Stories from the Library: October 19-23

5th Graders loved hearing an abridged version of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of Red Death" this week. In the story, a wealthy prince locks himself and a number of guests in a castle to escape the Red Death, a sickness that has been plauging the countryside. While the people outside are sick and dying, those inside the castle decide to have a masquerade ball. During the ball a mysterious figure dressed like a corpse affected by the Red Death appears and reaks havoc on the entire party. 5th Graders love Poe's storytelling and are amazed that a story written in 1842 can still rival many modern horror tales.
Preschool: Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? is the repeated question in the picture book by Bonnie Lass and Philemon Sturges. Preschoolers listened and watched as Mr. Skunk makes the rounds with all his animal friends in the desert to figure out who took those cookies!
Junior Kindergarten: Jr. K enjoyed Delicious! by Helen Cooper, another Pumpkin Soup Story about Duck, Cat and Squirrel. When the three roommates run out of ripe pumpkins, they have to improvise and please Duck, a very picky eater.
Kindergarten: In Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems, Leonardo is really a terrible monster; he can't seem to scare anyone! He eventually finds the perfect candidate: a particularly jumpy little boy. Kindergarteners love Willems' fun, minimalist illustrations, his wacky sense of humor and the idea of "scaring the tuna salad out of someone"!
1st Grade: To finish up our unit on Fables, we read Tony Ross's Foxy Fables, a picture book with short chapters featuring some of the more cunning Fable characters. Ross's colorful, cartoonish illustrations and witty interpretations make classic Fables more accessible (and fun) to young readers. 
2nd Grade: 2nd Graders started a unit on Fractured Fairy Tales, a fairly recent genre in which classic fairy tales are twisted up a bit for comedic effect. We started with reading The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugenios Trivizas, a twist on the classic Three Little Pigs story.
3rd Grade:  We revisited our friend Gritch the Witch this week in Broom Mates by Margie Palatini. 3rd Graders learned about puns and found them throughout this very "punny" book about Gritch's interactions with her sister Mag, who comes to help prepare for the annual "howliday" party.
4th Grade: 4th Graders learned about the Dewey Decimal System, the numbered classification system we use to categorize our nonfiction (and some fiction!) books. To help us remember the ten categories better, we looked at the story of Dewey and the Alien on a website designed by a group of students and librarians from Nettleson Intermediate Center in Arkansas.
5th Grade: See opening post.

Stories from the Library: October 12-16

This week, 3rd Graders bravely tackled a lesson in allusions using Margie Palatini's fun book Piggie Pie. I introduced allusions (a literary tactic in which a writer uses characters or moments from a well-known story to enhance his or her own story) and challenged the class to become "Allusion Detectives" as we read through Piggie Pie, a story about Gritch the Witch, a comical witch who tries to satisfy her craving for Piggie Pie. 3rd Graders rose to the challenge and loved pointing out how the author used Old MacDonald's farm, the Big Bad Wolf and visual allusions from The Wizard of Oz. I gave out badges reading "I'm an Allusion Detective" to our very clever 3rd Grade class.

Junior Kindergarten: Junior Kindergarteners listened to Pumpkin Soup, written and illustrated by Helen Cooper, a lively tale about friendship, sharing and delicious soup. The Junior Kindergarteners had fun remembering what kinds of soup they've eaten before and were intrigued by the pumpkin soup recipe at the end of the book.


Kindergarten: In honor of the Kindergarten's field trip to the pumpkin patch on Thursday, we read Arthur's Field Trip by Leslie Tryon. In this picture book, Arthur the goose's class takes a field trip to the apple farm, where they get to pick apples, press apple cider, sample apple pie and learn about apples.


1st Grade: Continuing in our unit on fables, 1st Graders read an adaptation of the Indian fable, the Blind Man and the Elephant called Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. The moral, "Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole" led into a good discussion about how we look at people-- do we judge people by just knowing a little bit about them or do we wait until we know the whole person to make a judgement?


2nd Grade: We learned more about how fiction and nonfiction books are arranged on the shelf, and 2nd Graders became experts in identifying fiction and nonfiction spine labels. 


3rd Grade: See opening post.



4th Grade: 4th Graders heard about Oregon Battle of the Books this week. Team sign-ups start now in the library!      


5th Grade: We started a unit on Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the modern horror story, in 5th Grade this week. I presented a PowerPoint about Poe's life and highlighted some of his famous stories. The 5th Graders decided we wanted to read "The Masque of Red Death" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" as a class and many of them were excited to check out Poe's book and read his works for themselves.

Stories from the Library: October 5-9

When learning about history or current events, it's easy to gloss over numbers and facts without stopping to think about the individual lives those numbers represent. This week the 5th Graders listened to The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter, which tells the true story of Alia Muhammad, a librarian in Basra, Iraq, who saved thousands of books from her library during the war in 2003. We talked about why it's important to hear stories like Alia's--oftentimes we can mistakenly look at certain people and make judgments about the whole group without knowing its individual parts. Winter's wonderful book gently delves into wartime realities, providing an opportunity for discussions about how we view our world and the people in it.  

Preschool: After a freak snowstorm this past Sunday, we're back to "regular" fall weather, which serves as a great backdrop for seasonal stories. Preschoolers enjoyed Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell, a picture book about visiting a farm. We also peeked out the library window to observe the changing leaves.   


Junior Kindergarten: To celebrate the changing seasons, we read Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson. This fun picture book introduces many colorful words as Mouse and Minka run, kick, skip and swish through the leaves. 


1st Grade: Continuing our unit of Fables, we read Tony Ross's The Boy Who Cried Wolf, a modern twist on the classic story. Though the ending is just a bit goofier, the message of "crying wolf" is still loud and clear.  

4th Grade: To help us understand why we need to learn things like reading a spine label and how to use our online catalog, 4th Graders listened to Our Librarian Won't Tell Us Anything by Toni Buzzeo. As the book points out, a librarian's job is not simply to find books, but to give students the tools needed to be "a Library Success Story." After the story 4th Graders watched a presentation on how to use OPAC, our online search catalog. 


5th Grade: See opening post.


Kindergarten, 2nd and 3rd Grade missed Library time this week due to conferences.

Stories from the Library: September 28-October 2

2nd Graders focused on fleshing out the differences between fiction and nonfiction this week. To illustrate this point further, we enjoyed a new book in our nonfiction section called How Many Ways Can you Catch a Fly? by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. The book is divided up into sections that ask questions like How Many Ways Can you Snare a Fish and How Many Ways Can you Hatch an Egg. Students loved hearing fun facts about different animals. Did you know that the ichneumon wasp lays its eggs inside a caterpillar? When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their way out of the caterpillar's body.  

Preschool: Preschoolers enjoyed Margaret Wise Brown's Big Red Barn this week. They loved pointing out the different farm animals and imitating their sounds. We observed how the pictures get darker and darker as the sun sets on the farm. 

Junior Kindergarten: In Pigsty by Mark Teague, Wendell prefers dirtiness to cleanliness...even when the pigs move in. But after finding hoof marks on his comic books and bite marks on his baseball cards, he begins to change his mind...and his pigsty habits. 


Kindergarten: Kindergartners listened to But Excuse Me That is My Book, a Charlie and Lola story by Lauren Child. Child's colorful collage-style illustrations and fun characters help teach the lesson that library books belong to all children. The book led naturally into a discussion about what to do if someone else checks out your favorite book (which can often be a cause for distress in the Kindergarten world). 


1st Grade: 1st Graders started a unit on Fables this week. We discussed this type of story and read the classic tale The Ant and the Grasshopper. After the story we talked about the moral, there's a time for play and a time for work or you have to work hard to play hard. Students took turns sharing stories of how they apply this principle in their own lives. 

2nd Grade: See opening post.


3rd Grade: 3rd Graders learned all about spine labels this week. Spine labels are like a book's address, and understanding how they work will help you navigate through the library. After figuring out how to differentiate fiction from nonfiction labels, students practiced writing spine labels on their whiteboards. 


4th and 5th Grade: 4th and 5th graders missed library this week because of testing. More to come next week!