School Library Month ~ Staff Reading Memories

From Mrs. Skinkis:

“When I was a kid, my sister and I loved to read Shel Silverstein poetry books.  Those books made us laugh and giggle uncontrollably.  Our favorite book was "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and our favorite poem was "Sick."  Still, to this day, I love reading his poems!”

From Mrs. Laurent:

“When my son was just 4 years old, he wanted us to read a book about the Titanic everyday!!! And every night!!! Finally, we read it onto a cassette tape (yes, that long ago!) and he could listen to it whenever he wanted to.”

From Mrs. Malchow:

“I remember the first time I was introduced to Robert Munsch books almost 20 years ago. It was the story, Purple, Green and Yellow. I remember thinking that I could make so many connections with the story as I had always begged my mom for smelly markers and of course- who didn't draw on themselves at some point? If you haven't read this story, it's definitely one to take a peek at- guaranteed to make you laugh.”

From Mrs. Rupno:

“My favorite childhood book was "The Tale of the Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume. It was my favorite because my third grade teacher read the story with the funniest voices. She could make our whole class laugh.”

From Mr. Hendricks:

“Reading allows me to enter worlds that don't actually exist, while giving me the opportunity to image: 'What if?' (City of Ember)  Reading also gives me the opportunity to make connections to old memories through characters and story lines. (Harris and Me)”

From Ms. Watermolen:

“I grew up reading right here in our Glenbrook library! Mrs. Bock was our librarian and I loved hearing her read us many stories. I've always loved Dr. Seuss and his wacky stories. My favorite book is Oh The Places You'll Go. This story inspired me to do many great things in my life, including becoming a teacher!”

School Library Month - Staff Reading Memories

From Señorita Olsen:

"My favorite book as a child was But No Elephants! by Jerry Smith. It was about an old lady named Grandma Tildy who bought many pets from a salesman, but would not buy an elephant! I loved the book so much that I asked for (and got) a purple elephant cake for my 4th birthday."

From Mrs. DeCleene:

“My favorite childhood book is Purple, Green and Yellow by Robert Munsch! I love how she gets a bunch of smelly, never come of until your dead and maybe even later coloring markers! I always wanted some.”

From Mrs. Dietrich:

“Loved when my mom and dad read "Are You My Mother?" to me.  I actually think I still have the book on the shelves in the basement!”

From Mrs. McAllister:

“I can still remember in my sixth grade classroom that my teacher challenged our whole class to read, read, read!  Mrs. Moore did this by having us earn a circle for a caterpillar that traveled around the top of our classroom walls for every book we read.  I earned A LOT of circles to add to the caterpillar.  Every time we got the caterpillar from one wall to the next, we got to watch a movie.  Finally by the end of the year, our caterpillar had traveled around all four walls of our classroom.  We read a lot that year!”

From Mrs. Bradford:

“I loved the author Ruth Chew.  I have a few of my books still from elementary school.  I also wrote to her as a third grader and she wrote back!  I still have the letter (somewhere!).”

From Mrs. Wendricks:

“I had so many books that were my favorites when I was little, but the one that I remember reading the most was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  My mom read it so many times to me that I had it memorized.  Then once I had it memorized, I read it to myself so often that the pages started to fall out.  My mom had to buy me a new copy!  It is still one of my favorite books!”

School Library Month ~ Staff Reading Memories

From Mrs. Yaw:

“My favorite childhood book was "We Help Mommy". It was about a little girl and boy who stayed at home with their mom and helped her do her work around the house. I think I liked it so much because it was just like me and my brother at home with our mom. My mom read this book to me over and over!”

From Mrs. Wiedeman:

“When I was a kid, my mom was the elementary librarian at the school I attended.  I remember getting so excited for library days because we would always sit in the library pit and my mom would read us a new story or perform a puppet play for us.  My mom would order lots of new books for the library and she would bring them home for us to read. I always felt lucky to be the "first" person to read the new books.  To this day, I still can't wait to get my hands on new books and read, read, read!”

From Mrs. Hendricks:

“My favorite books as a child were American Girl, Boxcar Children, and Babysitters Club.”

From Mrs. Carrie Birr:

“I remember someone recommended that I read "The Kissing Hand" book to my youngest before she went to her first day of Kindergarten.  So the night before I read her the book, hoping it would encourage her and make her feel safe about going to Kindergarten.  Instead I was crying and could barely see the words to finish reading the book.  She ended up telling me, "It's okay mom, I'll be fine."  Great book - but just don't read it the night before your baby goes to Kindergarten.”

From Mrs. Hucek:

“My absolute favorite book as a child was "The King Who Rained" by Fred Gwynn (also known as Herman Munster of TV's popular "The Munsters") It's basically a book of illustrated idioms.  I remember sitting with my mother reading and looking at it over and over again.  My favorite parts/illustrations were the page with the "frog in the mom's throat" and the page with the "coat of arms" (which also kind of creeped me out) Now when I work with ELL kids on learning English idioms I have used this book and it always brings me right back to my childhood! I love kids' books!!!!!”

From Mrs. Pamperin:

“When I was little I used to love fairy tale books where the impossible could happen to regular people. Spin straw into gold?  If only I could do that I too could marry a prince!  I took up sewing instead and waited for my prince to find me....... That is one of the best things about reading----we can experience in a book something that could never really happen.”

School Library Month ~ Staff Reading Memories

Here are more staff memories about reading! Enjoy!

From Señora Tewes:

“I loved reading the Little House on the Prairie books when I was a kid. My mom always read them aloud to me and my sister.”

From Mr. Pierre:

“When I first picked up the Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien in 6th grade, I had no idea I wouldn't be able to set it down.  Two-and-a-half months of that winter found me reading it and the whole Lord of the Rings series on the bus, going to the library instead of recess, and at home when my chores were done.  Since then, I think I've re-read that whole series about 5 times!”

From Mrs. Miller:

“My favorite book was Are You My Mother? I bought it for my first nephew when he was born.”

From Mrs. Millikin:

“My favorite book when I was in second grade was The Little House in the Big Woods.”

April is School Library Month

In honor of School Library Month, I asked the adults at Glenbrook what some of their favorite reading memories are. I received a lot of responses and will post them on the blog over the next couple of days. If you are interested in reading them all, before I post them, stop on down to the library and check them out!

From Mr. Sufka:

“I've always loved reading, from learning new things through non-fiction, to being able to explore far off places and go on adventures while turning the pages of a great fictional novel, reading has always been something I enjoyed.  I grew up reading "Little Golden Books" and Curious George stories and through elementary school, I  probably read all of the "Encyclopedia Brown" and "Choose Your Own Adventure" books along with authors such as Mark Twain, Judy Blume, and Robert Newton Peck.  I also remember my 4th grade teacher reading 3 novels to us they were "Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nihm", "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", and "A Taste of Blackberries".  I remember this as being the favorite part of my day in his class.  As I got older and even now, I love reading biographies of athletes and interesting figures along with books from James Patterson and John Grisham.”

From Ms. D:

“The first book that I remember falling in love with was "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George. We read this novel as a class when I was in 5th grade. Being a very outdoorsy kid the book really held my interest. Our teacher had us build a log cabin while reading the novel. We had to correctly measure and cut dowels utilizing a hand saw, use clay for chinking between the dowels, cut paper bag shingles, and utilize gravel to build a chimney. It took several weeks to construct the cabin but we did it independently which resulted in a huge feeling of accomplishment.  I still have the cabin today which sits in my living room as decoration. Every time I look at that cabin it brings back memories of my love for that story.”

From Mrs. Gee:

“My parents read to me every day when I was a child so I learned to love reading at a very young age. My favorite memory was from when I was in third grade. My teacher, Mrs. Luther, brought in the entire Nancy Drew series which my best friend and I proceeded to read in its entirety. To this day, I still read every day!”

More eBooks Have Arrived!!

Woohoo!! The Jake Maddox series of book has become so popular among our students that I placed an order for copies of the book in eBook format. Why is this so great? Well, rather than purchasing one book title, I purchased each title as an "unlimited" copy in eBook format so every Glenbrook student can enjoy this title at the same time! I am so excited!! Can't remember how to access eBooks? Check out my previous post here to learn how to access eBooks! As always, you can stop in the library and see me and I'll help you out!!

Using Images for Educational Purposes ~ The Right Way!

The Internet has created a place for students to go and get almost unlimited information and images for use in schools and at home. With this comes the responsibility to use the Internet properly. This week I showed the students a website (www.pics4learning.com) where they could download pictures, for educational use only, and use them without asking permission first. We still have to acknowledge the owner of the photos and give credit where credit is due, but we don't have to seek out permission before using them.

Google is a great place to find images of people, places, and things but this isn't always our best choice for finding images that we can just use, even if only for a report, presentation or other project. However, there is a way to safely borrow images. It takes a couple of steps to get there so I am posting the instructions for students to follow.

First, do a Google Image search for your chosen topic. I chose Donald Driver!

You'll notice that there are a TON of images to choose from...but sadly, we cannot just pick any image from the Internet and just use it. So, our next step is to go to the tool bar near the top of the page and click on "Search Tools".

From here, we get a drop down tool bar where we need to choose "Usage rights" in order to get images that are "legal" for us to use.

Choose "Labeled for noncommercial reuse":

And voilá! We have copyright-friendly images! Now these may not be the "best" pictures the students are looking for, nor can we use them to create items to sell for a profit (or even to give away!) but they will be useful when creating education-related projects and presentations. Again, always give credit where credit is due!

As always, students need to make sure they are choosing safe images and should always report to an adult when they see something that makes them uncomfortable.

Finally, if students are unable to find images online that are acceptable for them to use, they can always try to reach out to the owner of the images they want to use. I did this with a student last year and the owner gladly gave us permission to use his images! Contact me directly if you'd like assistance with this!

Have a fantastic weekend!