Merry Christmas!

Hope your holidays are merry, bright, and WARM with the love of your family and friends!

This week...

This week in the library, we have been talking about traditions. Specifically traditions passed down from ancestors that come from other countries. The kids have mentioned some really cool traditions!

After we talk, I read to them Uncle Vova's Tree by Patricia Polacco.

This book is rich with Russian tradition and an overall feeling of love and family togetherness.

We have also been reading Olive, the Other Reindeer & Mary Englebreit's A Very Merry Christmas: Celebrate From A to Z. The younger kids have loved to come up with their own Christmas words for each letter. We also do the ASL sign for each letter as we turn pages.

Christmas Mouse

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring,not even a mouse.

With some of my younger students we are making Christmas Mouse ornaments simply by coloring a picture of a mouse (without a tail) then taping a candy cane to the back for it's tail.

I love to share Christmas traditions, but also enjoy sharing

how other celebrations are celebrated this time of year.

The first week in December I am sharing this story, since Chanukkah starts Dec 1st this year.

I also have dreidels on the table so the students can have fun playing a game from that celebration.

The second week of December we are sharing Christmas traditions. I am not reading a story, but letting students share their favorite traditions or Christmas memories.

The third week of December I will "serve" the students a cookie from a tray as they enter the kiva, then share portions of the story below about Saint Lucia Day and how it is celebrated, since it falls on December 13th.

Fun Christmas and Holiday reads...

These are just a few of my favorite Christmas stories...written by Robert E. Barry
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Written by Karma Wilson
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Written by Rick Osborne
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Written by Colleen Monroe
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and of course...
...written by Clement C. Moore and illustrated by Mary Engelbreit.

What stories will you be sharing with your students this holiday season?

Dewey Decimal Fun & Jack Prelutsky's It's Thanksgiving

3rd-6th graders are so SMART! This week, I have been testing their non-fiction shelving skills and most students are masters of Dewey! I've also been using a worksheet from The Complete Library Skills-Grade 3. The page Ordering Dewey Call Numbers has been a hit.

via

With my younger grades, I am teaching them how to say "Prelutsky" and reading to them from It's Thanksgiving. They have been loving these poems. Some of the classes have a couple of them memorized because their teachers have shared them. We are having a great time this week!

At Halloween (with kindergarten) we recite the poem "5 Little Bats" and give students a copy of the poem and a bat finger puppet. Making your own finger puppets is simple. Cut out the shape you want, cut 2 slits in it and slide it over your finger (pictured to the right.) The kids love it and think it is so fun to have their own bat to keep. Below is the poem. I have them do the actions with their finger puppets.

5 little bats sitting on the floor

(have puppet sit on their knee)

1 flew away and there were 4

4 little bats sitting in a tree

(make a tree with fingers spread apart)

1 flew away the there were 3

3 little bats tasting witches brew

(make a cauldron with one hand cupped)

1 flew away and there were 2

2 little bats just having fun

(fly your bat through the air)

1 flew away and there was 1

1 little bat who likes to pretend

Won’t fly away - he is your friend

(have bat sit on their shoulder or head)

Halloween Books

I asked for Halloween ideas and here are the responses I received... (I'll add others as I get them)

Thank you to those that shared!

Andrea Chapman - I think I posted on the blog last year about Goodnight Goon. I read Goodnight Moon and then read Goodnight Goon and talk about parodies...it's so fun! The kids love it!

Carissa Allen - There's also Dr Seuss' What was I scared of?

Linda Bethers - Maybe "Tell Me a Scary Story...But Not Too Scary" by Carl Reiner. I had parents and teachers ask for it BUT I definitely think it's too scary for younger grades (the art work). My older students love it.

Vickie Hovik - One of my favorite halloween books is The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet. It's not really scary, but I order those eyeball suckers from Oriental Trading and give each child a sucker at the end of their visit. The younger classes who pass the office on their way back to class bend down and hold their 'eyeball' up in the office window on their way past. The office staff gives off a few gratuitous shrieks and it’s a good time.

Linda Morgan - I read scary story by Carl Reiner, read it first, it is a fun book with a fun CD, but I did have a mom complain about it, oddly enough the kids loved it, she did not like that her student brought it home.

Danette Fullmer - Jerry Seinfeld wrote a book called Halloween. It is hilarious, teachers and students all love it. It's not scary.

Carl Reiner has a book titled Tell me a scary story - but not to scary! Kids all like that one too. It comes w/ a CD of him reading it.

We are sharing poetry in our library for National Poetry Month. Undoubtedly, one of the favorite poets among students is Shel Silverstein. Here is great site that has Shel Silverstein poems and activities on it...

http://www.shelsilverstein.com/html/poetry.html

Wordle!

A cool website for those who like to play with their words is http://www.wordle.net/ It allows you to enter text and make your own word collages--you choose the font, the colors, and the style and it automatically arranges it for you! Here's one I did from the first chapter of one of my favorite books--can you guess which one it is?



They do have a saved gallery of other people's Wordles, which can sometimes get a little dangerous, so be cautious if using this with a class. But it's a great tool for teachers and librarians who want to jazz up the way they introduce a book or topic.

I used the screen capture function to save the graphic--on my Mac, it's Command-Shift-4 (pressed all together), and then you can click and drag a window around what you'd like to copy and it will save it to your desktop.

Happy Easter!

Same idea as the leprechaun hat below, but bunny ears instead.

A high school that I once went to had a wall full of wanted posters with pictures of their teachers holding their favorite books on it. I found this site where you can create a wanted poster like the one pictured to the left. All you do is download the picture and add the text you want on it. Take pictures of teachers and label them "WANTED for reading... (then list their favorite book)"

The site that I created this poster on was http://www.glassgiant.com/wanted/

March is Youth Art & National Craft Month

March is Youth Art Month, and National Craft Month. I am amazed at the detail and crafting put into pop-op books and am presenting a pop-up book this week during library classes to share my amazement. Robert Sabuda, one of the paper crafters that created several pop-up books with Michael Reinhart, celebrates his birthday on March 8th. If you would like to check out a website put together by Sabuda and find instructions for a few simple pop-ups that you can make, go to http://www.robertsabuda.com/popmake/index.asp

"It came from Outer Space", a picture book about an astronaut that crash lands into a school and is considered a monster by the aliens that live there, is the book we are sharing this week. Once the students at the school take the time to discover more about the "monster" they find out how nice he is and are sad when he has to leave. You can make an alien/heart card for valentines day by folding a paper in half and cutting it into the shape of an alien head (pictured to the left, a bulge on the top and pointy on the bottom.) Draw your alien face on the front of the card, then unfold the card and write your valentine message on the inside, which should be a heart shape (pictured on the right.)

A friend sent an email to me with info about an artist that, because of an injury, draws holding the pencil in his mouth. In a question & answer section of his website the artist says...

"Question - How did you learn to draw by mouth? Answer - I'm really just holding the pencil in my teeth. My neck is doing all the work. After the bet with my brother to see who could draw a better picture, I started out just sketching things out of art books and around the house. Then one day we received a Christmas card with a sketchy line drawing of a house on it. I thought I could do something like that, so I copied the style. After awhile my own style developed. I've only taken one art class after my injury and it was figure drawing. Every image I draw is a learning experience, about the animal and how to bring it to life. Because I've found this hidden talent within me, I believe everyone of us has hidden talents that each person can find in themselves."

I challenged students to learn something new this year, maybe discovering a hidden talent, so I have been sharing pictures and info about this artist with students this week.

If you'd like to learn more about the artist go to

http://www.mouthart.com/mouthart/frame_info.html