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

Season’s Readings

I’m not one to start my holiday shopping until after the turkey leftovers have run out, but I know many people are already in search of the perfect gift.  My advice?  Don’t forget the books!  Books make great gifts and stocking stuffers.  My gift to you this season is a list of the most popular books in our library. Even though we have multiple copies of these titles, with over 800 students to cater to, these books are never on our shelves because they are always checked out.

All of our kids love books by Mo Willems, especially his "Pigeon" books and the "Elephant and Piggy" series.  We also love “Pete the Cat” books, both the original stories by Eric Litwin, who was our guest author this fall, and the continuing series and easy readers by Kimberly and James Dean.

 Also, book versions of Disney’s Frozen movie are all the rage.  All of these books are geared toward younger readers, but even our 5^th graders love these characters.

There are all types of handbooks for construction activities. Lego books show how to build manually with Lego blocks and Minecraft handbooks give kids ideas for building things virtually within that extremely popular computer game. These books are so hot; we never have enough copies in the library to keep everyone happy.

Older kids love the “39 Clues”, which is a great adventure/mystery series written by various popular young adult authors (make sure you read them in order, which is a tough task as there are two sequel series that carry on after the first 10 books are done). Other awesomely popular series are: “I Survived” by Lauren Tarshis, “Percy Jackson & The Olympians” and “The Heroes of Olympus” by Rick Riordan,  “Warriors”  by Erin Hunter and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”  by Jeff Kinney.  Carl Hiaasen, Dan Gutman, Kate DiCamillo, Mike Lupica and Louis Sachar are more of the most popular authors at Stonehedge.

So, to combat the jingle jangle of the holiday season, think about giving books. Books over the holiday season (and any time, for that matter) will make your homes calm and your children bright…(Read4Fun)  Mrs. Abbott