What's Happening at the BSS Library?

 I read Erandi's Braids  by Antonio Hernandez Madrigal and illustrated by Tomie DePaola to 2B today.  After pointing out Mexico on the world map, we read that the village of Patzcuaro was near Mexico City and was a very poor village. In the story, Erandi's family needed money for a new fishing net.  Fishing was how the family earned its money, and their net was beyond repair.  It was Erandi's birthday, so her mother took her to the shop in the village square to pick out a present. Erandi saw a beautiful doll there, but ended up choosing a gorgeous dress that she could wear to the upcoming village fiesta. She felt a bit guilty buying anything, thinking that maybe her family should save the money for a new net instead.  Her mother insisted that she had a plan to earn some extra money, and encourages her to buy the dress. Her mother's plan was to sell her hair to the barber, a common practice for women in the 1940's and 1950's in this village.  ...

5th graders got a stamp on the Australia map of their passports today.  In Top to Bottom Down Under , we learned about crazy looking animals like the platypus and echidna,  how you lose a day when traveling there because you cross the international date line, and how the seasons are the opposite of ours since Australia is on the other side of the world. We even learned some Australian slang, such as "Holy Dooley!" (good grief) and fair dinkum (genuine).  Most of us weren't big fans of the olive python, especially when we read about it swallowing another snake.  Last week we read Tutankhamen's Gift by Robert Sabuda, and learned about how King Tut went from being the youngest member of the royal family of the great Egyptian pharoah Amenhotep III to becoming pharoah himself. At the age of ten, Tutankhamen was quiet and not proficient in physical activities, but he had great respect for the beautiful temples and artifacts made in honor of the Egyptian god...

As much as I love the feel of holding a book in my hands, I know there are many great websites and apps that provide children with reading opportunities.  In addition to the ebooks we have in our library (see http://librarybss.blogspot.com/p/ebooks.html for more information on ebooks), I am trying a new app called EPIC that allows children to read some great books from all different levels and genres, both fiction and nonfiction.  Each student has his or her own profile, and can select genres or topics of interest and EPIC will make recommendations to the student. There are also activities and quizzes available that correspond to the books. This app is installed on the five iPads in the library, and while we are doing book checkout and station time, students will be able to explore EPIC.  I have set up accounts for all students in grades 1-4 so far. This app is free for use in school, but parents who wish to use this app at home can sign up for a paid subsc...

In second grade, we read a book called Monsoon by Uma Krishnaswami.  The setting was in northern India, and everyone is waiting and wondering if the monsoon rains will come soon. Everything is dry and dusty, although everyone is hoping for some long awaited rain, they worry too that the area might flood. We learned some Hindi words from the book's glossary, for instance that a koel is a songbird that is noisiest just before the rains.  We also learned about Ganesh, who is the elephant-headed Hindu god of beginnings.  We were lucky to have two students whose families are from India, and they were able to share about their experiences there including what the weather was like, what type of clothing people wore, and some animals that were commonly seen.   We noticed that there were differences in the climate and the busy city setting we read about in the story from where we live, but we also realized that children do a lot of the same activities such as pl...

Students have been taking advantage of our Makerspace area, which consists of our Lego wall as well as some other building sets and creative storytelling and design stations. 

Battle of the Books is an optional team-based reading program available to students in grades 3-8.  More information, including signup form, book lists, battle dates, and photos from last year's event is available on the Battle of the Books page of my blog.  Deadline to sign up is October 5th.  If you have questions, just let me know at kferguson@blessedsacrament.org . Congratulations to 7th grader Marco Fraone, who designed the logo for this year's event!

Third graders listened to How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman and illustrated by Allen Say.  The narrator is a young girl telling the story of how her parents met.  Her mother was living in Japan, and her father was an American soldier stationed in Japan.  They would go for walks and talk, but they were afraid to eat out with each other because he did not know how to use chopsticks and she had never used utensils such as a fork and knife.  So the girl's dad secretly went to a Japanese restaurant alone and had the waiter teach him how to use chopsticks, while the girl's mother had her uncle teacher her how to use utensils like the Westerners did. We discussed tofu and chopsticks and kimonos, each of which appeared in the story. And we pointed out the different customs people from each country used when greeting each other (shaking hands vs. bowing).  We learned a lot about Japan!

Fourth graders received their first stamp in their passports this week.  We read a book called Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson and Sean Qualls.  This book tells the true story of how Emmanuel, who grew up in Ghana, Africa, was born with only one strong leg.  While other people with disabilities who lived in his village would never be offered work and would have to beg to survive, Emmanuel's mother made him work hard to overcome his disability.  He would hop to school, two miles each way, and fetched water for his family and shined shoes for extra money. To show people how people with disabilities could do what able-bodied people could do, he rode a bike around Ghana -- nearly four hundred miles -- in just ten days.  People all around the country, disabled or not, cheered him on and saw firsthand that disability does not mean inability.

We have been in school a whole week now! Things have been going smoothly in the library, and it has been great to see everyone again. Our theme for the year is Read Around the World. My goal is to read many books set in many different countries and parts of the world. Peace is a schoolwide theme this year, and I hope that learning about other countries and cultures will not only help students learn where in the world all these places are, but how people around the world are both different and the same as people who live in our country.  We will discover the differences in how people eat, dress, and talk, and we will learn about their customs and holidays.  Despite all the differences that we will explore, my main goal is to help students understand the importance of respecting those differences. If people can respect and celebrate each other's differences, then our world will truly be a peaceful one. To keep track of what we have read and where we have "visited," I have...