Central Library News & Views

On Wednesday,May 6, we celebrated storytelling at PARTS (Poetry And Readers’ Theatre & Stories).  It was a day of story reading, story telling, poetry sharing (and even some singing) by all of our third, fourth and fifth grade students.  This year each class in these three grades presented a group recitation of poetry or stories.  In addition, each class selected an individual to demonstrate the public-speaking skills we have been working on in library: using a loud, clear, expressive voice and making eye contact with the audience.  From “Paul Revere’s Ride” to Aesop’s “The Lion and the Mouse” to Elvis Presley’s “Spring Fever” to Pinkaliscious, there was something for everyone at PARTS!

The library is please to announce that we are the recipients of two grants, the “Picturing America” print collection and the “We the People” bookshelf grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The  aim of the “Picturing America” initiative is to tell the story of America through its art.  The collection is comprised of 40  large, high-quality reproductions of selected American masterpeices.  (For more information, go to www.PicturingAmerica.neh.gov).

We also received a companion grant  to complement the print collection.  “The Bookshelf” is a collection of 17American, classic hardcover books for young readers,(plus Spanish translations of 3 titles) and 2 ”Books for Readers of All Ages.”

Titles include:

• Walt Whitman: Words for America by Barbara Kerley
• Cosechando esperanza: La historia de César Chávez by Kathleen Krull (translated by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy)
• Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez by Kathleen Krull
• The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Sweet Music in Harlem by Debbie Taylor
• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich
• American Tall Tales by Mary Pope Osborne
• On the Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck
• Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet
• The Captain’s Dog: My Journey with the Lewis and Clark Tribe by Roland Smith
• The Life and Death of Crazy Horse by Russell Freedman
• La leyenda de Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (translated by Manuel Broncano)
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• Across America on an Emigrant Train by Jim Murphy
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
• Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange by Elizabeth Partridge
• Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
• Viajes con Charley - en busca de América by John Steinbeck (translated by José Manuel Alvarez Flórez)
• Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
• Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out by The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance
• 1776: The Illustrated Edition by David McCullough

 

Recently, Central School’s library instituted the Birthday Book Program.  In this initial effort, families donated funds for the library to buy popular fiction and picture books for the library.  When the order arrived, participating students chose one of the new titles to be their own special “gift” to the library and a bookplate was placed in the book as a way of acknowledging this special donation.

The Birthday Book Program will continue throughout the year.  It is a great way to commemorate a child’s birthday or any special event, and at the same time, to encourage all of our Central School students to read.

On Tuesday, December 2, Central School students in grades K-3 enjoyed a visit with author/illustrator Nick Bruel.  Students were treated to spirited storytelling by Nick Bruel as he shared some of his books including: Boing, Bob and Otto, Bad Kitty, Poor Puppy, Who Is Melvin Bubble? and Little Red Bird. 

A special thank you goes out to the PTA and the Library Author Liaisons for arranging this engaging visit.

For the second year, our third grade students partnered with ninth grade students to learn about Greek mythology.  To kick off the partnership, each ninth grade student sent an introductory postcard to his or her third grade resarch buddy.  Then on November 7 and 10, four classes of students traveled from MHS to Central along with their English teachers.  Each ninth grade student had researched a Greek god or goddess and prepared a poster or project to summarize the research.  Using the poster and knowledge gained from the research, each ninth grade student taught a third grade buddy about a particular god or goddess.  The third graders completed a graphic organizer of their new information, drew pictures of their gods and synthesized their new knowledge in a short response where they explained why they would (or would not) want to be related to this god or goddess.  Then students shared with the group some of the interesting tidbits they learned.  Later, each third grade student wrote a “thank you” postcard to his or her ninth grade buddy.

The library is benefitting from 2 grants given by the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation this year. 

The first is part of a district-wide grant to all six school libraries to update the science and technology collections.  These new books will aid our students in learning about insects, biomes, the human body, electricity, weather and more.  There are many books for students who are inquiring about global warming, being “green”, and “superfast” transportation, just to name a few.  The new collection was put on display this week and already the books are flying off of the shelves!

The second grant will provide a new audiobook collection for fifth grade students.  This grant enabled us to purchase 50 Playaways and accompanying books. 

“What is a Playaway?” you ask.  Playaways are personal Mp3 players with a single audio book loaded on each player.  Students just plug in their own earphones and go!

Our online library catalog has a new look and many new features.  This new catalog is called “Destiny” and our students are destined to find it easy to use and full of great information.  The first great feature (called Title Peek) displays a picture of a book’s cover next to its description.  

Gerald the Elephant and Piggie are different in many ways but they are the best of friends.  They are also the new best friends of our Kindergarten library classes. 

Together we read 4 of these hilarious books by Mo Willems: My Friend is Sad, I am Invited to a Party, Today I Will Fly, and the 2008 Theodore Seuss Geisel Award winner, There Is a Bird on Your Head.

Students then created their own “Elephant and Piggie” pages which we put into booklets to share with the school.  The books are on display outside the library.

All images : www.mowillemsstuff.blogspot.com

First grade students pondered this riddle when we read together, Laura Vaccaro Seeger’s book, First the Egg. 

The 2008 Caldecott Honor  and Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor book looks at process.  First one thing happens, then another happens.  Examples from the book are “First the egg, then the chicken.  First the seed, then the flower.  First the tadpole, then the frog.”After reading the book, students shared other examples about things change and are transformed.  They then wrote and illustrated additional pages in the “First, then” fashion.  Their colorful examples may be found on the bulletin board outside the library.

Image: www.ala.org

As a warm-up for our annual Story Tell-a-thon, students will often perform “Readers Theatre” in the library.  What is Readers Theatre?  It is the presentation of a short script, often adapted from a popular children’s book.  In library, we don’t use props, costumes or scenery.  Instead, students sit comfortably and use their voices to give meaning to the story.  They enjoy taking on different roles as they work on reading with fluency, volume and expression.  In addition to “performing” published scripts, this year our fourth grade students wrote their own original scripts based on traditional folktales and fables. 

First of all, students talked about traditional folk tales and shared with each other the special characteristics of fables.  We then read several fables and folk tales such as The Grasshopper and the Ant, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, and The Shoemaker and the Elves.   Then in small groups or as a whole class, students wrote original scripts retelling these traditional tales.

We are finishing up this this work now and the first group of original scripts may be read on our Reader2Reader wiki – a place for library work to be posted and shared.

After our spring break, students will be able to record their productions of their original scripts and these “podcasts” will also be posted on our wiki.