New Year – New Blog Address

Due to this blog platform deciding to limit the number of photos I can share, I’ve decided it’s a good time to move (back) to a new (old) blog platform.

Please come visit the new blog:
“The Library at St. Jude’s”  

I will keep this blog live as I move important pages to the new(old) blog so you can still check the Citation help page and everything else.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Book Fair on the Brain!

We’re getting ready to “Escape to a GALAXY OF STORIES!” in just one week (*gasp!*). So we’ve definitely had Book Fair on the Brain here in the Library. 

Between Book Fair on the Brain and being ill, I’ve fallen a bit behind here but we’ve been working hard getting ready for the book fair, cataloging books (yes, there’s still lots of new books we’re adding to the shelves as quick as we possibly can), having library class visits and read alouds including special read alouds for Remembrance Day and World Kindness Day, and we can’t forget Hallowe’en in the Library!

Now back to … The Book Fair! (of course).
For the last week of November the antechamber will be transformed into a Galaxy of Stories with our Scholastic Book Fair.  There will be books, posters, cool school tools (erasers, pens, pencils, highlighters), bookmarks, and more.  This year’s goal is to surpass last year’s sales of $5,637!  We will have a preview day and four full days available for shopping (including evening hours for our Family Shopping Event).  There will be a lollipop pull (which was very popular last year) where you can buy a lollipop and perhaps win a prize!  There will be our Wish List draw where one lucky winner and their teacher can win $25 each to the Book Fair.  There will also be Teacher Wish Lists in case you’d like to gift something to your child’s teacher/classroom.

Leading up to the Book Fair we’ve been having Guess How Many games. (1) Guess How Many Human Beans in the Rocket Ship (2) Guess How Many Fuel Cells in the Alien JetPack and (3) Guess How Many Gas Balls Are In The Me Planet.   Next week will be Guess How Many Aliens in the UFOs. Our grade 6 “Secret Game Crew” are also busily putting together a fun (secret) game for next week!

We’ve also been busy making a galaxy of stars and some UFOs to fly through them.  Teacher Creatures are next! Look for the Creatures with their Wish Lists at the Book Fair.  We are also still looking for a galaxy pattern sheet or blanket if anyone happens to own one they’d be willing to lend us for a photo backdrop.  Anything else space-y to add to decorations would also be gladly accepted.

Finally, next week – Tuesday, November 26 – we’re going to have a Galaxy Dress Day.  Bring in your $2 and you can wear anything Galaxy/Space inspired.  You can wear planets and stars, dress up as an alien or astronaut (or space princess/knight/king/cowboy -whatever), wear sparkles and sequins or the darkest dark, or dress as or featuring your favourite characters from another planet/galaxy from Chewbacca to Superman to Thor to E.T to Oh to Starfire, etc.

 

 

ReconciliACTION (Cont’d…)

Uh-oh, being out of The Library again for a couple days means we missed a couple days of our Secret Path Week challenges.  Although Secret Path Week has come to a close, I’d still like to share the challenges with you.  Here’s a few more:

ReconciliACTION (Cont’d…)

As Secret Path Week continues, today’s ReconciliACTION challenge is about the digital divide that exists in Canada..  Did you know, there are still lots of people in Canada who do not have access to digital technologies?  Did you know, that not everyone has equal access to technology and the internet?  Thus, today’s challenge is:

https://next150.indianhorse.ca/challenges/digital-equity

How does your internet speed compare?  What do you do online that would be seriously hampered by slow and unreliable internet connection?

ReconciliACTIONs

This week is Secret Path Week.  Secret Path Week commemorates the legacies of Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack and calls on us all to “Do Something”; to learn about residential schools and their impact on Indigenous people, their communities and culture, and Canada as a whole.

Here at The Library we are featuring different challenges (mostly from https://next150.indianhorse.ca/challenge) to encourage participating in these reconiliACTIONS.

As I was out of The Library yesterday, yesterday and today’s challenges are combined here.

Nibi’s Water Song is a new book we are adding to the collection all about everyone’s right to clean water.

Nibi is the Anishinaabemowin word for water. In Nibi’s Water Song , an Indigenous girl on the search for clean water to drink. Though she is faced with repeated obstacles, Nibi’s joyful and determined energy becomes a catalyst for change and action as her community, and then in widening circles the country and government, rally around her to make clean drinking water available for all. (Synopsis from Amazon.ca)

This book is part of today’s challenge:

I am also reading The Marrow Thieves by Canadian Metis, Cherie Dimaline as my personal reading choice.  What book will you read? Share in the Comments!

What We’ve Missed …

Yesterday (Oct17) marked the beginning of Secret Path Week.

Each day, I will be adding a challenge (mostly from https://next150.indianhorse.ca/) to encourage us to learn more and make changes.  If you’d like to try a challenge (or all of them), I’d love to see/hear how it goes (please share in the comments below or email).

We’ve also had a couple very busy weeks in The Library.  There’s been Recess Readers, Class Visits & Read Alouds, Special Days, Cataloging, Shelving, and our first Book Fair Crew meeting!

Here’s What We’ve Missed … 

•  Oct.9 was Mouldy Cheese Day and Oct.15 was National Cheese Curd Day. Of course, we have some cheese-y books in The Library.  Melvil suggests The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales.
• Oct.11 was International Day of the Girl.  According to the UN’s site: “Since 2012, 11 October has been marked as the International Day of the Girl. The day aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.”  We’ve got some great books about inspiring girls in The Library.  Melvil recommends What Would She Do? and Fierce: Women Who Shaped Canada
• Our Library Helpers and Recess Readers have also been busy checking books in and out.

• I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Weekend!  Before the weekend we read some Thanksgiving stories including Who Will Carve the Thanksgiving Turkey and Thanks for Thanksgiving.  I got to spend the day before in the JK class so we made Thanksgiving Turkey Puppets.
• Oct.16 was Dictionary Day.  There’s a variety of different Dictionaries and Thesaurus in The Library to help you learn all sorts of different words.  Knowing the meaning of a word helps to understand what you’re reading.  So if you get stuck, look it up!
• Oct.17 was International Day.  Everyone did such a great job.  I had so much fun “flying around the world” and learning all sorts of interesting facts about different countries.

And that’s what we missed … I wonder what next week will bring?

Let’s TACO ’bout this week

Did you now …? Today (Oct.4) is National Taco Day?
Did you know Dragons Love Tacos ?  We read all about it in one of this week’s read alouds by Adam Rubin.  This very funny story tells all about just how much Dragons love tacos.  But dragons hate spicy salsa … Uh-oh, what are those green specs in that jar of salsa?

Thanks to my grade 6 helpers who put these delicious tacos together!

Recess Readers continue.  It’s a great opportunity to explore all sort of different books and discuss them with your friends.  You can read alone or read together.  You can read out loud or read in your head. You can read however you like! This week, we also started having ScannerLady or ScannerGuy in charge of helping Ms. Hayward check out the books.

Did You Know …? Tuesday (Oct1) was National Homemade Cookie Day.  Coincidentally, it was also our first Bake Sale of the year.  One of our grade 6s used a library cookbook to bake for the sale and they were so good that they were gobbled up before we could get a picture!  What’s your favourite cookie?

Did You Know …? Wednesday (Oct2) was Custodial Worker Recognition Day.
A huge Thank You for all you do!

Yesterday (Oct3), I was invited to do a little workshop on Citations with the grade 5s.  It’s very important to cite who/where you get ideas/art/words from.  [Author, Title, Publisher, Year, Pages] You can check out the Write It, CITE it! page here for tips on what to do.

And finally, another CREATIVE CREATION – Some crunchy slime from Karina Garcia’s Next Level DIY Slime found in the 740s.

Today was also one of my favourite Librarian days- The TD Grade One Book Giveaway!
Every year TD Bank and The Canadian Children’s Book Centre give a Canadian book to every grade one student.  This year the book is My Heart Fills with Happiness by Monique Gray Smith.  This beautiful book is a dual language book in both English and Plains Cree.  Enjoy!

Every Child Matters!

Today (Sept30) is Orange Shirt Day in Canada.

Orange Shirt Day began in 2013 in Williams Lake, B.C and soon spread across Canada.  We observe Orange Shirt day on September 30th because that day falls around the time when Indigenous children were taken from their homes to Residential Schools each year for over 100 years in Canada’s history.  We wear and orange shirt because it is a reminder of when a young indigenous girl, Phyllis had a beautiful new orange shirt from her grandmother to wear for her first day of school.  When she got to the school they took her shirt and threw it away.  Our orange shirts remind us of what the residential schools took from indigenous culture and threw away.  (learn about Orange Shirt Day with CBC Kids or OrangeShirt.org)

Thank you to the grade 4s for helping me with the Orange Shirt Day Presentation at Assembly this morning.  You did a wonderful job. (Picture to come!)

Thank you to Oakwood for allowing me to come and read Stolen Words by Canadian author, Melanie Florence for your Orange Shirt Day observations. (Possible Picture to come!)

Our JKs also listened to Stolen Words during their visit to The Library today.  They then got a chance to read some of the books that I just added to the library catalog.  There’s some super superhero books!  Some read to each other.  Others read to our stuffed Reading Pals.

 

 

 

 

What a Week!

Well, it has certainly been a busy week this week especially with all the fun of Fall Fundraiser and all the regular going-ons in The Library.

Did you know …? Tuesday, September 24 was Punctuation Day.  Punctuation is very important.  It’s the difference between: “Let’s eat Grandma!” and “Let’s eat, Grandma!” (I’m sure Grandma would prefer the latter).  As they (I’m not sure who “they” are in this case): “Anyone who doesn’t use proper punctuation is in for a long sentence.”

Did you know …? Wednesday, September 25th was Comic Book Day.  The first comic, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck,  was created in the late 1800s.  The first comic book was Famous Funnies and was founded in 1933.  Today we voted on our favourites: Marvel vs. DC. (It was a close one!) Which is your favourite?

In The Library, I have been busily cataloging the boxes of new books.  Once cataloged they will be barcoded, labelled, and given their proper home on The Library Shelves.  Ms. Hamieh’s JKs were very excited to get a sneak peek at some of the new superhero books that have been cataloged … and there’s still more to come!

 

 

PJ Masks’ Gekko says: Check Out the NEW PJ Masks Books at The Library!

A Bad Case of the Yuckys …

Well, it would appear I was unable to avoid whatever it is that’s been going around and have spent the past few days sick.  Unfortunately, that meant no library times today.  Thus, it seems like today would be a great opportunity to talk about some of my favourite books about not feeling well.

A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon is, perhaps, one of my most favourite books about not feeling well.  “Camilla Cream loves lima, but she never eats them.” and then she breaks out into a bad case of stripes.  How ever will she treat them?

Curious George Goes to the Hospital by Margret & H.A. Rey is a classic story about the well-loved curious little monkey and his trip to the hospital after eating a jigsaw puzzle piece.

How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon? by Jane Yolen is a funny book in the How Do Dinosaurs …? series of books.  It imagines what a dinosaur (like kids) would do if they got sick.

Penguin Problems by Jory John is a fun book I hope to add to The Library collection soon.  When things just aren’t going well for Penguin, can Panda help him see the bright side?

Sick Simon by Dan Krall is another book I hope to add to our library shelves.  Simon has a cold but he still plans on having the best week ever.  At school he sneezes and coughs on everything.  The Germs think he’s awesome.  His classmates call him “Sick Simon”.  How far will The Germs go? Can Sick Simon stop them?