Third grader Khaalid is quite the artist. With the help from the drawing book How to Draw Dragons by Jim Hansen and John Burns he created this dragon. Khaalid used How to Draw Dinosaurs by Georgene Griffin to assist him in drawing this dinosaur.
Artwork abounds
Third grader Khaalid is quite the artist. With the help from the drawing book How to Draw Dragons by Jim Hansen and John Burns he created this dragon. No Comments »
Contest news
The library competition for the week of November 17 was an estimation contest. The jar was filled with tan, brown, orange, and yellow pom poms of varying sizes. There were 123 pom poms in all and fourth grader Matthew was closest with his estimate of 122. His prize is the contents of the jar. Congratulations, Matt!
Booktalks with Bloom
On Wednesday, Mr. Bloom’s third graders visited the library to exchange their old library books for new ones. Before selecting their new books, however, Mrs. Miliano presented booktalks about three series of books.
- Lois Lowry’s Gooney Bird Greene books feature a second grade girl who likes to be in the middle of things. Gooney Bird wears interesting outfits and has lots of exciting stories to tell. She really livens up her new class! The three books in the series are Gooney Bird Greene, Gooney Bird and the Room Mother and Gooney the Fabulous.
- The Time Soldiers series by Kathleen Duey offers exciting adventure stories illustrated with colorful photographs and computer animation. In the series, a group of children discovers a time portal in the woods behind their house. Each time they enter the swirling light tunnel, they find themselves in a different period in history. They learn about history as they struggle to survive in another time period. The library has copies of all the books available so far: Rex, Rex 2, Patch (pirates), Arthur (as in King Arthur), Mummy (set in Ancient Egypt), and Samurai (ancient Japan).
- The availability and location of books about individual states was introduced with Maine from the series Welcome to the U.S.A. This book by Ann Heinrichs offers many interesting political, geograhpical, economic, and historical facts about our state. The information is presented in colorful photographs, captions, signs, maps, and fact boxes as well as in the text. Reading the book is almost as good as taking a tour of Maine!
Story or information book?
The first graders are learning how to find the books they want in the library. They know that storybooks are organized by the author’s last name and have practiced returning storybooks to their proper place. More recently, the children have been exploring information books. That section of the library has been introduced and the students have been shown how to use the picture signs on the bookcases to find books on a particular topic. They have also learned how to use a shelf marker when browsing for an information book. The most recent first grade lesson paired a storybook and an information book on the topic of squirrels. After listening to Busy, Busy Squirrels by Colleen Stanley Bare and Nuts to You! by Lois Ehlert, the children correctly identified which book is informational and which is a story. They noted the differences in illustrations (information book uses photographs) and content (information book tells facts). In the future, the students will learn more about information books and how to read them.
Bats in the library!
The week of November 3rd, the theme of kindergarten storytime was bats! The children listened to and discussed the information presented in the nonfiction book Bats by Patricia Whitehouse. They also learned a song that tells how and when bats sleep. To help them remember that little brown bats live in Maine, the children made bats out of brown construction paper. Mrs. Miliano used this lesson to formally introduce the location of the library’s information books and instructed the students in how to use a shelf marker when browsing in that section.
The next kindergarten storytime also featured bats. After singing the bat song and recalling some bat facts, the children enjoyed the fictional story Bats at the Library by Brian Lies. Then they participated in a batty activity that illustrates how bats use their sense of smell to identify family members. The students were given one scented paper bat each and they had to use their sense of smell to try to find the other bat with the same scent. It was harder than you might think! Identifying the scents were seemed to help the children to match them. When you visit the library, you might catch a hint of licorice still!