Massachusetts Children's Book Award Raffle

The excitement builds as we get a little closer to the announcement of the 2014 Winner of the Massachusetts Children's Book Award.  Students have been reading books from the 25 nominated titles and have been completing "Reader Response" sheets for each book that they read in order to earn raffle tickets to win several prizes.  The more you read, the greater your chances of winning!  Prizes include a "Sweet Reads" gift basket, an "Out of this World" gift basket, the 2014 Guinness World Book of Records and TEN drawings to win $10 in Scholastic Dollars to be spent at the Spring Scholastic Book Fair!  Take a look at some of the prizes!

Front view of Sweet Reads Gift Basket

Back View of Sweet Reads Gift Basket

Front View of Out of This World Gift Basket

Back View of Out of This World Gift Baskct

2014 Guinness World Records

Ten Dollars in Scholastic Dollars (10 drawings)

New Suggestion Box

 A new suggestion box has been placed in the library so that students may write down the titles and series they would like to see in the library collection.  So far, I have received over 40 very insightful suggestions that I will certainly consider!  This is a great way for students to voice what they like to read while keeping me informed of their current reading interests!

Sixth Grade December Library Happenings

Sixth graders continued exploring information seeking strategies in order to choose the best, most appropriate information source. They examined several free online reference tools including Information Please and used its online almanac, atlas, dictionary, encyclopedia and thesaurus to answer several questions about the city of Philadelphia.  This lesson was also a great exercise in scanning for information by looking for relevant keywords within the text.

Here are some great FREE online reference tools!

It's a Dewey Decimal December!

This month, third graders were introduced to how nonfiction books are organized.  We read The Library Gingerbread Man by Dotti Enderle to learn about the 10 Dewey classes.  Third graders then created a library gingerbread person to represent one of the Dewey classes.  I was so impressed by how creative they were!

Fourth graders read Do you Know Dewey? by Brian Cleary.  They then began to work on creating a Wordle for a chosen Dewey class.  Students also explored Dewey games and activities on the iPad and viewed a dynamite Dewey Rap!

Click here to listen to the Dewey Rap!

Fifth graders reinforced their knowledge of the Dewey Decimal System with the help of Lemony Snicket and The Series of Unfortunate Events.  The plot in the twelfth book, titled The Penultimate Peril, actually involves a hotel that is organized by the Dewey Decimal System!  We read an excerpt from the book, which sparked much interest in the series.  Students then completed some fun activities involving the alliterative titles in the series while learning more about the Dewey Decimal System.  Needless to say, many books by Lemony Snicket were immediately checked-out!