Stories from the Library: December 14-18

Happy Holidays from the SPS Library! 

We enjoyed a number of holiday books in the library this week: Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel, Merry Christmas, Curious George by Cathy Hapka, A Visit from Saint Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, A Wish for Wings that Worked by Berkeley Breathed, and Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini. It's been a fun and festive week that included the elementary holiday show (featuring the Seven Peaks penguins-- all week I heard our music teachers instructing children to "keep waddling!"), many classroom celebrations, staff Secret Santas, and an office kitchen brimming with treats. 

Have a wonderful holiday break-- there are many more books and stories to come in the new year!

Stories from the Library: December 7-11

Kindergarteners impressed me with their inference skills while reading Eric Carle's Dream Snow this week. Before reading the story, we looked at some of the pictures and guessed what kind of animals were in the farmer's barn windows. We charted our animal predictions and had fun turning the pages to see if our guesses were correct (most were!). At the end of the story, we had a mini-debate about whether the man pictured on the cover of the book is Santa Claus or not. He is simply identified as "the farmer" in the story, and we had children making cases for both sides. This book was a fun treat at the end of a long, busy week.

Preschool: I shared one of my favorite childhood Christmas books with the Preschoolers this week, Merry Christmas Mom and Dad by Mercer Mayer. While Little Critter has good intentions to help his parents wrap gifts, decorate the tree and pick out presents for his little sister, he encounters a number of setbacks. I think the picture of Little Critter wrapped in too-sticky tape was enough to make me giggle many years ago, and the Preschoolers shared my sentiments. We also enjoyed If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, the Holiday companion to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff.


Junior Kindergarten: The sight of Santa Claus on the cover of Hurry Santa by Julie Sykes was enough to enthrall the Junior Kindergarten class. Colorful cartoon-ish illustrations accompany this fun and simple story about Santa Claus running late on Christmas Eve. At the end of the story, Santa Claus finds one last gift at the bottom of his bag-- a new alarm clock from his animal friends.


2nd Grade: Maria's family Christmas is almost ruined when she thinks she has lost her mother's wedding ring while kneading the cornmeal dough for tamales in Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. Before diving into the story, we looked at step-by-step pictures of how tamales are made. This book is a fun look at how holidays are celebrated among other culture groups, but the gentle lessons about honesty and truth-telling are universal. 


Quite a few classes missed their regular library time this week due to the book fair and holiday show rehearsals. 'Tis a busy (but fun) season! 

Stories from the Library: November 30-December 4

The Scholastic Book Fair is in full swing this week! Our first day was this past Friday the 4th and the students are so excited to see our Library turned into a Scholastic "store" for a few days. Some of the children were jumping up and down when they saw the Scholastic delivery truck driving toward the school last week!
Because of the Book Fair, only a few classes were able to have regular library times this past week:

Preschool: When one of the twins loses a red mitten in Florence Slobodkin's Too Many Mittens, the whole town sends red mittens their way. As you can imagine, their home is soon overflowing with lost red mittens! First published in 1958, this delightful story is still fun more than 50 years later. 
Junior Kindergarten: Junior Kindergarteners enjoyed The Dream Jar by Lindan Lee Johnson. New to our library, this charming book tells the story of a little girl who learns how to transform bad dreams into "dreamy dreams" with the help of her big sister and a seemingly magical jar of good thoughts.
1st Grade: 1st Graders laughed at all the silly animals in Jan Brett's The Mitten: A Ukranian Folktale. Jan Brett is beloved by students for her colorful, detailed illustrations and fun stories. In The Mitten, a bevy of forest animals find shelter from the snow in Nicky's lost mitten-- that is, until the bear sneezes! 
4th Grade: We finished up our unit on Chris Van Allsburg with the holiday classic The Polar Express. In our closing comments about Van Allsburg we decided that "dreamlike," "mysterious," and "muted" were appropriate words to describe his stories and illustrations. One student astutely noted that as an author, Van Allsburg does not like to tell his readers what to think about a certain character or situation. Rather, he gives us clues that will lead each reader to infer his or her own conclusion. This mysterious quality draws me--and the students-- into Van Allsburg's dreamlike worlds.
5th Grade: After watching a commercial highlighting books in the Scholastic Book Fair, 5th Graders listened to part of a Beverly Cleary Christmas story: "Ramona, The Sheep Suit, and the Three Wise Persons" from A Newberry Christmas, a book of Christmas short stories from fourteen Newberry Award-winning authors.