Week of January 19, 2010

At Madeira Elementary School we have been very fortunate to have one of our teachers, Mrs. Fran Wilson, on the Orbis Pictus committee for the past three years. This committee is responsible for choosing the best non-fiction children's books that were published the previous year. M.E.S. Library has been reaping the benefits during Mrs. Wilson's term, as she has donated all of the books that she has reviewed. We have just received well over 300 new books from all of her hard work this year!!



It is important to familiarize myself with each book as it is processed so that I'm more knowledgeable and helpful to students and teachers with their research. This is a very time consuming task. And so, I'm going to have to take a step back from the blog for a while. While I love blogging to keep parents informed, it too is very time consuming and to prioritize, it's more important to get these new books into the hands of the students of Madeira Elementary School.



So, thanks for following the M.E.S. Media Center blog. We'll still be blogging, but just not as often.



And special thanks to Mrs. Fran Wilson for the wonderful additions to our library!!

Week of January 11, 2010

It's mighty cold outside and I have so many great books to share with our students. The suspense is rising in kindergarten when we read Something is Going to Happen by Charlotte Zolotow. We will also enjoy Pip & Squeak by Ian Schoenherr and Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller.

Chris Van Allsburg is an amazing author and illustrator of fifteen children's book, many of which your children will hear before they leave M.E.S. This week in second grade we will discuss the achievements of Chris Van Allsburg, including two Caldecott medals for Jumanji and The Polar Express and we will read The Z Was Zapped.

In the beginning of November our first graders were introduced to author and illustrator Marc Brown, creator of the Arthur books. We learned then that Mr. Brown likes to hide the names of his children, Tucker, Tolon and Eliza, in his illustrations. This week, we will read Locked in the Library by Marc Brown and then we have plenty of Arthur books to go around so we'll do illustration searches to find Tolon, Eliza and Tucker's names.

We are continuing on with our biographies in third grade. We will touch base with the third graders that chose their biographies last week to see if anyone needs more materials to complete their project. Then we will read a biography on Snowshoe Thompson.

An exciting addition has come to our media center...a SMARTboard!!! After a very successful Scholastic Book Fair in the fall, we were able to purchase it with our profits. So again, thank you for your support. If you are not familiar with the SMARTboard, it is an amazing interactive learning tool. I'm counting on the 4th graders to teach me how to use it! We will again practice our use of Alexandra cataloging computer system and locating resources in the library. Everyone will get a turn!