Christmas Books

Greetings!
Merry Christmas! Yes, I know it isn’t Christmas yet, but it very well may be time to order any new Christmas books to add to your library. I have some ideas for books for you.
The Nutcracker Ballet is a Christmas classic. Becoming a Ballerina by Lise Friedman and Mary Dowdle is the story of real dancers as they practice for this performance. Photographs help to tell the story of the preparation and performance.

A Christmas Tree for Pyn by Olivier Dunrea is the story of a little girl named Pyn who wants to decorate her first Christmas tree. Her father says no, but over the course of the story, he eventually softens and she does get her tree. Father is very gruff, but Pyn remains sweet and cheerful.

Ruthie and her family will have the honor of giving a tree to Pine Grove for the Christmas pageant. Ruthie’s father chose the tree in the spring, but had to go to war. Now Christmas is nearly here and even though the town is busy with preparations for the holiday and practicing the pageant, Ruthie and her mother are hoping that Papa will be home soon. After the pageant is over and the gifts from the tree are handed out, Ruthie and her mother have yet another wonderful surprise just in time for Christmas. I hope you enjoy The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston set in Appalachia in the early 1900’s. Barbara Cooney’s illustrations are wonderful.

What is Christmas like for a family who lives on a lighthouse? In The Lighthouse Christmas by Toni Buzzeo Frances and Peter wonder if Santa will know how to find them so far way on their tiny island off the coast of Maine. The supply boat has not been able to get to their island because of wild weather and supplies are getting low. The weather keeps the children from visiting their aunt on the mainland, it deposits a stranger on their doorstep but Frances and Peter try their best to keep up as many of their traditions as possible. Later on that day a small plane circles the lighthouse and drops a package at the edge of the water. Inside are some small gifts from the Flying Santa. It may be that you choose not to purchase this book because Santa is mentioned, but please know that the story is inspired by a true Christmas tradition known as the Flying Santa Service which honors the many lighthouse keepers on the islands of Maine. The Flying Santa service has been active continually since 1920 with the exception of the years during the war. Now it visits Coast Guard families. You can go to www.flyingsanta.com to learn more.

You may have been fortunate enough to visit Rockefeller Center at Christmas time and have seen the famous Christmas tree there. Have you wondered how it gets there? The Christmas Tugboat by George Matteson and Adele Ursone gives us the story. George Matteson was a tugboat captain for years and one year got the assignment to carry the special Christmas tree to New York City. The job was an easy one and he took his wife, Adele, and his young daughter along. Adele realized that this was a great children’s book idea and the two of them wrote the story. James Ransome illustrated it with his paintings. He wanted to capture the chill of winter and the cozy feeling of the family working together. It’s a great book to share at Christmas time.

I hope you have the opportunity to take a look at some of these books and maybe even purchase one or more for your school.
If you have a favorite Christmas book or story that you like to read to your students, please share these with me and I will in turn pass them along to the group.
Have a great week.
Audrey

Greetings!

We participate in a program each year here at Rogers called Washington Children’s Choice Picture Book Award. I go to the website and find the list of nominations for the coming year. I then go to Amazon.com and look up information on each book and decide which of them I feel are appropriate for our school. I purchase them and I read one each week during library class. All students in public and private schools, from kindergarten through third grade in Washington State may vote on their favorite. I do a different program with Kindergarten and since our school has multigrade classrooms, I don’t include the third grade. At our school this program is only for our first and second graders. After all the books are read, I line them up along a counter and do a very quick booktalk for each to remind students about the story. Then each student votes on his or her favorite book. I count the votes and send them in to the award committee.

Last year the winner was one of my favorites. It was called “Little Pink Pup” and was about a runt piglet who was adopted by a dachshund mother and nursed to health. The illustrations are photographs and at the end of the book, there is information about the pig after it is grown. I accessed the author’s blog during library class and we got to see more photos about “Little Pink Pup”.

This year there are 20 nominations for the 2014 Washington Children’s Choice Picture book Award. I immediately eliminated three of them, have questions about six of them and have chosen eleven of them to purchase. I try to purchase them through the Scholastic Book Fair. This way I can buy hardbacks with points instead of spending cash for them. I usually only have to purchase one or two through our local bookstore or Amazon.

I have found some wonderful books through the Washington Children’s Choice award and have shared many with you already. If you don’t live in Washington, I am sure that your state has a similar program. I suggest that you see what is on the lists and do a little research to find some great ideas for books. Be warned that the awards for books for older students may be unsuitable for your library.

You can google Washington Children’s Choice or go to http://childrenschoiceaward.wikispaces.com for information.

Have a wonderful week!
Audrey

Finding a Dewey Number

Greetings!

I hope you are getting settled into a routine and may soon have some time to work on your library. One of the questions I get most is about how to find the Dewey number in order to catalog books. I have put this information on previous posts, but it is certainly good to be reminded on occasion.

There are a number of ways to find the Dewey number.

1. For most newer books, the publisher will have a suggestion for where the book will fit and give a Dewey number accordingly. This is found on the imprint page – the page with all the tiny print and publisher information. You will likely see a small section with the author’s name, a short summary, ISBN number, Library of Congress number, and the Dewey number. Sometimes you might see an apostrophe in the Dewey number. This usually occurs when there are three or more decimal places. The apostrophe signifies that you could stop the Dewey number there if you like. I have found that usually the publisher gives a number that I can live with and not have to change it.

2. You can go to the Library of Congress website and type in the title of your book and find the Dewey number there. Go to http://catalog.loc.gov, type in the title of your book and press “Search”. A list of titles should come up. Find the specific title you are looking for and double click your book. Some information on the book will come up, but you will probably not find the Dewey number there. You then need to click “Full Record” and in that part you will probably find the Dewey number. I say ‘probably’ because at times you may not find it there. This website is usually very helpful, but it is possible you might not find success here.

3. You may be able to borrow a set of DDC books from your local public library in order to find a Dewey number. I would not recommend this unless you have had some experience using these books since it can be complicated and frustrating to the novice. (Believe me, I know!)

4. You might be lucky enough to find a librarian who will volunteer to help put your library in order. This is the best option as it takes most of the work off you!

5. You can skip looking for it and purchase books already cataloged. This is a great help, BUT it costs something per book. Usually the cost is between $1.00 and $2.00 or maybe even more. It would depend on your supplier. If you purchase your books from a local bookstore, this might not be an option anyway. You might decide that the extra cost is worth your time and hassle, but there are a couple of other things to think about first. If your library is cataloged fairly simply meaning you use very few decimals, you might get a book that is cataloged with three or four decimals. Vegetarian cookbooks have the Dewey number of 641.5636 but you might have chosen to go with a simpler 641 for all cookbooks. Another thing to consider is the placement of a book. I bought a book a few years ago about whale scientists. I thought it would be a great addition to our section on whales and show how people work to help them. The Dewey number for whales is in the 599’s. We wondered if it might work in the career section which is in the 300’s, but decided to go ahead and keep it in with the whales since that was my original intention on purchasing the book.

6. If your public library is online, check their catalog and see if you can find your book or books that are similar. My library at Rogers is online and you can check to see where I have put books. Go to library.rschool.org and you can search for what you want. You can also go to our school website, click “Meet Us”, then click “Student Support”, and click “Library”. The link is on that page.

7. Last but not least, you can email me and I’ll give you some suggestions, too.

The bottom line is to make sure the book fits with your library and is placed where the kids can easily find the book so they can use it. If the kids can’t find it, they won’t be able to read it.

Have a great week. Access my blog at sdalibrarian.blogspot.com for previous posts.

Audrey

Weeding the Library

Greetings!
It is time to begin to wind down the school year. Don’t forget to take a look at the library and see where those needs are for next year. Yes, I know we have three weeks left of school, but here’s where you can put some responsible students to work for you and help make your life a bit easier. More on that in a little bit.

It is time to weed the library. I know it is hard to throw out books, so I am going to try to make this easier for you. Think about why you have a library. I would guess that you have a library so students can choose reading material and so you have supplementary material for your curriculum. That would be the main function of a school library. You may have noticed that our SDA curriculum changes as the years go by. It may be that some of the books and materials in your library do not fit the curriculum now or they may even be outdated. If so, then they may not be needed any longer.
Here is a short list of weeding criteria for you to use as you begin to improve your library.

1. BATTERED BOOKS - Weed out any books that are torn, taped, yellowed, missing pages, damaged, shabby, mutilated, marked up, warped covers, or dilapidated in any way. If these books are valuable to you or the school, replace them with newer better copies.

2. OLD BOOKS - Look carefully at the old books in your library.
a. If there are any that aren’t useful to your school, or don’t fit the curriculum, then consider weeding it out. Watch for books that may be valuable to someone else. Those can be sold online or at a used bookstore. BUT – just because a book is old doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good story or a good resource. Think about sending some of these home with students over the summer for them to evaluate. Make out a simple form they can fill out for each book they read.
b. Weed out books with very small print or poor quality pictures.
c. Some books may be old but the information is still valid. Keep these.
d. “Old” is difficult to determine. A science or astronomy book can be ‘old’ after only 5 – 8 years, but information on a career may still be current after 15 years. You get to decide if a book is too old or not.

3. OUTDATED INFORMATION – Repeat after me: “It is better to have NO information rather than FALSE information.” Think technology, science, health, medicine, computers, and space. Enough said.

4. DUPLICATE COPIES –
a. How many copies of “Little House on the Prairie” do you need in your library? Is one or two enough? If so, then keep the best one and discard the extra copies. Keep in mind that duplicate copies can also be great to have. Some kids like to read the same book and if each can have his or her own copy, then it’s a good thing.
b. E. G. WHITE BOOKS – Do you need multiple copies of each title? If your school is like many other schools, you likely have many of these. Consider paring down to one good set of the Conflict of the Ages, and Testimonies plus other titles that are useful to your school. Donate the rest to the church library. Keep what you need for your curriculum.

5. ENCYCLOPEDIA – How old is yours? Do you even have one? Encyclopedias are considered outdated if they are more than five years old. Very likely most of your students ‘google’ the information they need or you may use an online encyclopedia which is much cheaper. Consider keeping the newest set for the library and using an online encyclopedia for current information.

6. DONATED BOOKS – These can be tricky. If the donor is in your community and would be offended if you weeded ‘their’ book, then keep it until they leave. It is not worth making an enemy just to have a few inches of shelf space. However, if the book is in bad shape or has incorrect information in it, then you might try to find a way to dispose of the book. (Maybe it can be shelved in a closet!)

Keep in mind that the library should be useful to you and to your students. Keep what works and weed what doesn’t. What doesn’t work for one school might very well be great for another.
Here’s where your students can help. Enlist students to go through the library shelf by shelf and ask them to pull books that look battered and or old and put them in a box for you to check over.

You will still make the decision, but they have helped with the first part of weeding. This will also have the added benefit of giving them a little bit of ‘ownership’ in the library.
If you have books that need repair, don’t forget that there will be a hands on book mending session at the ASDAL School Librarians’ workshop. You will learn how to do some simple repairs then.

Best of luck in your weeding process. Now I need to get busy and do some myself!

Audrey

Virtual Field Trips

Greetings,

Wouldn’t it be great to take your kids to some of the most famous museums? As we are winding down this school year, why not try a virtual field trip? Scholastic has some great ones. Go to http://www.scholastic.com/livewebcasts/webcast_tips.htm and look on the right sidebar for a list of places you can ‘go’ with your class. If you have a smartboard or a computer connected to a projector, just show it like you would a movie. Another way is to let the students bring it up on the computers and watch it individually or in small groups.

Decoding History with The 39 Clues: A Virtual Field Trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for grades 3 and up is the most recent one. It is hosted by David Baldacci who began the 39 Clues books and the reading club. Even if you aren’t interested in the books themselves, it is pretty cool to have the author take you behind the scenes. You can watch the full program which lasts just over 22 minutes, or in segments. Items shown are Lewis and Clark’s compass, restoration of the Star-Spangled Banner, David Drake pottery, and Lincoln’s pocket watch. The whole thing is really very cool.

Immigration (1892 – 1924): A Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island for grades 3 – 8 shows photographs, maps, and video of items related to Ellis Island. This field trip lasts just over 30 minutes.

Wonderstruck: a Virtual Field Trip to the American Museum of Natural History is narrated by Brian Selznick. Brian Selznick wrote The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, both enormous sized books, but mostly illustrated rather than text to read. Three parts of the museum are visited – the Wolf Diorama, the Giant Anopheles Mosquito, and the Ahnighito Meteorite. Activities for each of these are included on the website. This presentation lasts for about 15 minutes.

The First Thanksgiving: A Virtual Field Trip to Plimoth Plantation for grades K – 8 lasts almost 20 minutes, but you might want to allow more time to see the other ones listed there. There are virtual field trips for the Mayflower, Pilgrim Village, Wampanoag Homesite, and lots of other videos about Miles Standish and Pilgrim life. This could be a part of a longer unit and bits shown every day.

The Magic School Bus: A Virtual Field Trip to Liberty Science Center for grades 2 – 8 is about the climate challenge. The video lasts for 27 minutes and begins with the cartoons you may be used to seeing in other videos about the Magic School Bus. Then “Mrs. Frizzle” comes on to host the show and it is live action. They use Google Earth to show where the museum is located. There is an activity pack that you can download. This particular presentation was made to celebrate Earth Day on April 20, 2013.

Winter’s Tail: A Virtual Field Trip to Clearwater Marine Aquarium for grades K – 6 is one that we were able to watch live in October of 2009. This is the story of the baby dolphin that lost the end of its tail after it was damaged in a trap. The people who rescued Winter were able to work with specialists to have a prosthetic tail made for her and she learned to swim again. A movie was made in 2011 titled “Dolphin Tale” about Winter and her story. The webcast lasts 35 minutes. If you go to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium you might even get a glimpse of Winter in the webcam. (Note: I tried, but the webcams are being maintenance at this writing. I’ll try later.)

All of these webcasts have Common Core information and are wonderful to watch and share with your students. Below the Virtual Field Trips sidebar are Virtual Author Visits. You might want to watch these ahead of time to decide if any of them are items you want to share. I watched the Dear America one with Lois Lowry, Andrea Pinkney, and Kirby Larson. All three are authors that have written a Dear America book for Scholastic. (Personally, I would avoid the webcasts with Goosebumps and R. L. Stine.)

I hope you have a great week.

Audrey

PS. Just for your information, I checked out the first Kindles this morning. The students are excited. Last Thursday and Friday I let them play on them during their library class period, then I put the parental lock on them to block all but the books. One student was heard commenting, “Where are the games?” I reminded him that they were for reading, not games.

Books Boys Like

Greetings!

This week I will send out some titles of books that boys tend to like. It’s funny that girls will usually read most kinds of books, but boys will almost never pick up a book about a girl.

Roland Smith is an author that lives in the Portland, OR area and his books appeal to boys and girls. Tentacles, Peak, the Storm Runner series, Jack’s Run, and Zach’s Lie are a few of the books he has written. I have not found any language problem in his books and they are exciting stories. He also has one book called Legwork that is only available for the Kindle. It is a bit shorter than his other books, but is also a great read.

Carl Hiaasen has written a number of books all with one-word titles. Hoot, Flush,and Scat are three that boys and girls like.

Will Hobbs is a wonderful source for historical fiction and adventure. Crossing the Wire, Far North, Jason’s Gold, Take Me to the River, River Thunder and Leaving Protection are just some of his books that boys will enjoy.

If your boys like reading about war, here are two SDA stories that they might like. The Seventh Escape by Jan Doward and Flee the Captor by Herbert Ford. Both of these books are higher level reading and would be good through high school.

Farley Mowat writes great stories, some for young people and others that are really more appropriate for adults. Owls in the Family (one of my favorites), The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, and Lost in the Barrens are all great choices for boys.

As a child I read North to Freedom by Anne Holm and was frightened by it. It was my first introduction to war and prison camps. I reread it again as an adult and was not bothered by it like I had been years ago. The book has been republished with the title I Am David. You may be able to find it with either title.

Don’t forget Swift Arrow by Josephine Cunnington Edwards or Spotted Boy and the Comanches by Mabel Earp Cason. Both of these books are about boys who were captured by Indians and both can be found in the ABC bookstore.

If you have some geeky boys who like experiments, look for The Mad Scientists’ Club, The New Adventures of the Mad Scientist’s Club, The Big Kerplop!, and The Big Chunk of Ice: The Last Known Adventure of the Mad Scientists’ Club. These books were originally published in the early 1960’s and the science stuff is kind of low tech for today, but these stories are great fun to read. They can be found through Amazon.com, your local bookstore can order them for you, or you may find them at an online used bookstore.

So I have given you nearly thirty titles of books that boys like. I’m sure lots of you have other ideas, too. If you have ideas to share, I’ll compile them and send it out to everyone.
Thanks to you who help with this project. Get your boys involved, too. Ask them what titles they think other boys would enjoy. You might want to talk to them about what kind of books are appropriate for SDA schools and enlist their help in compiling titles for boys in grades 4 – 8 or above.

Have a great week.

Audrey

Kindles

Greetings!

This week I am thrilled to tell you that I am, I mean Rogers Adventist School is the proud owner of 12 new Kindle Fire devices. Here’s what I did to make this happen.

I applied for the Don R. Keele grant. If you don’t happen to be in the NPUC, you may not be aware of this award. It is a grant that supports innovation in the classroom or school. I thought that having e-readers would be interesting and fun and would be another tool to motivate reading. I filled out the grant application and then presented it to our school board for approval.
I won an award of $3000.00 from the Keele Foundation and another $1000.00 from the NPUC to support my work as the Resource Librarian for the NPUC. Of course I was thrilled!

I chose Kindles because I am already very familiar with Amazon.com and own two Kindles of my own. I wanted to have the “read to me” feature and only two of the devices have that feature – the Kindle Keyboard and the Kindle Fire. Both of these options were priced similarly so I decided to go with the Fire because it has color and the picture books on the devices would look beautiful. I also looked to the future and thought that it might be important at some point to have them used in the classrooms as a computer.

In my research I found that Amazon.com has made provision for schools to connect multiple devices to one account that can be controlled by one administrator. This was important to me since we don’t want students to be downloading items to the Kindles on their own. I have all of them registered through WhisperCAST. It can be confusing because Amazon also has WhisperNET and WhisperSYNC. (The capitals are mine.) I called Amazon and got tech support throughout the process of registering. They can also help you decide which Kindle to choose.

I opted to pay the extra money to get Kindles without ads. I figured that our students are bombarded every day with advertisements and this would be one place that was ad-free. My school board members agreed with me on that. I also purchased chargers, an extra sturdy Otter Box case rather than the leather one, and the two year warranty. So each Kindle cost in the neighborhood of $315.00 with everything included. I have also put about 30 books on them, a number of which were free. I’m glad I had library funds to help with book purchases because I did go over my $4000.00 grant.

We will be using the Kindles for student check-out. (I will admit that I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about that and wondering if I would actually be able to let a kid take one of my expensive toys!) I have also talked to teachers and let them know that if they want to use them in the classroom, they need to reserve them well ahead of time. I will be taking them around next week to each classroom and sharing them with the students and talking about how to use them and care for them.

If you are interested in more information, I will be happy to share my experience.

Have a great week.

Audrey