Little Bird Tales

I am so excited! I had the honor of working with Mrs. Skinkis's class on a poetry project that we put into a program called Little Bird Tales. Here is the result of all of our hard work!

You might have to turn up your volume as some of our little birdies are quieter than others! Enjoy!

How Many Beads in the Jar? {Students Only!}

This activity requires you to visit the library, look at the jar AND reply on our blog! Please stop in the library either during your checkout time or any other time (that is approved by your teacher!). After you look at our bead jar, make a guess as to how many beads there are in the jar and write your guess in the comment section. REMEMBER: You MUST come see me in the library to have me approve your comment. This contest will end on Friday, November 9, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. I will announce the winner the following Monday morning. The winner is the person who has the closest guess WITHOUT GOING OVER! If there is more than one winner, I will put the names in a hat and choose one winner. There will be a little prize bag filled with goodies for the winner. If someone guesses the EXACT number of beads in the jar, that person will get an extra special prize!!

Good luck and happy guessing!!

PicMonkey

I found this website while doing a little hunting for a site where you can do cool things with pictures. This one is FABULOUS! There are so many fun things that you can do with images on this site but I love doing photo collages so I did a sample one for you! The best part? You don't have to sign up for an account and it is so easy to use! Your kids can use this since they don't have to sign up either! {Come visit me if you have any questions!}

Here is my sample collage. I used images from the sample folder on my computer!

PicMonkey

Another Knightly Note Opportunity!

Do you have a hobby or play a sport? If so, what do you do?

Want an extra Knightly Note this week? Tell me how you got started in your hobby/sport and how long you have been participating?

Keep the comments coming!!

I cannot tell you how excited I am by the number of responses that I have received to our first journal prompt! I look forward to adding more to our site (be on the look out for another prompt today!). Just a reminder, please make sure you contact me about your response. I WILL NOT publish it until I speak to your first!

Thank you!!!

Projects By Jen

Teachers, this post is for you! If you are looking for a way to have your classroom connect with other classrooms outside of Wisconsin, this site is for you! Jen Wagner has used her site, ProjectsByJen, since 1999 to connect classrooms online. I realize that many of you already know about her and have already participated in some online projects, so please feel free to comment on what you've participated in and how it has gone! As always, your friendly Library Media Specialist (a.k.a. ME!) is ready to help make your project a success!!

http://www.projectsbyjen.com/index.htm

Library Helper

Today we had our first library helper in to work with us. Hannah, a fourth grader, helped us to check in books and check out books to her classmates. She really had fun! This opportunity was Hannah's after she traded in some of her Knightly Notes for a chance to work in the library. She was one of four lucky students to win this reward. Thanks for helping us, Hannah!!

Journal Prompt #1

Please take a minute to answer the following question. When you are finished sign your post with your first name only and then your grade. {For example, if I were in third grade, I'd sign my name: Amy, 3.} Then, come visit me in the library tomorrow, show me your comment, and I'll give you a Knightly Note. Only one response per student. {Adults are welcome to help younger students answer this question!} Next Monday, we'll have a new question and a new opportunity to earn Knightly Notes!

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you pick? Why?

Thanks! I look forward to reading your responses!!

PBIS in the Library

This year our school district has adopted Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports {PBIS} which focuses on rewarding positive behaviors rather than negative behaviors. Here in the library we are also supporting PBIS in a variety of ways. When students are caught being good (whether they are working quietly or helping out a classmate) or they've returned all of their books on time, they are rewarded with a Knightly Note. This has been a great help so far as there have been less overdue library books so far this year. Keep up the good work, Glenbrook students!!

The Cooperative Children's Book Center

The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC), on the UW Madison campus, is an amazing wealth of resources when it comes children's literature. They are a small group of librarians who read pretty much every book that comes out, weeding through the good and the bad. Each year the CCBC comes out with a book called Choices, which is basically a book of lists. It is pretty amazing. Another great resource that they offer is an online bibliography which has books broken up into, again, many different lists. Here is the link to their bibliographies. I hope you find it as useful as I do!

http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/books/detailLists.asp?idBookListCat=7

Battle of the Books is coming!!

Battle of the Books is right around the corner and I will be running it from the library again this year! I will be taking interested participants from grades 4 and 5. A meeting will be announced shortly but in the meanwhile, you can take a look at the book list here:

• 13 Gifts by Wendy Mass
• A Ball for Daisy by Christopher Raschka
• Big Nate: In a Class by Himself by Lincoln Peirce
• Blackout by John Rocco
• Blizzard! The Storm that Changed America by Jim Murphy
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
• Extra Credit by Andrew Clements
• Freedom Train North by Julia Pferdehirt
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
• Happy Pig Day by Mo Willems
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen
• If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch
• Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos
• The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
• Polo and the Dragon by Regis Faller
• Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
• Wonderstruck: A Novel in Words and Pictures  by Brian Selznick