Book Clubs Begin in November

We’re very excited to get the Stonehedge Book Clubs rolling again. There will be two clubs this year, one each for 4^th and 5^th grade. 5^th grade will start November 6^th and meet every other Friday from 8-9am in the library. 4^th grade will start November 13^th and meet on alternate Fridays from 5^th grade. Students who wish to participate need to be at school by 8am (but please, not too much earlier).

Our book clubs are a great way for students to get together and talk about the books they are reading. There are no assigned books; kids can report on any books they are reading for fun. Students get exposed to all types of genres and authors and more often than not at least one will leave saying “I want to read that next!” Interested students will get information sheets soon.

Some potential 4th grade book clubbers from Mrs. Lilienthal's class

Stay tuned….the clubs are sure to generate many “blog worthy” moments during our school year.

Don’t forget to “Read4Fun”

Mrs. Abbott

Don't let the library staff dress up for Halloween!!!

Hi Stonehedge! Guess what? It’s October!

Last week, after much anticipation, we were finally able to have our annual talk about book care and the students were able to check books out to bring home. This is a big deal to many of our students and we hope that library is one of their favorite places to visit.

Kindergarten and 1^st grade get to take home one book per week.

2nd grade can take out two items…one can be a magazine

3-5 grades can take three items…including magazines and/or DVD’s

Some of you may notice that that number of items for 4^th and 5^th is down from previous years. Last June, 45 items were not returned by the last day of school. We are hoping that by paring down what our older students take out, we may be able to have a better return rate.

Students keep their choices for one week and should return their items on their next library day.  They must return everything they have out before they take anything new. If they forget their books, they can return them first thing in the morning and select one book until next library.

When we talk about book care at Stonehedge, we ask the students to “treat their books like a baby”. Please help your child become a responsible library user by keeping books in a safe, special place at home, somewhere where they will know they can find their library books when library day comes around and someplace away from pets or little brothers and sisters too young to take care of the books. Water bottles are the worst offenders and should be kept away from books and backpacks when they are full. Leftovers from lunch are also enemies of books (ask your child about the banana in the “Backpack of Doom”). We also teach our Kindergarteners to turn the page from the top right corner in a fun lesson with the book Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka.

We have over 17,000 items in our library…something for everyone. If your child is having a hard time finding something they want to read, have them check in with me. I love matching kids with books they will love to read!

One more thing…October is PARP month and our PTA has lots of fun activities planned to promote students and grownups reading together. We’ll be hosting Open Library Nights on the 7^th and the 21^st from 6:30-7:30pm.  Have your student bring you in to explore the library, read together and even check books out to take home. Please stop in and see us…AT NIGHT!

Until next time…Read4Fun!

Mrs. Abbott

The poetry month that was...

May is here and spring has finally sprung, but I’d like to look back for a moment and bid a fond farewell to April and all the great poetry it brought to Stonehedge.

Poem in Your Pocket Day continues to bring a lot of fun to our school. Students and staff were sharing poems all over the school throughout the day. Many of our students wrote their own pieces and have shown themselves to be amazing poets. The most popular “borrowed” poems were probably from Children’s Poet Laureate Kenn Nesbitt. You can check out his website www.poetry4kids.com for more hysterical poems.

Our first attempt at “Poetrypalooza”, our open mic night, was a huge success. We had over 120 people in attendance and 47 students shared their favorite poems.  It was so incredible to see our little poets get up in front of a real audience to read their poems out loud so enthusiastically. I can’t wait to do it again next year!

Thanks to all the folks who stopped in to see us on Open House Night. It is always a pleasure to see our students and to meet the rest of their family. We have entered the slippery slope of the end of the school year, but there is plenty more happening in the library. Stay tuned and don’t forget to Read4Fun!

Mrs. Abbott

And all of the sudden, we were half way through April…

We are entering the fastest moving part of the year, and we are doing all kinds of fun things in the library. 5^th graders are doing research on Brazil and Cuba. 4^th graders are making science vocabulary study guides and learning how to do presentations using Power Point. 3^rd, 2^nd, 1st and Kindergarten are spending lots of time with poetry…because April is National Poetry month!

To celebrate, all of Stonehedge will be observing “Poem in Your Pocket Day” on Thursday, April 30^th.  Students and staff are invited to bring a poem to school and keep it in their pocket. This can be an original poem, or one copied from a book or website (don’t forget to give credit to the poet!) When asked, they can pull out their poem and share it with someone at school. It’s a great way to share a lot of wonderful kid-friendly poem and sometimes even meet some new friends.

That same night, we are expanding our celebration with “Poetrypalooza” and open mic night in the Stonehedge Library. We’ll transform the library into a poetry café with a stage so that students and staff (and brave parents) can share their favorite poem in front of a live audience.  Doors will open at 6:30 and refreshments will be served.

4^th grade Book Club is going strong. We've had three meetings so far and have about 20 members. Book Clubbers read whatever they want and then come to meetings ready to tell the rest of the group about what they are reading. It’s a really fun way to hear about a lot of different stories and genres in a short amount of time. We meet every other Friday from 
8-9am and all 4^th grade book worms are welcome.

That’s enough for now…stay tuned for pictures of our “Poem in Your Pocket Day” and “Poetrypalooza” activities. Until then, don’t forget to Read4Fun!

Mrs. Abbott

Searching for Spring

The library is trying to get back to full speed ahead after the breaks, but it’s been tough with the snow days and cold delays.  It seems everyone is searching for any harbinger of spring. Fortunately, our library calendar gives us some signs of hope.  Our K-2 students have finished their big research projects and Winter “Wonder”land is over for another year.  Kindergartners are now learning about the Caldecott medal that is given out annually for the best picture book of the past year. 1^st graders have been spending a lot of time with Dr. Seuss in preparation for his birthday on March 2^nd. Ask your 1^st grader about our new library goldfish, inspired by our reading of  Gustav the Goldfish and A Fish out of Water…by the end of the week, they will have voted on a name for him. 

2^nd graders are moving on to library skills. 3^rd graders are finishing up a long unit on Folktales, Fables and Myths. 4^th graders will be following the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska for the next few weeks and learning how to evaluate websites and use them to find reliable information. 5th graders are starting their biography research project and that always means that spring is just around the corner.

To get us through the long month of March, we've decided to have two bonus open library nights. The first one will be on Wednesday, March 11^th and will be a “Bring your whole family to the library night”. The second will be Tuesday, March 24^th and will be a beach party theme. The library will open from 6:30-7:30 both nights. Please bring your families to browse the shelves, share books in the library and check some out to take home.

Keep looking for the sun and don’t forget to Read4Fun!

Mrs. Abbott