I SPY

What do you do with 2 empty shelves?  Why you turn them into I SPY shelves - that's what!!

Dr. Waters, our superintendent came to visit this week and sat down for a few minutes to play I SPY with our first graders.  We put random fun items on these 2 shelves, then covered the shelves with plastic wrap (to make a glass window).  Each week Gloria has posted 4 new items to look for in our I SPY case.  It has been a fun activity to encourage new vocabulary with the students. And even better, all of our I SPY books are checked out!  That is what makes it a fun library center.

BATS are ...

The 2nd graders have been doing a mini research unit on bats.  After reading a few non-fiction bat books, each 2nd grader wrote 4 bat facts on their paper bat.  I had facts that ranged from "Bats sleep upside down." to "There are 1,200 kinds of species of bats." and even "Bats have 4 fingers and 1 thumb."  Our paper bats are currently roosting in 3 spaces in our non-fiction section.

 Our final activity was to read the book, "Stellaluna" written by Janell Cannon. Then we watched the 10 minute education video (on the Stellaluna DVD) titled "The not so scary world of bats"  It really gave the students a real look at bats.  My favorite memory of this unit was when the Kindergarners were lining up and I said "Remember to be quiet, the bats are sleeping."  It got real quiet as they looked up to the ceiling.  Then one students asked "Are they real?" 
Way to cute.

Ahoy Matey - Books are a TREASURE Book Fair

This was the first year for the Intermediate School Book Fair.  We hosted the Scholastic Book Fair during the week of Parent/Teacher Conferences Oct 10-13.  The theme was focused around pirates.  Of course Miss Michelle found the perfect costume to celebrate the fun week.

She was also the creator of the super cool pirate ship that was the display for the teacher's wish list. We displayed many pictures of teachers and staff at our school dressed all in pirate gear.  Some with a parrot on their shoulder and other's saying "What aaargh you reading?"
I was so excited to see our first book fair was a success.  I look forward to buying more new books for the Intermediate library.

Mercer Mayer Author Study

I introduced the author Mercer Mayer to our first grade students this fall.  We began by learning all about Mercer's life and reading a few of his first books.  We read: "There's an alligator under my bed" and also "There's a monster in my closet"  I found a video on YouTube that is actually Mercer Mayer singing and playing his guitar to the book "There's an alligator under my bed"  It is a super cute song and the children enjoyed getting to see Mercer sing.  We then began to read "Little Critter" books.  All first graders made their own "Little Critter" puppet.  On the back of the puppet we added 4 facts that we learned about the author and illustrator Mercer Mayer.

We ended our Mercer Mayer unit by exploring a few apps on the ipad about Little Critter.  Students were able to read "Just Me and My Friend" and "My trip" which are both Little Critter apps.  The Little Critter books have been a hit with our first graders.

 

Babymouse, Oh Babymouse!

 

 

The 3rd graders did a quick unit on graphic novels.  We are lucky to have a large graphic novel section at the Intermediate building and I wanted students to know where to find them.  I created a Babymouse display over in the corner next to the graphic novels.  I showed the 3rd graders the Babymouse website and gave them a chance to explore and learn more about Babymouse.  We also spent 15 minutes doing a quiet read so that students could really get into the baby mouse books, and to be honest, every since then I can not keep the Babymouse books on the shelf.  Students learned about Babymouse's friend Wilson and her nemesis Felicia.  They also had a chance to create the words to a premade Babymouse cartoon that I found on the website.  So much FUN!

Book Displays

One of my favorite things to do is advertise the books that we have at our library.  Here are a few of the displays I have used so far this year.  
At the Elementary:

"Gear up for a Good Book" is our fall front window display.  With the help of Mrs. Keck we found many different types of sporting equipment with sporty books to go along with them.

 

"ABC all these neat books?"  The other bookcase was the home for lots of alphabet books.

At the Intermediate Building:

I started the year reading the book "Don't let a ghost borrow your library book"  The book is focused around the LSS (otherwise known as the Library Secret Service)  Mrs. Faltin and I dressed as the LSS with dark glasses, an ear bud, an official badge, and blazer.  We tried to impose the importance of good book care with our students.  The students made glasses that stated a library book rule and picture. It was fun to decorate with all their decorated glasses.

 "These books BLUE me away!"  Mrs. Lauenroth helped with our bookshelf display of many new books in our library with a blue cover.  It actually was amazing to see how many BLUE books we actually had.

"If you Liked the movie, You will Love the book!"  Using some old filmstrip film and a few movie popcorn buckets we are showing off many of the books we have that are also movies.  Books such as "Because of Winn Dixie", "Stuart Little", "Diary of a Wimpy Kid", "Coraline", "Freaky Friday" and many many more.  

 

Intermediate School Up and Running

I love my job! Even though I am busy, busy, busy, I truly can say my job is the best.  Every morning I start my day at the Elementary teaching Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Then at lunchtime I drive up the hill to the Intermediate building to spend the rest of my day teaching third and fourth grade.  As a bonus, I get to spend the last 20 minutes of my day checking out books to the fifth grade.  Now that is called busy!  It feels good to have the Intermediate building feeling more like my space. At first I felt like I was teaching in someone else's classroom.  But after the first quarter I am finally feeling like it is more mine.  I labeled the library to help students know where the books are.  I started with the signs: Fiction and Non-fiction.  Then I also added: Easy, Series, Spanish, Graphic Novels and Biographies.

A School full of SUPERHEROES

Our Elementary school wide theme this year (2016-2017) is superheroes.  The halls are decorated, the superhero curtains are up and superheroes themselves are walking the halls.  So I decided to start the library off with the superhero theme as well.  We made a stand up superhero that students can stand behind to take their picture.

Each student was able to take their picture home, and we hung some on the wall with reminders of "Super Library Manners"
I started the year reading "Superheroes ABC's" and "Ten Rules of being a Superhero".  Students made superheroes out of tongue depressors and reviewed how to be a super friend in the library.

Add caption

NEW BEGINNINGS AT CRETE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

This summer was a time for new beginnings at Crete Public Schools.  With our new high school opening this last January, the summer was a time to reorganized the rest of the buildings.  My role will be changing as I will be the school librarian at the K-2 Elementary Building in the mornings, and will be at the 3-5 Intermediate Building in the afternoons.  So my summer was spent sorting, organizing and preparing to split our libraries.

The Intermediate School was fortunate enough, to be able to purchase a entire start up collection of books (about 6,000).  We placed the order in February and the books arrived July 1st.  So most of the month of July was spent opening boxes and thinking about arranging the books in both building.

After hours and hours both libraries are arranged and ready for business.  I am looking forward to my new adventure as a school librarian in 2 amazing places!

Reading is the "THING" to Do!

We celebrated Read Across America Day 2016 (Dr Seuss' Birthday) using the theme "Reading is the THING to Do".  Everyone at Crete Elementary was asked to wear a red shirt and then we attached a Thing # onto their shirt.  We had around 765 "Things" walking around the school.  Mrs. Gonzalez and Mrs. Wendelin went all out and dressed like Thing One and Thing Two.

 

All classes were assigned a buddy reading classroom and our whole school read to each other to start the day.  It was fun to see all the things (teachers, students, custodians, secretaries, kitchen) participate in Read Across America Day.

Crocodile Research

One of the Golden Sower books this year is "My Crocodile Does Not Bite" by Joe Kulka.  After reading this clever book, our first graders read some non-fiction (both books and online) about crocodiles. We then wrote a crocodile fact on a small square and then put all the facts together to form a factual reptile.  Both 2nd and 3rd graders enjoyed reading the various facts about crocodiles that 1st graders had written.  Some facts that I found interesting were: 

• They drag their food to the bottom of the river to eat it.  
• Crocodiles teeth are the same shape and they swallow their food whole.  
• Crocodiles can hear their babies inside their eggs.

Peace, Love, Books

Every February the Scholastic book fair comes to Crete Elementary.  This year the theme of the book fair was Peace, Love, Books. 

We started to advertise out in the front case with some tie dye background.  All students were given the Scholastic book fair flyer to share with their family and we all watched the book fair commercials the week before the fair.  As always the book fair raises lots of excitement here at the Elementary.

I have to thank Michelle and Gloria for all their help in making the book fair a success. They really got into it with their costumes.  In getting in the mood, we wore tie dye shirts 2 days, watched the lava lamp and listened to 60's music.  Get your groove on and keep reading!

MLK Day of Service

For the past few years our school has participated in Martin Luther King's Day of Service.  In January we spend an afternoon tying blankets (with the help of the Doane Track and Field Team) and then donate the blankets.  This year the People's City Mission of Lincoln, Blue River Family Center, Saline County Sheriff's Dept. and many other groups were the recipients of the blankets.  The blankets will be given to needy families in our community.  CCLC was intrigual in organizing this event, as well as the canned food drive that was happening this same week.  Around 2000 food items were donated along with 250 blankets.  My favorite part of the assembly was seeing all 650 students sitting together in the gym in their MLK t-shirts and singing our school song "Proud".  This makes me proud to be part of such a giving school.

Finding Winnie

I think I may have found my new favorite book.  In December I bought the book "Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World's Most Famous Bear" written by Lindsay Mattick.  I was so intrigued by the factual information in the book, I went online to find more information on the real Winnie.  There were many websites that shared facts from Winnie's life at the White River Train station, to Canada, to overseas and finally the London zoo.
Our fourth grade students need to practice their typing skills, so I thought this was a perfect chance for them to type up a paragraph sharing what they learned about Winnie.  The first day we read the book then wrote out facts that we wanted to include in our paper, the second day we spent the whole classtime typing.  Then the fourth graders found a picture to go with their paper, and on the final day they created a yellow portfolio with their work inside.  I was proud of what they were able to share, yet I wish we would have spent more time editing to make it more reader friendly.

Polka Dot Pants Dance Contest

All students at our school enjoy reading the "Pete the Cat" books, he is one of our favorite characters.  A fellow teacher Linsay Wach met Eric Litwin, the author of "Pete the Cat" just a few weeks ago and she shared with me one of his new books "Sing and Dance in your Polka-Dot Pants." Eric is hosting a contest, if you upload a video of your students dancing, you might win a author visit at your school.  So of course our school had to enter the contest, even if we don't win, we sure had a wonderful time reading, singing and of course dancing!

Here is the link to the website with all the information on it:The Nut Family

So this week Mrs. Lenertz (the music teacher) and I had a blast dancing with our students by doing the Polka-Dot Pants Dance.  Funny thing is that Mrs. Lenertz actually had polka-dot pants.  Here is the video of our students doing the dance

Get your game on @ the library

National Puzzle and Game week is coming up in November.  I am actually ahead of the game and decorating the library with games.  I have quite a collection going on the library shelf and the case.  My goal is to work with our students on turn taking and having patience.  Next week I am going to attempt to teach the 4th graders the correct way to play checkers.  I am planning on using the smartboard to introduce the game, then split students into small groups to let them play.  As the month goes on we will have a chance to work on others games such as mancala, connect four, memory and maybe even chess.

First Grade Reads the Classics

In November, the Crete Elementary First Graders read many classics in the library.  We read "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "The Three Billy Goats Gruff",  "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Hansel and Gretel", and many more.  Every spring the 7th graders at Crete Middle School come down to the Elementary and perform these classics with a little twist. So we always try to make sure the students are aware of the original story.  This year our students made finger puppets to go along with "The Three Little Pigs" and joined up in small groups to act out the story.  There was lots of huffing and puffing going on.