were both about the planets but their "goodness" was quite different. Next week, on their own, students will evaluate several sites listed in part 2 of the lesson. Sixth graders will do this lesson after the first of the year (there were several holiday conflicts for them this week and the next.)

I feel very strongly that becoming "information literate" is a critical skill in the world in which our children are today and will be in the future. We'll keep working on it during the school year.

Kindergarten--In Kitten's First Full Moon, a Caldecott Award winning book by Kevin Henkes, we not only enjoyed the story of a kitten mistaking the moon for a bowl of milk, but we studied how Mr. Henkes made the kitten's expressions go from sad, to curious, to happy with just the change of a line. These wonderfully expressive pictures are done with the simplicity of a true artist and it was fun for the children to see how they mirror the spare, yet eloquent text.

First Grade--In Rosemary Wells' book, Shy Charles, a quiet mouse resists all his parents efforts to make him more outgoing. From ballet to football, they try their best to bring him out of his shell, only to have Charles remain his shy self. But when the chips are down, and he needs to rise to the occasion, Charles comports himself with great success. This is a lovely story that children can relate to, especially its message that not everyone is outgoing but that doesn't mean they aren't competent and successful.

Second Grade--Second graders met Strega Nona this week in Tomie dePaola's classic story of the Italian "grandmother witch" who takes care of the town's needs. After hiring some help in the form of Big Anthony she leaves town with the admonition not to use the magic pasta pot. Students loved the humor of what happens when (of course) Anthony disobeys and after finishing the story, they understand the phrase "let the punishment fit the crime." Poor (fat) Anthony!

Third Grade--We had fun researching famous people using the World Book Encyclopedia. After a review of how to use guide words, they chose names out of the hat and then busily found their person in the encyclopedia and then wrote three facts about their person. Shoeless Joe Jackson was one of our favorites!

Fourth Grade--When fourth graders came into the library an image of Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa was projected on the screen. We began our lesson by telling what we knew about this famous painting but no one had heard about the strange thing that happened to her in the early 1900's. The Stolen Smile by J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley is the true story of how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911 and wasn't discovered again for 28 months in the possession of an Italian man who felt she should reside in Italy. Beautiful illustrations and the first person narrative of the thief made this a very enjoyable tale.

Fifth Grade--see first posting.

Sixth Grade--After reviewing how our atlases are organized, sixth graders had a good time researching several facts about any state other than our own. We had quite a variety of interests ranging from Hawaii to Massachusetts. Do you know that the motto of the state of Hawaii is: Ua mau ke ea o ka aina I ka pono? Better yet, can you say it?

Until next week....(we're getting reading for holiday stories....)

~Mrs. Pedersen