This Week in the Library: February 1-5

Wow! It's February already.  This year is flying by.  Here's what went on in your library:

Primary Classes (Morehouse, Gordon, Bonnell, Gregerson, Goodsky): We read "The Secret Lives of Squirrels" by Nancy Rose from our Washington Children's Choice Picture Book Award nominee poster.  This photo story tells about Mr. Peanuts as he prepares his home for a visit from Cousin Squirrel.  We looked at the end matter in the book where we found information about wildlife photography and a Question and Answer section with the author that describes how she created the scenes and enticed the squirrels to visit. If there was time we watched a couple of short videos showing squirrels figuring out obstacle courses (link below). Vocabulary words: chattering, penmanship, vacuums, scrumptious.

 Squirrel Video, Secret Lives Slide Show (YouTube may not be available at school)

Primary Classes (Widener AM, Liker, Pawling): This week the WCCPBA book we read was "At the Old Haunted House" by Helen Ketteman, illustrated by Nate Wragg.  It is based on "Over in the Meadow" (link is to song version on YouTube and may be blocked within the school).  We discovered it is a counting book and a rhyming book.  Vocabulary words: draft, spells, vault, bayed, and haunt.

Primary Classes (Keating):  We heard "Emmanuel's Dream" by Laurie Ann Thompson about a boy from Ghana who was born with only one leg.  It was truly an amazing story.  Vocabulary words: Ghana, plantain.

Primary Classes (Rempel): We created a poster about the Magazine section.  We learned that magazines were periodicals, have a specific audience, and a certain topic.  We will explore more about magazines next week.

Intermediate (6th Combined, Mindt, Gibson): We completed the Best Book Program book talks.

5th Grade: We began our unit on fact and opinion.  We learned that a fact can be proven (or disproved) while an opinion can be argued.

6th Grade (Bogert, Hanson):  We began a project on comparing library catalogs.  Students will search for common books in school, public, and university libraries.  We will be gaining experiences with different user interfaces and will be comparing the catalogs and call numbers.

Professional:  Reviewed more books for Puget Sound Council. All of these titles will be added to our collection.  Read the 2016 Newbery Honor book "Roller Girl" by Victoria Jamieson.  Highly recommended!  I also began reading "Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American" by Stephen Ambrose. 4th grade is beginning to study the Lewis & Clark Expedition and Mrs. Hirst recommended this book to me.  I also gathered all of our Lewis & Clark material for the 4th grade.  I distributed reading challenge t-shirts to the 3rd grade, pulled and delivered biographies to Mrs. Goodsky's class, and helped with group yearbook pictures.  I watched a Ted Talk on linking a positive brains to performance.  I also worked on obtaining suggested titles for the 2017 WCCPBA list and began reading them (there are over 130 suggested titles).