The Wonder Table

One goal of educators is to help and encourage lifelong learning. I know I am essentially a curious person and love to see and learn all sorts of things. We all know that children are born curious about the world around them.

This year the library will have "The Wonder Table" which I hope our students (and teachers - Ms. Miceli!) will enjoy. It will feature something - maybe from the natural world, maybe not - that students may look at and gently touch. The first week will simply be the display; the second week will have the name of the object and a few facts. I introduced it this week (see photo above) and next week we'll find out what it is. Note: some students (and Ms. Miceli!) already knew - that's fine. This isn't a contest or a competition to get the correct answer, but simply a chance to enjoy something we don't always get to experience.

I've wanted to do this for awhile and it all came together when Mrs. Poore managed to get some nice round tables from CHS and have them brought to our school. One table came to the Library and provides a good center for this space. What a great place for The Wonder Table!

The photo features two students from Ms. Miceli's 4th graders who were Friday afternoon Library Helpers. In addition to making deliveries, shutting down computers, and stacking chairs, they got the job of posing for this picture. Thanks, Andrew and Ryan!

Come to Open House. (No spiders allowed!)

First, I want to issue an invitation for students and families to visit the Library during Open House. I love meeting everyone, new and "old", including "alums" who have a younger sibling at our school. Usually there are a few old books for giveaways and this year won't be any different - so come on down!

One visitor who was not welcome was the Wolf Spider shown in the photo to the left. Some 4th grade boys saw this big creature in the hallway and watched as I gently caught it. Before setting it free in the woods, I snapped the picture with the adult hand showing you just how large it was. Glad that one didn't show up during a Library class!

This week all Grade 1-4 students borrowed a book or two and I hope they're enjoying them (Kindergarten begins borrowing mid-October). In fact, you might recognize the pink paper in the spider photo. That was the important information paper that went home with every student. I encouraged students to have an adult read it because it explains our library program and how to reach me. Even if you didn't read it, I hope to see you at Open House!

September 2011

Welcome back to all returning students and a hearty Welcome! to all new students from your librarian, Mrs. Reiser-Jones. This is my weekly blog about what's going on in the Library and I hope you like it. Our first week of school went fine; I look forward to Monday when I get to meet the rest of my library classes - Mrs. St. Clair's 1st Grade, Ms. Tetreault's students, and all the Kindergarteners. Only 4th graders checked out books this week; next week Grades 1-3 will be bringing home a library book. Kindergarten students should begin borrowing books in October after we learn all about the library and library class routines.

On a somber note, if your child is asking questions about all the media coverage of September 11th, here are some books I recommend (available here and other libraries) -

• A Nation Challenged: A Visual History of 9/11 and Its Aftermath - Young Reader's Edition from The New York Times.

• Heroes of 9/11: Ten True Tales by Allan Zullo - chapter book

• The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein. This winner of the 2004 Caldecott Medal tells the true tale of Philippe Petit who wire-walked between the two towers in 1974. It is an amazing, inspiring story that, at the end, sensitively states, "Now the towers are gone. But in memory, as if imprinted on the sky, the towers are still there . . ."

For now, on this sunny Friday afternoon, let's lift the mood and look forward to a good weekend. More next week!

Visual Literacy

I hope that author/illustrator David Shannon and Blue Sky Press (c2002) don't mind if I post this photo of the title page of one of my all-time favorite books, Duck on a Bike. Not only is this book great fun, but it's also a perfect example of Visual Literacy. This means the ability to figure out (comprehend) what is going on in a picture. It's an important skill to develop in young children and research shows that being able to understand pictures leads to better text comprehension.

This is a skill that comes easier for some students than others and our instruction promotes "learning to read pictures". In Library, using Duck on a Bike with Kindergarten classes leads the way to Grade 1 library classes when we really concentrate on 3 elements of Visual Thinking Strategies, a questioning strategy developed around art museums but widely used in education. My wording of the 3 questions of VTS to students goes like this:

#1 What's going on in this picture?
#2 What's the evidence for your idea?
#3 Do you see anything else that you notice in the picture?

This seems like a wordy way to read a book but with lots of practice I've learned to seamlessly (I hope!) work it into our enjoyment of a good read-aloud book. In Grade 1 we share many Caldecott Award books and the criteria for the award is "do the pictures help tell the story?" and how illustrations and text work together to tell the story. Visual Literacy - what a fun way to improve comprehension among young children!

For some reason, Duck on a Bike did not win a Caldecott - a grave injustice to me! If you don't know the book, find it at your public library and Enjoy!

Another Beanbag Photo

As I wrote last week, I can't get too many cute pictures of cute kids on the beanbags with their books. This group is from Mrs. Terluk's p.m. class and they all had big smiles for the camera.

Next week I'll try for a little more "substance", but it's a Friday afternoon in May and the sun came out for the first time this week. Delightful!

Happiness is a warm beanbag and a book!

I would be content to post photos of kids on the beanbag chairs every week. There's nothing quite like children nestled on the beanbags as they look at their library books. These boys are in Mrs. Terluk's morning Kindergarten class.

There's not much else to say about such happy faces enjoying their BookLook time in the library. Enjoy!

More Than Just Reading

Joshua A. is busy at work writing in the library this afternoon. He's using his creative ideas to write a sequel to a favorite library book and he found a quiet place to work. I should say, a temporarily quiet place because often we have so many activities going on that it's not-so-quiet!

Many of us have memories of the "shushing" librarian who cautioned against any type of talking. Those days are gone in most libraries, especially school libraries, and I think it's an improvement over the olden days of silence. Our students know that during BookLook time they can use their quiet voices to share thoughts and ideas about books. Sometimes it gets a little too loud but a reminder usually does the trick. I believe that a library should be a place where you can enjoy yourself but still respect others in helping maintain an enjoyable space.

Lately I've been thinking that although the silent library is pretty much "history" that sometimes it would be nice to have a quiet sanctuary in public libraries. I know that some libraries manage to have that separate space for quiet reading, but that's not possible at many. Oh well, if it's a choice between a busy active library and a silent space, I'll take the busy library anytime!