Howe-Mannicott Award Contenders

The American Library Association will be announcing the much anticipated winners of the ALA Youth Media Awards on Monday, February 2nd.  These prestigious awards include the Randolph Caldecott Medal awarded to an American illustrator of a children's picture book with the "most distinguished" illustrations.

The Howe-Manning will participate in a Mock Caldecott event by which students will examine a variety of picture books published in 2014.  Students will rate the books based on various criteria and will then vote for the picture book they feel is most deserving of the Howe-Mannicott Award!

Click on the links below to view book trailers for some of the contenders!

FLASHLIGHT By Lizi Boyd - Animated Trailer

IVAN Book Trailer -- The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

 

BEEKLE

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Jon Klassen and Mac Barnett






 

Quest by Aaron Becker Book Trailer

FLORA AND THE PENGUIN By Molly Idle - Animated Trailer

 Little Elliot Big City by Mike Curato

Shark Attacks Seal—Time Lapse Drawing Video—NEIGHBORHOOD SHARKS

Louise Loves Art Book Trailer

Baby Bear by Kadir Nelson

Holiday Scholastic Book Fair

 Thank you for supporting the library with your Scholastic Book Fair purchases!  A very special thank you goes out to the parent volunteers who helped to make this event a great success!

  

Database of the Month: Trueflix by Scholastic

TrueFlix is an online collection of over 80 nonfiction e-books that focuses on engaging subject-area content in science and social studies for students spanning grades 3-6. Each of the TrueFlix subject areas leverages the award-winning True Books content to help students hone literacy skills, build knowledge of subject-area content, and cultivate 21^st Century skills through the inquiry process. Embedded videos, images, and additional web resources and activities assist beginning researchers to plan, manage, and complete projects and assignments.  The books also include an optional read-aloud feature!  The TrueFlix database offers simultaneous 24-7 access and can be accessed anywhere from home or school!

You may access the TrueFlix database from a few places:

• Click on the Links Tab on The Library Catalog
• Click on Online Databases from my School Specialist Webpage
• Click on the Online Databases Tab at the top of this blog!

Please contact Mrs. Reusch for Username and Password information.

Database of the Month: Britannica School

Britannica School (Encyclopedia Britannica) offers students a safe place to conduct research using thousands of searchable encyclopedia and journal articles, images, videos, audios, primary sources with curriculum relevance, detailed maps, editor-recommended websites, learning games, a world atlas, and a wealth of how-to research tools.

The database supports differentiated learning with three user-friendly interfaces - elementary, middle, or high school -  and makes it easy to select the portal which best suits each student's reading, grade and age level.

Britannica School is offered to Massachusetts Library System member libraries through state and federal funding and may be accessed on my specialist website or from the library catalog by clicking on the links tab. Students do NOT need a username or password to access!

Learning About Biographies

Third graders continue to learn about library organization. This week we learned about how the biography section is arranged. We also talked about elements of the biography genre and read a book about Benjamin Franklin. Each student had to recall information from the text by recording two facts about this extremely colorful character in history! This activity also helped to build excitement about the upcoming visit by Ben Franklin at the end of the week!

Facts About Benjamin Franklin Written By Third Graders

Database of the Month: Country Reports and Country Reports United States Edition

Country Reports is a database that contains over 35,000 pages of current information on the cultures and countries of the world. Online content includes information and statistics about the country’s demographics, history, geography, economy, food, fashion, family life, student life, religion, sports and recreation and more!  The database also enables students to compare multiple countries based upon selected data categories.   

This database is used extensively by 6^th grade students in their study of world cultures. Fourth graders may utilize the United States edition of the database in their study of the United States.

The Country Reports database may be accessed from the Howe-Manning Library Catalog and then by clicking on the Links tab at the top of the page OR at www.countryreports.org.

 Please contact Mrs. Reusch for Username and Password information.

Learn about Countries of the World

Sixth Grade Global Book Mark Exchange

Sixth graders are participating in the Book Marks Our World program; a global book mark exchange initiated by Margriet Ruurs, author of My Librarian is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World. Students will be creating book marks to represent their favorite books. We will be exchanging book marks with other 6th grade students from The Valleys Senior Public School in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. This program connects to the 6th grade study of world cultures and is also a fun way for students to connect with readers from other countries!