Maybelle Book Club Coming Soon!

Books We Love!

All of the first grade girls signed up for our annual "Books We Love" book club meeting in the library. What an amazing group of readers gathered for book talk! Everyone had a chance to speak about the book that they brought to share, and they gave compelling reasons for their choice. I heard, "It's a page turner!" and "It reminds me of going places with my friends." I loved hearing, "My mom read it to me so many times when I was little, and I memorized the whole book. Then I said, Mom, now I can read!" We loved the valentine cookies, bookmarks, notepads, and pencils. But, the greatest part of the day was listening to so many readers who had so much to tell about their love of a book!

Read a Biography!

The Wax Museum, populated by second graders who have read biographies, researched, summarized, and memorized facts about a notable person, is my favorite annual event that fills the library. The students check out hundreds of biographies looking for the personality that they will inhabit during the hour long museum opening. They organize their information and practice in their classrooms and at home. They come to school looking remarkably like the subject of their study. They wear a "press here" button and recite their script dozens of times for parents, teachers, and first grade visitors. Best of all...they come back to the library for more biographies!

J. Patrick Lewis is Coming!

An author visit is always exciting, but in just two weeks we will welcome the U.S. Children's Poet Laureate to our library! J. Patrick Lewis will begin the day with our first and second graders. Getting ready for his visit is so much fun. We are exploring his poetry and books in the library and in the classrooms. Our fabulous art teacher is in on the fun, too. Students in many of the art classes are creating delightfully detailed illustrations to accompany some of the poetry in An Underwear Salesman, Spot the Plot and The World's Greatest: Poems. Here's a sneak peak at some of their work. I hope that you will join the fun at "Expressions," our first literary festival, on Tuesday, February 21 from 4:00 - 6:00 in the Midway library. You'll have the opportunity to hear and meet an amazing author and poet and support the literary accomplishments of our own Parish students.

Poetry Love - slideshow with music

Game Day!

Forty six 1st and 2nd grade boys gathered in the library this week for lunch and to celebrate and discuss the book, Game Day by Tiki and Ronde Barber. The book emphasized team work and sportsmanship. Mr. Dewell joined us and told a little bit about his dad, Bill Dewell, who was an amazing SMU athlete and Chicago Cardinals player. After some book talk, a film clip of a Ronde Barber interception, and lunch, we even had a few minutes to pass around the football outside. It was fantastic to have such an enthusiastic group of guys gathered together by a book!

Little Red Riding Hood

First grade is diving into their annual fairy tale study in the classroom. This month they will read tons of fairy tales and write their own. We are loving fairy tales in the library, too. Second graders have great memories of this, so it wasn't hard to find volunteers to read from Mary Ann Hoberman's You Read to Me, I'll Read to You Very Short Fairy Tales for a video to present to the first grade classes. It was the perfect lead-in to our two week look at some different versions of Little Red Riding Hood. This week we looked at several traditional versions. We read the Caldecott Honor winning book by Trina Schart Hyman.



Coming up next week... Little Red: A Fizzingly Good Yarn by Lynn Roberts and Carmine: A Little More Red by Melissa Sweet.

Panther Paw Activities

The Panther Paw books are flying from one reader to the next! I love hearing the book talk! Here are some activities that you might enjoy exploring.

Panther Paw Activities