Monday morning, students and staff gathered in the library to see Alexis Krech and myself unveil our pink hair! This was a celebration of DCF readers’ hard work over the past few months. We’ve read the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award nominees a total of 1, 232 times. Wow!

Check out more information about the challenge by clicking on the DCF link in the category cloud on the right of the screen!

Follow this link for more pictures!

And click here for a video of “the big reveal”!

I loved nonfiction books as a child. I love them still, and so do many of my students!They can satisfy a curious streak, and can send our brains in totally new directions. Students are always practicing their inquiry skills here in the library. They are naturally curious and love to search for answers to their questions. This is a picture of  a diorama made by one of those curious students who learned more about the Titanic. Many thanks to Spencer Horgan and Patrice McHavern for allowing me to display it in the library!

3rd and 4th graders are currently working on developing their searching skills. This means exploring more sophisticated use of the library catalog as well as the Dewey Decimal System. Do you remember how books are organized? How are your search skills? How can thinking about how things are organized help us be better searchers online? Take a peek at the TRAILS(Tool for Real-Time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills) link on the library website. How many questions can you answer correctly?

Wow! Back in September, I issued an optional reading challenge to 4^th-8^th graders. I wanted to find a way to encourage students in those grades to expand their reading choices a bit and try something new. Together, we set a goal of reading 1,200 Dorothy Canfield Fisher nominees, from either the current list or from past years.

What I saw was students exploring the library shelves a bit more and trying new things. Special thanks  to 6^th graders in Mrs. Little’s LA classes. These students really explored the nominees and wrote book talks to promote them to other students! We’ve even had some eager 3rd graders participate as well!

Students officially met the reading goal this past Monday, so now it is time for me to follow through with my end of the challenge.  I will put on my silly hat and dye my hair pink. Additionally, I have a partner in Alexis Krech this year. She bravely volunteered to join in the fun. Stay tuned for more information about when exactly the “big reveal” will happen!

Our school receives three new books each year along with lesson plans and activities designed to teach money concepts. At the same time, students are encouraged to participate in a personal financial literacy reading program. Our school library has a recommended money reading list that highlights books that focus on basic financial concepts. Students who read at least three books from the list and complete personal reading requirements can send a completed reading log to the treasurer’s office for entry in a statewide drawing for one of ten $250 accounts in the Vermont Higher Education Investment Plan – Vermont’s official 529 college savings plan.

In the program’s first year, more than 1,300 students from across the state completed reading logs. Wow! Grades K-2 will be completing the requirements as part of their library visits. Be looking in backpacks for a letter from Mrs. Huestis with more about this.

Grades 3-6 are also welcome to participate. Although we are busy teaching other skills to students in these grades, we have all the recommended books available to borrow. If your 3^rd-6^th grader would like to participate, please have them see Mrs. Huestis in the library to pick up a reading log. It might be a great way to keep track of silent reading at home or school! We will be collecting completed reading logs in the library by March 1^st. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Huestis at 425-6632 or hhuestis@cssu.org.

Visit the Reading is an Investment website for program materials and more information.

Students in grades K-4 are voting for their favorite Red Clover books. Our students’ favorite so far this year is Born Yesterday: the Diary of a Young Journalist by James Solheim. Thousands of Vermont students participate in this program every year. Ask your student about their favorite Red Clover book. The statewide favorite will be announced in April. Stay tuned!

We have explored the Red Clover books in a variety of ways this year. The books have helped to create a library environment in which our students have become active listeners, critical thinkers, authors, artists, and even actors! Click here for more information about this program and how it fits into the library curriculum. As always, we welcome visitors with questions also!

Mrs. Muroski’s and Mr. Baird’s 5^th graders are conducting research to gain background knowledge to create a feature article about a planetary topic. What do these boxes have to do with research?! Ask your 5^th grader about the Big6. Click here to access a pathfinder that I created to support students with the research process for this project.
A pathfinder is a tool used by librarians everywhere to help students navigate their way through the research process and locate the best resources. Information literacy skills are best taught in collaboration with classroom teachers, integrated in to an authentic learning task. Thanks to a flexibly scheduled library for 5^th graders this year, I am able to plan with teachers and deliver instruction in a way that best suits the needs of our students. This makes me a happy librarian.
Find out more about the Big6 model by clicking here.

Booktalks are a huge part of what I do as a librarian. Sometimes they are high-tech with lots of bells and whistles. See my DCF Book Award page to see some of that in action.

Sometimes they are low-tech. Just me and the book. Or, more importantly,  the student and the book! Mrs. Little and I have worked together to teach students how to give their own booktalks. We have taught and modeled all of the important components that go into building a great booktalk. Could you do it? Take a look at all there is to consider:

Hooks – get the attention of your audience
Setting
Main characters & brief description
Problem/plot – without spoilers
Questions/connections to draw your audience in even further
Opinion of the book

Also, keep in mind, you must:
Look at your audience
Speak loudly, clearly, and smoothly
Stand correctly
Practice, practice, practice

Preparing a booktalk is preparing a persuasive piece of writing. In effect, students are preparing a speech designed to promote the book they have chosen to share. Ask a 6th grader about how their “Booktalk Circus” went today! Interested in seeing the books? Stop by the library and take a look at our display of student-recommended books.

Thanks to all who made the annual book fair a success! So much hard work went into this annual event, thanks to all who volunteered their time. Thanks also to parents and students for the willingness to try something new with Scholastic!

A visitor to our library recently commented that she could tell right away that we have a community of readers.  This is possible because staff, students and families work together to make it so. What a lucky librarian I am to be working right in the middle of it all.

I wish Ivy and Bean were around when I was gaining more confidence as a young reader. This is a great series for bridging the gap for students reading beyond easy readers, but not yet quite ready to tackle a huge chapter book. My own daughter just loves them. Ivy and Bean are two unlikely friends who have amazing adventures right in their very own backyards. They are typical kids…funny, charming, smart, and yes, sometimes just a bit naughty. I think kids love them so much because they can find pieces of themselves in each of the characters.

Visit the author’s website at http://www.anniebarrows.com/ivyandbean/ivyandbean/bio/ to learn more.

I love book groups! Here are are examples of what happens during one of mine. I recently had the pleasure of working with  two groups of 6th graders who were reading War Comes to Willy Freeman by James Lincoln & Christopher Collier. Students were studying the Revolutionary War with Mrs. Little, and book groups were arranged to support that learning.

This is an example of how classroom and library teachers collaborate, and how parents and teachers work together to provide quality learning opportunities for our students. It takes lots of hands to run book groups!