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!

Glenbrook Video

It is no surprise to know that Glenbrook is a GREAT school! Everywhere we look there are great staff members, great students, great families...everyone is GREAT! However, we don't always have time to stop and enjoy our greatness or share it with others who are not around us. So, we put together a video showcasing many of the people and things that that make Glenbrook great.

Thank you so much to the students and staff that helped to make this video what it is. Enjoy!

Drum Roll Please!!!

The winners are...Amelia, Bella, and Raven!! This team of 5th graders won the spot as the Glenbrook representatives for the Battle of the Books! Congratulations girls!!

A HUGE thank you goes out to EVERYONE who participated!! You were all such hard workers, I'm very proud of each and every one of you!!! I hope that next year we'll get another great group of readers!!

New Books Have Arrived!!

The library just received an order of 99 brand new books (with more to come)! Ms. Rodgers worked hard at processing them and they are now available for check out!! Please stop in when you have time and "check out" our new books!

Just a small sampling of the new books we recently received!