A Few More Kodak Moments...

The 4th Grade Book Club met for the second time just this past Friday to discuss SCUMBLE by Ingrid Law. The second book by Ms. Law, SCUMBLE is a follow-up to her first novel SAVVY which many of us had also read. A "savvy" is a special power that children in the Kale family receive when they turn 13. We all chose the savvy we would like to have - everything from the power to blow things up to controlling the weather to flying!

A special Halloween treat was provided by Hannah Freeman and we were ever-so-grateful!! Thanks Hannah!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A Picture Paints a 1,000 Words...I Hope:)

I haven't been remiss in writing on this blog because of lack of news. In fact, the library at Memorial has been so busy, I've not been sure where to begin! Then it dawned on me...a picture paints a thousand words so I'll let the photos of recent library activities do most of the talking!

3rd Grade Book Club Update:

Wow! Over forty 3rd graders signed up for the Library Lunch Book Club. Too many to host in the library space so I threw some blankets on the lawn and Mother Nature cooperated for our first meeting - outside! The group is now being split into two groups so future meetings will be housed in the library. We shared our thoughts on NO TALKING by Andrew Clements and tried our own little "no talking" experiment. It wasn't the most traditional Book Club meeting but it sure was fun!

Special gracias to Senora Sears who joined us for the meeting to help me corral the crowd!

Ethan reads a discussion question to a group of 3rd grade Book Club members.

4th Grade Book Club

The 4th Grade Book Club also discussed NO TALKING by Andrew Clements and had great fun trying some of the "no talking" tricks found in the book. Chatty Kyle was challenged to 10 minutes of no talking and did a fanstastic job! Then the whole group recited the Pledge of Allegiance a la NO TALKING rules...three words each...it wasn't easy but we did it!




5th Grade Book Club

During the 5th Grade Book Club we discussed the fantastic book THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET by Brian Selznick and then watched a trailer of the movie of the book that is due out soon starring Jude Law and produced by Martin Scorsese. It looks like fun! But we agreed creative license took over during the movie making...we didn't recognize everything from the book! Check it out at:http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/paramount/hugo/.

After our meeting, we decided we would add Selznick's new title WONDERSTRUCK to our Book Club list in place of Mark Haddon's novel BOOM which appears to be a little too much of a stretch for us!

5th Graders Research Ancient Civilizations Using Contemporary Resources!

In a collaborative project with Technology Teacher Mrs. Seymour, I unlocked the iPad carts, turned on the Smart Board and got out good old fashioned books while Mrs. Seymour booted up the PCs in the Tech Lab to get students in Ms. Machain, Mrs. Tomaiolo and Mr. McDonough's 5th grade classes started on an Ancient Civilization Scavenger Hunt. Working in pairs, 5th graders have been working independently flowing between the Tech Lab and the newly located School Library to find answers to a list of questions about Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations for two weeks now. Teams that successfully answer all the questions (with correct spelling and sources cited) will earn a 100 point score AND win a prize!

Talk about motivated! Mrs. Seymour and I don't ever recall such a consistently focused group of 5th graders in our midst. They are working together, reading information on the World Book online database, using an iPad app called Aztec Empire and looking through a dozen books to find potential answers to the Scavenger Hunt questions. Then the pairs are discussing, debating and ultimately agreeing on what they think the "final answer" is for each question. The project will culminate with a writing piece in Mrs. Tomaiolo's Social Studies class. Learning has never been so fun!

Library Lunch Book Club Bonanza

Last week we kicked off not one but two Book Clubs in the library! The 5th Grade Library Lunch Book Club met, chowed down and discussed Andrew Clement's novel LOST AND FOUND. Overall, the group liked the book. Briefly, the story is about twins Jay Ray and Ray Jay. When Ray Jay is sick and absent on the first day of their new school, Jay Ray realizes that no one in the school even realizes that his twin brother exists. It seems like a dream come true! Finally the freedom to be an individual with no one gawking at the identical twins seems very welcome. But in time, it becomes clear that pretending there is one new boy - not two - is very difficult, dishonest and impossible to deny.

As the mother of identical twin girls, I found this book particularly intriguing, and I think all of the Book Club members were sympathetic to the plight of identical twins. We agreed that being identical twins has a few pros but also a lot of cons! How would you like it if no one could ever tell who you were?

At the 4th grade Book Club we discussed a novel also written by the prolific author Andrew Clements. We discussed the very entertaining book NO TALKING. When boys and girls compete to be quiet at Laketon Elementary teachers think its a gift...initially! But in order to communicate the 6th graders in the book need to get pretty creative when it comes to communicating! We tried our own NO TALKING experiment during our Book Club lunch and it was both challenging and funny. We hope to try it out in a classroom some time this year...I have to talk to Mr. Willis bout that:)

The 3rd, 4th and 5th grade Library Lunch Book Clubs are a fun way for readers to share ideas - and often laughs! Next on our reading list...THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET (soon to be a movie!) by Brian Selnick for 5th Graders and SCUMBLE by Ingrid Law for 3rd & 4th graders. Reading is a joy, sharing what we've read is just plain fun!