Cherry Valley Elem. School Library

Keep track of your reading through spring vacation in April. If you haven’t started your record keeping yet and you can remember the books you’ve read–you can count anything you’ve read since Thankgiving. Check the read-a-thon page in the column on the right of this blog if you need forms.

Wow, with your help we had the second biggest book fair we’ve ever had. Its gratifying to work a community that shows such strong support of libraries.

THE BOOK FAIR IS COMING! Help is needed to set it up.

If you love books and want to see the brand new books at this year’s bookfair, let Mrs. Brangwin know! We’ll be setting the book fair up Thursday, Nov 5 from 9am-noon. Help is also needed from 9:00 to 9:20 Friday, Nov. 6 through Thursday, Nov. 12 at the cashier’s stand. Even if you haven’t used a cash register, you’ll find the book fair ones easy to use! We’ll be taking the book fair down Friday, Nov 13 from 9am to 11am. You can contact Mrs. Brangwin at brangwinn@riverview.wednet.edu.

You can also volunteer directly through the website Volunteer Spot.

ONLINE RESOURCES for Cherry Valley Families  Cherry Valley Elementary has a number of online resources available at http://cvlibrary.edublogs.org/online-resources/

• World Book Online. This is an excellent online encyclopedia, with information updated quickly. World Book Online is the place to go for student information….before the Google search. One of the advantages of World Book Online is the table of contents on the left hand side of the page. Using this non-fiction text feature, teaches students how to locate the information they need in the article, if it is a lengthy article. There is a version for primary aged children, intermediate grades and high school as well as an encyclopedia in Spanish. Links to appropriate subject websites is given. Be sure to put in the user name and password are needed to use this site.
• BookFlix has online videos of children’s picture books and non-fiction books that the student can listen to or read, with activities to go along. This program has been purchased with proceeds from the book fair. The user name and password are needed to use this site as well. You’ll find those on the link to the webpage above.
• Other resources include Teaching Books Net. This has links to author and book information including some great author interviews. You’ll also find eLibrary which links kids to magazine articles. eLibrary and Culture Grams are useful for school reports. If you travel to another country. Culture Grams will help you learn about the country you are visiting.

 Audio Books and headphones/Ear budsPlayaways, the MP3 audio books are extremely popular among students. Because of health concerns, ear buds will no longer be distributed with the Playaways. We encourage students to use their personal headphones or ear buds. We will be getting some ear buds in which students can purchase for $5.00 if they need some.

I just saw the movie Where the Wild Things Are.  I really thought that making a movie about a 32 page classic children’s picture book made no sense. Well, I was wrong! It portrayed the wild things and Max perfectly, and went beyond the story, using lines from the book in the movie. Has anyone else seen the movie? Did you think it was pretty scary?  Now I’m looking forward to seeing Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  That’s a really fun imaginative pictures book as well.

If you enjoyed the picture book  The Two Bobbies: a True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship and Survival visit their website.

www.twobobbies.com.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is one the high tea books this year. I think you kids will like it much better than I did. You will get to vote in March for your favorite book. I don’t get to vote–I’m too old.

If you’d like to know more about Jeff Kinney (the author) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid go to http://www.wimpykid.com/

Mrs. Brangwin has been in Mexico since July 1. She is one of 16 teachers from across the US who was selected to participate in a US Department of Education Fulbright Summer Seminar abroad.  As i write  this, I´m in San Cristobal Chiapas near Guatamala. Lots of poverty. Lots of children out on the streets trying to sell things to survive. The lesson here–is be grateful for what you have–even things like a kitchen, bathroom and electricity. You can read about her adventures, including getting lost in a Mayan ruin and meeting lots of iguanas who couldn´t speak English and tell her the way out at http://nelda.edublogs.org/.

Oh, what a sad book. I just finished reading How to Steal a Dog one of this year’s Literary High Tea books about a homeless girl living with her mom and brother in a car. It makes me stop and rethink what I’ve believed about homeless people. I finished reading it last night and in today’s Seattle  is an article about a homeless girl who’s been in 12 schools in 12 years and is going to Harvard University.  What an inspiring story.

Barnes and Noble have a great summer reading program–read 8 books and get a free book. Combine this with the summer reading program at King County Library and reading for the Literary High Tea, and you’ll accomplish a lot.

Here’s the information about the Barnes and Noble summer reading program:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/summerreading/

King County Summer reading program: http://www.kcls.org/srp/