Crescent Elementary

 We have a small pre-lit Christmas tree that we use as part of our holiday decorations in the media center. We  have made ornaments to go on that tree that tie in with the library. We took several old catalogs that are sent to our school, the ones that are used for ordering books. We cut out the small pictures that show the cover of the books, mounted those pictures on small pieces of styrofoam cut the size of those pictures, then trimmed the edges of the styrofoam with red ribbon trim. We used small paper clips to shape an ornament hook, poked that into the styrofoam and placed the ornaments on the tree. The children loved looking at them and many of them asked where they could find that book in our library.  

DraperElementary

Title: Santasaurus
grades: all
The students enjoyed this fun book about Christmas with dinosaurs.
Title : Polar Express
grades: all
We did this Christmas favorite as a book on tape. It was fun and the students enjoyed it  alot.
Title: A creature was Stirring
grade: all
This story was very fun. It was the story of the night before Christmas and all so a little boys events that happened on the night before
Christmas.
We also did some lessons.

We talked about the Arctic and Antarctica and did a slide show. The students enjoyed this a lot

Sprucewood

Title:  Pizza, Pigs & Poetry 

Author:  Jack Prelutsky

Grade:   4-6

During December we shared this book by Jack Prelutsky, which is also one of the Utah Beehive Nominees.  Jack Prelutsky shares many ideas on how to write poetry, including some of his own childhood experiences from which he gleaned ideas for his poems.  He offers tips, advice and secrets about writing and provides some fun exercises to help you get started on a poem.  The kids loved hearing the stories that his poems were based on.  If you are a poet, want to become a poet or just want to try to write a poem, you need to read this book. 

Altara's December Blog

Title: "Snowflake Bentley" By Jacqueline Briggs Martin

3-6th grades

This is a fascinating book about the life of one of the first men to photograph snowflakes. It received the Caldecott Medal in 1999. The pictures are wonderful. We paired it with "Snow Crystals", which is the photography book that has William Bentley's work in it. It's fun to look at these old photos of thousands of snowflakes. After reading the book we had paper and scissors out for those students who wanted to cut out a snowflake, which we now have hanging from our ceiling in the media center.

Title: "The Twelve Days of Christmas" By Hillary Knight

1-6th grades (We were just going to do this with the younger grades but decided to include the older grades as well)

This is just the traditional poem/song of the Twelve days of Christmas. While we read the book to the classes we had twelve students standing up in front with a sign that read "A Partridge in a pear tree", "two turtle doves, "three french hens, etc. While we read the book each of the students with the signs on had to do an action that went along with their sign. Partridge in a pear tree had to stand with their arms in a circle above their heads and had to say "Cheep" in a high voice when we read their part. After we read the book we had the whole class stand and sing the last verse with everyone doing all of the actions together. This was a blast, the students loved it.

***We loved the idea of Halloween jokes that one of the other schools did. We don't have any wall space in out media center so we typed up Christmas jokes and taped 3-4 of them on each of our tables.

Altara

I've seen jokes posted in the library, but Altara posted Christmas jokes on the tables in the library.  My personal favorite was: "What do you call Santa's anual barn dance?  A Ho, Ho, Ho Down!

~Susan Huff

Alta View Elementary

Title: The Black Book of Color
Author: Menena Cottin
The response from the students as this book was read was amazing to see! They sat so quiet as their imagination caused some of them to close their eyes. How would they describe colors they had never seen? Their descriptive imaginations blossomed!

Columbia Elementary

This month the PTA at Columbia hosted a bookfair at Barnes and Noble and had authors and an illustrator there.  Greg Newbold who illustrated the book "The Barnyard Night Before Christmas" was the illustrator so we read his book that week.  It is a version of the Night Before Christmas and the kids loved it. Cute story and the pictures are great.  The author of the book is Beth Terrill.

November Blog from Crescent

November Pair and share:

We asked the children what they liked most about Thanksgiving and then asked them how they would feel if there was no Thanksgiving. We explained to them that if it had not been for the courage and determination of Sarah Hale we might not have Thanksgiving. We gave a short biography of  Sarah Hale and then discussed with the children how the “pen can be mightier than the sword” and what that meant. We read the book “Thank you Sarah: the woman who saved Thanksgiving.”  We talked with the children  about how one person can make a difference and then let them share some of their thoughts and ideas.  Then we read “Mr. Lincoln’s whiskers” to them. The children loved both of the books and were impressed by the fact that even a child can make a difference if they are determined enough to change things.

Sunrise Elementary

Book: Turk and Runk
Author: Lisa Wheeler
This is a hilarious Thanksgiving book about a turkey farm and one family of turkeys thinks that people come to the farm for reasons other than finding a turkey to Roast. The youngest turkey knows better, but no one ever listens to him until the end. It's our favorite and the kids really love it.
Book: I'm a Turkey
Author: Arnosky
This was a book that you could download the Author singing the words and it was very cute. The kids loved it and we also talked about how many turkeys are produced in utah every year. (answer 5 million)

Altara

Title: " Thank You, Sarah " by Laurie Halse Anderson
and
"One Is A Feast for Mouse" by Judy Cox
We have been teaching our third graders about the Dewey Decimal System and have been sharing books from each specific section with them. For Thanksgiving we chose to read a book from the 300's section called, "Thank You, Sarah". It is a story of how a lady named Sarah Hale saved Thanksgiving by writing letters and articles to politicians tp try to convince them that the whole country needed to have a day set aside to be thankful for all that we have. At that time, only those who lived in the New England States celebrated Thanksgiving. It took her thirty-eight years and thousands of letters before Thanksgiving was made a national holiday. In the year 1863 President Lincoln made it an official holiday.
We paired this non fiction book about Thanksgiving with a fiction book called, "One Is A Feast For Mouse, A Thanksgiving Tale". This book has great pictures for the kids and a fun tale about a mouse whose eyes are bigger than his stomach. The Kids loved reading this book and I think they were a little hungry after reading about all the good food!

Sprucewood

Title:  “ The Maze of Bones”  (39 Clues Series)                    

Author:  Rick Riordan

Grade Level:  4-6

 

We told a little bit about Grace Cahill, matriarch of the Cahills, who are the world’s most powerful family.  On her deathbed she changes her will, leaving her descendents an impossible decision.  39 clues are hidden around the world that can reveal the family’s secret, but no one has been able to assemble them.  The clues race is on!  We read the first short chapter and the kids were mesmerized…can’t wait to get book #1!

 

Title:  “Dirt On My Shirt”

Author:  Jeff Foxworthy

Grade Level:  All

 

We highlighted a couple of the books from our book fair, including this one.  It is filled with hilarious poems and really cute art.  The kids really enjoyed it and wanted me to keep reading more of the poems.

Draper Elementary

Title: I Am Invited To A Party.
Kindergarten
The students loved this book. They thought it was funny how they just kept adding the clothes on top of the other party clothes.

Title: Marsupial Sue
Author: John Lithgow
all grades
This book was alot of fun. It has the CD with it. The book went along with our theme:Where in the World. We went to Australia this month and we talked about all the animals there. We talked about the animals that are marsupial.
We did lessons for first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grades.

Oak Hollow Elementary

Media Activity for November  2009

Recommended Read-a-louds for all grades

Title/Author: Thanksgiving in the White House by Gary Hines

We have been talking up our historical fiction picture books and this one lent itself perfectly to the holiday this month. 

For the youngest classes we simply read the story and talked about favorite holiday foods.  The older classes 3 – 6 got the history behind the story.  All classes knew that Abraham Lincoln was our 16^th president!! However, none of them knew that it was Abe who made Thanksgiving a national holiday amidst the dark times of the Civil War.  The back of the book gives details of the president’s life and also the Civil War.  5th and 6^th graders are most interested in this.  Everyone appreciated the antics of the president’s youngest son, Tad.  After reading the story we read the page in the back of the book that tells “about the story” and how young Tad once hitched up his pet goats to a chair and ran them through the White House, upsetting a gathering of dignified ladies.  

Oak Hollow Elementary

 

FW: Willow Springs Elementary

For Veterans' Day we chose for the upper grades the book, America's White Table. This books tells about honoring our veterans. We placed on our door a poster that students could write the names of relatives that were veterans. As a heading we said that these are veterans of Willow Springs' students. The students were very interested in signing the names of their relatives. Most noted under the name the branch of service for that relative. Some even put several names and noted their relationship- grandpa, uncle, etc.

Draper Elementary

Our theme for the year is Book A Trip. Each month in the media center we are going to take a trip. This month we went to Asia. We display the books about Asia.On the white board we display pictures of the people, animals, plants, resources found in the country. We also show a short slide show on the country. We also have a picture of a famous landmark and the students guess where that landmark is located and write there answer down on a piece of paper and put it in a jar and on monday morning we draw a name out of the jar who's answer is correct and they come to the media center for a prize. The students are having alot of fun guessing where the landmarks are located.

Title: Jerry Seinfeld Halloween
The students enjoy this book a lot.

We have being doing lessons on book care.

Oak Hollow Elementary

Recommended Read-a-louds

            Home Run the story of Babe Ruth by Burleigh –This book offers a look at this famous athlete from the perspective of a boy as well as his fans.  There are vintage baseball cards on every page that give many details about Babe Ruth's many accomplishments.  If reads almost like a poem so I read it slowly and the classes loved each page. This one is also beautifully illustrated with oil paintings by Mike Wimmer that I point this out before I get into the story. 

            Henry's Freedom Box by Levine -  this story is based on a true story of how a Virginia slave escaped to freedom by shipping himself to Philadelphia in  a wooden crate in 1849.

Pair & Share Topic: Historical Fiction

We have many wonderful historical fiction picture books in our collection.  Students are required to do reports on historical fiction chapter books and they don't always get to appreciate the picture books that are just as educational.  We show several and tell a bit about each.  We chose some to read the following week.  There is a page in each book with background for the story and I discussed this before reading the book to the class. This turned out to be a great way to share the books over a 2 week period. we have books about:

·         the war of 1812 – Sisters of Scitiate Light by Krensky

·         Brooker T. Washington – More than anything Else by Bradby

·         The Oregon Trail – Wagons West! By Roy

·         Plains Indian culture/Chief Crazy Horse – Crazy Horse's Vision by Bruchac

·         The Revolutionary War – John, Paul, George & Ben by Lane Smith

·         Blizzard of 1888 – Terrible Storm by Carol Otis Hurst

·         The Civil War – Pink and Say by Polacco

·         WWII – The Unbreakable Code by Hunter and also The Butterfly by Polacco

·         Post WWII period – Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming (very uplifting !) 
Way to prove that Everybody books are REALLY for EVERYBODY!

Sprucewood

Title:                      “Goodnight Goon: a Petrifying Parody”    

Author:                    Michael Rex                                                                      

Grade Level:            All

Title:                      “Goodnight Moon”

Author:                    Margaret Wise Brown

Grade level:             All

We explained that a parody is when you take an author or work and imitate very closely the language & style in a new work or book.  Sometimes it can even take on a comic effect or can be exaggerated.  We read both of the above books to the kids and had them tell us which one they liked best.  We also discussed the similarities.  Most of the kids liked the newer book best and they especially enjoyed the pictures.      

Title:                      “Halloween”

Author:                   Jerry Seinfeld

Grade Level:          3-6

We use the CD and let it tell the story while we show the pictures.  We have done this every year since the book came out and the kids love to hear it over and over.  It is more fun for them to hear his actual voice…he is much more of a comedian than I!

Crescent Elementary

We had the library ghost visit our library throughout the month of October and leave clues for Halloween or mystery books we enjoy in our library.

        We started the month out by reading to our classes the book “The library Ghost” by Carole Boston Weatherford. We told our students that the library ghost would be visiting our library and leaving clues for them to find. The clues would give them hints about a particular book and if they could tell us the title of the book from the clues they would get a Halloween treat bag. We choose mystery books for the older grades such as “Dollhouse Murders” or “Wait till Helen Comes” and for the younger grades “Scary, Scary Halloween” or “Hallo-wiener.”

     The students had to work alone, they couldn’t ask anyone but they could use the computer and they had to give us there guess before they left the library. If someone guessed the title of the book we would choose another book and put out more clues for that book. We then displayed the book that had been guessed along with the clues, in hopes that it would spark some excitement to read that book. It worked!!  The kids seemed to really enjoy this.

 This sounds so FUN!  You guys are GREAT!

Altara

Title: "Sipping Spiders Through A Straw
Campfire Songs for Monsters"

Lyrics by Kelly Dipucchio
Pictures by Gris Grimly

We read and even sang some of the lyrics to these monster campfire songs to the 4th - 6th grades. We would read the title of the song and see if the kids could guess what tune it was sung too. For example, the song "My Delicious Frankenstein" was sung to the tune of "Oh, My Darling Clementine".The kids absolutely loved the song, "Do Your Guts Hang Low". We passed out copies of the words to the song and we sang it three times, first at regular speed, second a little faster, and third as fast as we could possibly sing it. We think this will become a Halloween tradition at Altara from now on.

Sunrise Elementary

Title: The Halloween House
Author: Erica Silverman

This book is about 2 men that break out of Jail and end up spending a night in a Haunted House. We have the recording of this book that is great with music and all. The kids love it. After we talk about scary things you might see in a haunted house and how it is a counting book and also a rhyming book. It's great for Halloween.

Title: Hilda and the Mad Scientist
Author: Adam Addie

This story is about Hilda whose Mottol is "I go where I'm needed and leave when I'm not." So she goes to help out a Mad Scientist and that's when the fun begins. It is great for all ages. After the story we talked about what went wrong. 1.
Cover Image

Alta View Elementary

Halloween
By Jerry Seinfeld
The book Halloween by Jerry Seinfeld has become a tradition at Alta View. The students love listening to the CD of Jerry Seinfeld's vision of Halloween.
The kids can identify with his rules of Halloween from what makes a good costume to what is acceptable trick or treat candy. We let them listen to the Cd of the book, because we couldn't read the book quite like Jerry Seinfeld.

Draper Elementary

Draper Elementary Library's theme this year is "Where in the World Can You Find..." We have interesting displays set up from all over the world! We have contests and games going where we show the kids a picture of something famous in the world and they have to guess where it is. A big map on the wall helps us track our discoveries like the Big Wall of China and Big Ben. Kids gather around the map and chatter about the world!

Willow Springs Elementary

Title: There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!
Author: Lucille Colandro
Illustrated: Jared Lee
We used this book in two different way depending on the grade level. For the first grade we made a large cutout of the old lady and of the various things she swallowed. As we read the story we dropped the different objects in her "tummy". For grades 2 and 3rd, we had a script of the different pages and gave them out to the students. Two or three students had the same script which was numbered. When a number was held up, the students with that text read their part. This was like a choral reading of the book.

I'll take a picture of her cutout and send it to you.  It is SO cute! SH

lone peak (Angela)

In grades K-4 I have been reading the book Mrs. McMurphy's pumpkin by Rick Walton and The Very Hairy Scary story by the same author. I told the student that he is an Utah Author, and lives in Provo, I pulled several of his books and had them available for them to look at.

It's so fun to listen to Angela read with her very British accent!  SH

Sunrise Elementary

Title: Bugs
Author: David T. Greenberg
Illustrated by: Lynn Munsinger
This year our theme for the Library is Bugs and Bee's so we read this book to kick it off.
This book is about insects written in Poetic Form. It explores the different things that can be done to bugs.
Bugs can be cooked, trained, grounded up and eaten. Then the author exchanges perspective and suggest what bugs might do to us.
We talked about what bugs the kids liked and don't like. The kids really enjoyed this book and laughed a lot.
We are giving out Bee bucks this year for kids that are using great library manners and helping in the library to keep the shelves neat and cleaning up. We put the "Bee Bucks" in bug catchers we got for each of the grades and will draw out 2 from each class at the end of the month.

Altara

"What Happened to Marion's Book" by Brook Berg
This is a clever story about a young hedgehog, who is not very careful with her books. She winds up destroying a book that she has checked out from the library. We then find out what she has to do to remedy the problem.
After we read the book, we had a student come up front and put on a doctors white coat, a stethoscope and a pair of glasses. We then asked the students "What do doctors do for us?" (They help us take good care of our bodies.) We then told them that we wanted them to all be "Book Doctors" this year and help us take good care of our books. We then showed a beat up discarded book and we labeled it with several diseases. ---Chronic Crayon Scribble-itis, ---Acute water wave inflammation, ---Perforated Pet Puncture Wound, ---Sticky bubble Gum Adhesion, --- Chronic Slimy Ketchup Splatter, ---Lacerated Tear of the Final Page. We would turn to the diseased pages and then ask the students what we could all do to help prevent these awful book diseases. The students loved the doctors costume and it was fun to hear what they would do to take care of their books.
We did this with Kindergarten through 3rd grade.

Willow Springs Elementary

For Halloween, we have put cutout paper pumpkins around the library. On the outside of the pumpkin is a riddle. On the inside is the answer to the riddle. The kids love looking at them as they look for books. We just used die cuts to cut the pumpkins then we taped 2 of them together on the stem so they would open! Happy Halloween from Willow Springs! (This blog was written by Susan Huff)

Sprucewood

We recently shared parts of a couple of our new books with the kids. The first one we shared was:
Title: "Tiger Shark"
Author: Deborah Nuzzolo
This book introduces the kids to tiger sharks and describes their physical characteristics and behavior. The kids figured out quickly why they are called Tiger Sharks (striped liked tiger). They thought it was interesting that the adult sharks eventually lose most of their stripes.

Title: "The Naked Mole-Rat"
Author: Jody Sullivan Rake
This is a book from the Series "Weird Animals". The kids loved the pictures of the naked mole-rat. It is such an ugly creature that some thought it was actually cute. The book describes their unique home, body, behavior and how they survive in the animal world. Naked mole-rats are mostly hairless and have sharp ugly teeth. The kids were "freaked out" that snakes like to eat naked mole-rats.
We shared these books with grades 3 & 4.

 If your kids were old enough, you could also suggest a great fiction book called The Naked Mole-Rat Letters by Mary Amato~SHuff

Oak Hollow

In September we welcomed the classes to "A World of Reading" .

We used the following books:

World Atlas for Young Explorers   912 NAT

People by P. Spier               155.2 SPI

Chronicle of the Olympics 796.48 CHR

How I learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz         E SHU

We introduced this as our Theme for the library this year.  Our book talks this year will challenge students to explore the world through books.  The map of the world shows us many countries and there are many people with different languages, foods and cultures to learn about.  We talked about the Olympics and how countries parade their flag during the opening ceremonies.  We had a flag displayed that older grades had fun trying to identify the country it represented. (Hungary). An especially relevant picture book is by Uri Shulevitz called How I learned Geography.  I showed only a couple pages from this book and told how this small boy was able to dream about the world and explore places simply by studying a large, colorful map of the world that his father brought into his home when he was a small child.  I point out that the book is autobiographical – about the life of the author/illustrator. We find the places on the map where this author was born (Poland) and lived in poverty during the war (Kazakhstan) and lives today (NewYork City).

Welcome Back!

How about starting of the school year with First Day Jitters?

Fun read alouds!

      We wanted to show the students how many different versions of fairy tales we have in our library,so

we read Waking Beauty ( which is hilarious) and then showed them the other versions of Sleeping Beauty we have.  We then read Falling for Rapunzel and showed them the other versions we have of Rapunzel.  It was one of the most successful lessons we've done and the kids really loved it.

Wolves

Title: Wolves/Wolves and other Wild Dogs
Author: Emily Gravett/Mary E. Reid
Age: K-3

Rabbit checks out a library book about wolves. While he reads and learns the facts about wolves he doesn't realize he's being followed. At the end of this book rabbit learns the most important fact – WOLVES ARE MEAT EATERS! I wonder if rabbit survives? Or perhaps wolves also like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches????

Did you know that no two wolves have the same voice? Teach this and many other facts about wolves. Then pair and share these two books.  The "Easy" book was full of facts just like the "Non-Fiction" book. Did you know that sometimes wolves howl just because they like to? Hooowwwwl !!!

Title: Suddenly Alligator

Author: Rick Walton

Age: K-3

This book was fun to read to the students. We first discussed what is a verb and then what is an adverb and gave examples. The students laughed and loved the illustrations. It is great to read a book that is a lesson and a really fun story

WEST JORDAN ELEMENTARY

West Jordan ElementaryMy daughter-in-law received her United States citizenship in March, so we decided to explain with pictures and books how this is done. We explained different ways people come to America by reading

Brother's Hope The Story of  the Lost Boys of Sudan by Mary Williams This is a book about refugees that come to America as well as other countries. The parents have either been killed or separated and lost by war and the kids are on their own.

Other books we featured were

The Pledge of Allegiance by Norman Pearl

The Flag We Love by Pam Munuz Ryan

Coming to America -The Story of Immigration

We printed a list of the questions people have to study for the test to become citizens off the internet. We asked appropriate questions for each class. I had pictures I put on a CD and showed of the actual court of the swearing in of Jhovana's citizenship.

Kindness is Cooler Mrs. Ruler by Margery Cuyler

Mrs. Ruler is frustrated with her kindergarten class. They have been acting out all week, so she reminds them "kindness is cooler" and charges each student to perform five acts of kindness. Most of the class catches on quickly; only David seems to have trouble internalizing Mrs. Ruler's maxim that "a slice of nice makes a mile of smile." Eventually, even David finds a way to be good, rescuing the class's gerbils during a harrowing escape. The author of 100th Day Worries (2000) incorporates here the same enthusiasm, counting practice, and humor she used in the earlier title. Especially useful is an appended list of the 100 acts of kindness, which will get kids started and fuel their own ideas

Are You Quite Polite by Alan Katz

A collection of silly poems with equally silly drawings, Katz aims to teach good manners. In the opening spread kids are told that it is not polite to put their mouths on the waterspout of a drinking fountain. All of the poems are written to be sung to songs—among them are "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "Pop Goes the Weasel." In addition to the drinking fountain admonition, the book addresses other issues such as boogers, sibling rivalry, how to behave at a party, writing thank-you notes, not talking with food in your mouth, and the like. It ends with how to act in the library.

Almanac Lesson - Environment Earth Day questions

 

Terra Linda

Just thought I would let everyone know that Kohl's has the books "Duck Soup" and "Duck at the Door" along with "Max the Duck" and "Brody the dog" stuffed animals for $5.00 each in their stores right now.

             

Falcon Ridge

Title: Goldie Socks and the Three Libearians
Author: by Jackie Mims Hopkins
Age: K-6
Topic: Library Manners
Comments: This is the wonderful story about Goldie Socks searching for her "just right" book.  After we read the story we reviewed how to keep the library just as we found it, like using shelf markers to put the book back where it belongs, pushing in our chairs, ect.

 

What about pairing Emily Green's Ant book with I Saw and Ant in the Parking Lot!

Westland

Title: The End
Author: David LaRochelle
Age: K-4
Comments: It is a fun book to have the Children guess what was going to happen next or what already happened.

Title: Dear Deer
Author: Gene Barretta
Age: All
Topic: Homophones
Comments: Fun read as a teaching or review homophones.

Title: I Saw an Ant in a Parking Lot
Author: Joshua Prince
Comments: This was a fun read especially for older students. Fun picture.

HAYDEN PEAK

Well, we are reading another informational book: Ants by Emily Green.

Oakcrest Elementary

WOW it is hard to just choose a few books to talk about! These are a couple of the ones we liked best.

 

         

 By: Carrie Weston                          All Grades

 

This book is about bears first day of school and how the others judge him before they get to know him. We took a little more time to discuss why we shouldn't judge others with the 4-6 grade classes.

 

 

By: Candace Fleming                               All Grades

 

We really enjoyed this book! It talks about an older Alligator with a problem and how he solves it. We noticed that it has similarities to a few other stories as well. Such as The Gingerbread Man and the Little Red Hen. The kids had a lot of fun guessing which parts came from which book.

Heartland Elementary

We all have read the favorite "There was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly." Who knew there were so many new versions of this all time favorite? There was an old Lady who Swallowed a Shell is written by Lucille Colandro and illustrated by Jared Lee. The kids loved the twist on the story! We have the story on CD and the calypso music really makes it fun.

 

                                                              

We are going to share "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Bell! at Christmas time.

 

"Mail Harry to the Moon"  is a book that lots of our students can relate to. It is written by Robie Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley. The story of a boy who isn't sure how he feels about having a baby brother, until he decides Harry really needs him.

 

 

 

HAYDEN PEAK

  We all loved this information book.  Honey Bees by Collen Sexton.  Everyone can relate to the all-important bees.  Don't kill the bees as they are important to all life.