Kevin Luthardt - K1

The children in K1 love the humorous and bright illustrations in Kevin Luthardt's books. With bold images, speech bubbles and minimal text, Luthardt creates stories that young readers love. The students are able to recognize Luthardt's distinct style and point out the similarities from book to book.

Some of Ludthardt's books teach important lessons with a laugh. Mine! is the story of two brothers who learn to share a present from Grandma. Hats! shows a boy's experience being teased about his new hat as he is trying to find his own style. In You're Weird, Rabbit and Turtle discover that the things they each like aren't weird - they are what make them special. Both Larabee and Peep! tell touching stories about having pets.


Learn more about Kevin Luthardt's books and other art work:
http://www.kevinluthardt.com/

Cynthia Rylant - Grade 2

Cynthia Rylant is the author of many genres of books for children of all ages. She received the Newbery Medal for her book Missing May, the Newbery Honor award for A Fine White Dust, as well as Caldecott Honors for The Relatives Came and When I Was Young in the Mountains. We have over 80 books by Cynthia Rylant in our elementary library!

Grade Two students have begun to explore some of her popular work for young readers. Several series they have started reading are Henry and Mudge, High-Rise Private Eyes, Mr. Putter and Tabby, Poppleton and Cobblestreet Cousins.


Students also enjoy many of Rylant's picture books including The Cookie-Cat Store, The Bookshop Dog, Little Whistle's Medicine and The Great Gracie Chase: Stop That Dog!

To read a letter from Cynthia Rylant, written for children, click here.

Elementary Magazines

We have a wonderful collection of magazines for students in the elementary library. The magazines cover a range of interests and topics and are appropriate for different age levels. We like to encourage students to select a variety of reading materials when they visit the library. Magazines are a great way for students to access nonfiction information, enjoy short stories or just read for fun.

Our current magazines subscriptions include the following:

• American Girl
• Appleseeds
• Boys Life
• Calliope
• Chickadee
• Click
• Cobblestone
• Dig
• Discovery Girls
• Faces
• Girls Life
• Kids Discover
• Muse
• National Geographic Kids
• Ranger Rick
• Spider
• Sports Illustrated for Kids
• Your Big Backyard
• Zoobooks

Our Elementary Library homepage includes a link to a complete list of student magazines with a short description and age level for each. Here is a short cut to the link:

Descriptions of all magazines

Louis Sachar Author Study - Grade 4

Both 4W and 4F enjoyed Louis Sachar's Sideways Stories from Wayside School as a novel study in their classrooms. In the library, the students discovered some of the other books written by Sachar such as Holes, Someday Angeline, There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom and the Marvin Redpost series. There are also several other books in the Sideways School series including Wayside School is Falling Down, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger and Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School.

The students also explored Louis Sachar's website and found out about the author's life and what inspires his stories. They also got some writing tips to apply to their own work. To learn more about Sachar and to view a complete book list with descriptions of each book visit: http://www.louissachar.com/

Happy Halloween!

We are getting in the Halloween spirit in the library. Stop by to look at the October books on display. You'll find everything from funny Halloween picture books to spooky stories to nonfiction books about bats and spiders to ideas for carving your own jack-o-lantern.

Each grade level is sharing different Halloween stories. In K1, we enjoyed the rhyming words in Five Little Pumpkins by Iris Van Rynbach. We are comparing the similar stories of The Enormous Carrot by Vladimir Vasilevich Vagin and Big Pumkin by Erica Silverman in K2. Students in Grade 1 will share Winnie the Witch by Valerie L. Thomas. Grade 2 students are imaging their own pumpkin works of art after reading Pumpkin Heads by Wendell Minor. We explored the Russian folktale Bonny Legs by Joanna Cole in Grade 3. The book 2x2 = Boo! A Set of Spooky Multiplication Stories by Loreen Leedy inspired some problem solving in Grade 4. And, Grade 5 students read The Widow's Broom and discovered the many other works of Chris Van Allsburg.

Home Country Research - Grade 1

Grade 1 began learning about maps and countries and came to the library to conduct their first research last month! Students used World Book Kids online encyclopedia to learn about their home countries. The students found their capital city, viewed pictures of their country, listened to their national anthem and collected facts that were interesting to them.


Some students also explored maps using Google Earth. They zoomed into maps of Dubai and found ASD! Many of the children also found their home countries and cities and other places they have visited in the world.

G'Day Mate! Grade 2 Research Australia

Grade 2 students have been learning about Australia. To find out more about this fascinating country, students gathered information from two different sources - an electronic database called CultureGrams and World Book Encyclopedia for Kids. ASD subscribes to both resources and links are available from our library homepage.

Using a process called "The Super 3," students learned to plan, do and review when doing research. Students used a graphic organizer to gather facts about Australian landforms, climate, cities, people, food, animals and sports. The recorded only their "treasure words" or most important facts and also cited their sources. They will use their information to create a travel brochure about Australia in their classrooms.

The Grade 2 students are excited about the Australia project. Some have even visited the library during recess to find out what else they can discover inside the electronic resources! If you would like to learn more about our databases, please stop by the library - or ask any Grade 2 student!

Diving into Dewey in Grades 4 and 5

Grade Four and Five students have been investigating how information is organized in the library. The students participated in a scavenger hunt to find out where different subjects and materials are located. We discussed the Dewey Decimal System and learned that call numbers are similar to an address - they tell us where books live.

We discovered that fiction books, both picture books and chapter books, are arranged alphabetically by the first letters of the author's last name. Biographies are also organized alphabetically, not by author, however, but by the name of the person the book is about. Nonfiction books are grouped by Dewey number.

Here are some of the popular topics for elementary students within each Dewey section:

000 GENERALITIES -Computers, Loch Ness, Bigfoot, UFO’s, Aliens, Internet, Guiness Book of Records and Almanacs

100 PHILOSOPHY - Ghosts and the Supernatural, Optical Illusions, Feelings, Emotions, Values, Animal Rights

200 RELIGION - Mythology, World Religions

300 SOCIAL SCIENCES - World Cultures, Government, Careers, Military Equipment, Environmental Issues, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, History of Transportation, Holidays, Scary Stories

400 LANGUAGES – Sign language, World Languages, Hieroglyphics

500 SCIENCE AND MATH - Science Experiments, Mathematics, Astronomy, Physical Science, Chemistry, Atoms & Molecules, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Weather, Dinosaurs, Prehistoric Animals, Biomes, Oceans, Evolution, Plants, Animals. Insects

600 APPLIED SCIENCE – Inventions, Human body, Disease, Space Ships, Trains, Cars, Pets, Cookbooks, Organizing, Sewing, Careers, Secret Codes, Paper Making, Building

700 ART - History of Art, Architecture, Origami, Drawing, Crafts, Sewing, Knitting, Painting, Print Making, Photography, Music, Sports, Games, Magic, Camping, Fishing

800 LITERATURE - Poetry, Plays, Jokes & Riddles

900 GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY - Explorers, Atlases, Flags, Archeology, Ancient Civilizations, Knights, Castles, World War I & II, World Countries

Grade 3 Chapter Books - Bailey School Kids

The Bailey School Kids series, by Debbie Dadey, is a hot topic in Grade 3! We read Vampires Don't Wear Polkadots together and the students began to explore the other books on their own. The spooky and humorous stories are perfect chapter books for Grade 3.

Visit the library for recommendations for just right chapter books and series. Here are a few to get you started...

• Arthur series
• A-Z Mysteries
• Bailey City Monsters
• Barkley’s School for Dogs
• Berenstain Bears
• Black Lagoon
• Cam Jansen
• Commander Toad
• Dragon Slayer’s Academy
• Hank the Cow Dog
• Horrible Harry
• Jigsaw Jones Mysteries
• Junie B. Jones
• Magic Tree House
• Marvin Red Post
• Pee Wee Scouts
• Polka Street School
• Ready Freddy
• Scooby Doo
• Song Lee
• Matt Christopher sports series
  
• Stevie Diamond Mysteries
• The Littles
• Third Grade Detectives
• Time Warp Trio
  
• Zack Files
  
  

Chapter Books for Grade 2 - My Weird School Series

Over several classes, we read the chapter book Mrs. Roopy is Loopy, part of the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman. Ever since, we cannot keep the series on the shelf! Grade 2 students are eating up the books and visiting every day to see if any new books have been returned! The students love the fact that each book features a different unusual teacher. Mrs. Roopy, for example, is a zany librarian who dresses up as a different character every time the children come to the library. Dan Gutman is a popular author for children. His baseball card adventure series is well read as are two of his newer titles The Get Rich Quick Club and The Homework Machine. For more information about Dan Gutman and his books visit:

http://www.dangutman.com/

Grade 1 Author Study: Mo Willems

Students in Grade 1 have been celebrating the works of author and illustrator, Mo Willems. Together we have read Leonardo the Terrible Monster, My Friend is Sad and Knufflebunny. We have many of Willems books in the library including the popular Elephant and Piggie series and the Pigeon series. Students enjoy Willems' sense of humor, speech bubble dialog and hilarious characters.

Please stop by the library to see the display of Grade 1 student's own illustrations of terrible monsters just like Leonardo!

Check out Mo Willems' website to learn more about his books and to play some interactive games featuring the delightful characters:

http://www.mowillems.com/

Book Care in K2

K2 students were happy to learn that they will not be fined $1,000 or go to jail in they do not return their books on time! After reading Beverly Billingsly Borrows a Book and watching a film version of the story, the students realized that bringing back our books on time is important so that others can enjoy them too. It is also important to be able to check out new and exciting books! Remember, students do not need to wait until their next library class to change books. They are welcome to come with parents any day before or after school. Please keep books safe and dry inside book bags - especially as swimming season has started!

Magic Fingers in K1

You may not know it, but our K1 students have magic fingers! Not only have they been carefully turning the pages of the books they borrow from the library, but they have also been turning the pages of books electronically. Using our interactive white board in the library, students use their fingers to "turn" the pages of electronic book by touching the screen.

Using a website called LookyBook, students can explore the pages of a book in electronic format. The large screen of the interactive board makes the pages larger than life - perfect for developing early concepts of print. We shared two books by author Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Lemons and Not Red and Black? White! Day? Night!: A Book of Opposites, first in print and then on LookyBook. The students enjoyed the participation and the discovery that their fingers are magic.

Destiny Quest

Our library catalog has an exciting new feature called Destiny Quest. A new interface allows students to search for books complete with sliding pictures of book covers! The students are excited about this colorful, dynamic and user-friendly design.

To access Destiny Quest, go to the catalog (link on right) and click on the left-hand tab "Destiny Quest," underneath "Library Search." Then click "Begin your Destiny Quest."

TIP: Remember to log in to the library catalog, your user name is your library number, and your password is your first name!

Ask you child to show you how to navigate Quest!