Exciting New BooksFor Teachers

I'm so excited about these new books for teachers in our library. Take a look at them, and I know you'll be inspired by what you read!


Recently, several people have twittered or blogged about The Third Teacher: 79 Ways You Can Use Design to Transform Teaching & Learning. It's all about using imagination and creating the ideal learning environment for children. It asks what the school of the future will look like. Environment...that's "the third teacher." Get a taste of the book at the website - http://www.thethirdteacher.com/ I've started reading this book, and you're going to have to pry it from my hands.





The Cafe Book by "The Sisters," Gail Boushey and Joan Moser presents information about ways to integrate assessment into daily reading. It is the complement to The Daily Five, a book that has been read and dogeared by many of our teachers.






If you liked Reading With Meaning, you'll want to check out Debbie Miller's Teaching With Intention. Stenhouse wrote, "Teaching with Intention offers a compelling reminder that truly transformative teaching is built from the ground up, and is rebuilt every year, by every teacher, in every classroom, with every new group of students." She will have you thinking!





Katie Wood Ray says, "If teachers show children how an illustrator’s decisions about pictures are a lot like a writer’s decisions about words, they form a bridge of understanding that nurtures children as writers." Her newest book is "In Pictures and In Words: Teaching the Qualities of Good Writing Through Illustration Study." Katie is one of my favorite teacher mentors. We'll all be talking about this book...might need more than one!

Summer Reading

Summer! It is the perfect time for reading! I've been building a pile of books for three months to savor this summer. We've been talking about setting reading goals for the summer this week in the library. The first and second graders brainstormed specific goals that they might work toward this summer. It may be to find a new book series or to try a new genre. It might be to read more books in a series that is already familiar and fun. This week all of the first and second graders will write one goal on a summer sun. I'll save the first graders' suns and pass the second graders' on to Mrs. Wilson, the librarian at Midway. It will be a perfect starting point for book talk in August and a great way to look back at our summer reading accomplishments.














Kim Maughan, the fantastic children's librarian from our neighborhood Fretz Park library, treated the first and second graders to a lively reading of Wild About Books, and then she described the summer reading fun planned at the Dallas libraries. There are many fun and free programs being planned for children.
Bookstores also offer incentives for young readers in the summer. Here are a few:
Borders
Barnes and Noble
Half Price Books

Our Parish summer reading lists are posted on our school website. Remember that these lists are only a starting point for ideas.

Parents, if you are looking for a summer reading challenge of your own, you might like to scan the new Lariat List of recommended adult fiction created by the Texas Library Association.


Happy summer reading!

TumbleBooks

Parish families now have access to TumbleBooks, a collection of online animated talking picture books. Have fun exploring all of the books, games, and features on the site. TumbleBooks are designed to be experienced in either automatic or manual mode. In automatic mode, the pages turn by themselves and are narrated. In manual mode, the narration is turned off and users turn the pages at their own speed. This might be a fun resource for summer reading for our children. Be sure to let me know your thoughts! Just click on the link below. Happy reading!

http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/home_tumblebooks.asp

User name: parishreads
Password: tumble

Student Book Creations

Don't miss reading some fantastic books created by our second grade writers and artists. The students took their learning about writing and combined it with their artistic creativity in the art room to produce wonderful books that are being read and enjoyed by many of the visitors in the library. Look for them on the tall shelf by the aquarium. You'll be delighted and amazed at the learning that has happened in the classrooms!

One Read

Parish readers proved that books have the power to bring people together. NINETY FIVE first and second graders and twenty nine teachers and staff signed up to read and stay after school to talk about 7 X 9 = Trouble! by Claudia Mills. The meeting and celebration began on the playground with an ice cream cone similar to the ones that the book's characters enjoyed. Loads of book talk, fun, and reflection took place in small group breakouts.

We gathered together in the library with one of our extremely talented and beloved Parish seniors for a fantastic storytelling.












We unveiled an incredible new reading poster created by one of our amazing eight graders that will hang in our library.
The afternoon ended with a very special video created by author, Claudia Mills, just for our Parish readers. She congratulated them on their reading and gave them some of the background for writing this book. She also described the upcoming sequel.

Books have the power to bring people together. A community of readers and thinkers...that's what we are!

The Book Fair - Looking Back

What a whirlwind of a week! It felt like Christmas when the dozens and dozens of boxes and shelves full of books were delivered to the library on Tuesday. The volunteers, who are truly "friends of the library," spent hours sorting and arranging those books so that when the students arrived early Wednesday morning, they found a book wonderland. I loved listening to their conversations about the books. They encouraged each other to try new authors and gave reviews of books that they recommended to their friends. They delighted in finding familiar titles and showing them to their parents. They made many return visits just to browse and fill in wish lists. For me, this week offered the perfect chance to read new books that we could add to our collection. I bought several that are sure to be story time favorites. Next week, the young ones will meet Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes. with its downloadable song. We'll be reading, singing, grooving and remembering that, like Pete says, "It's all good!"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUubMSfIs-U

Book Fair - Looking Ahead

This week is our Book Fair. The excitement starts on Tuesday afternoon when the books are delivered and the fabulous volunteers help set up. The shoppers arrive on Wednesday morning. The children's enthusiasm about books and reading fills the library. I can't wait! Hope to see you there.


I couldn't resist making this Google Search Story in anticipation of our Book Fair! Thanks to Mary Lee for the inspiration!