FEBRUARY.....READ WEEK!

In preparing the students in grades ECC - 2 for the visiting author/illustrator Frank Remkiewicz several of his works were on display this week in the media center. He is the illustrator for the Horrible Harry series, the Froggy series, and several math books including Arithmetickle, Piggy and Dad Go Fishing, Just Enough Carrots and Less Than Zero. Students also enjoyed working in teams as clever
detectives as they listened to There's Only One Harris, which he wrote and illustrated. They will have some interesting questions for him to answer when he visits our ECC- 2 graders on March 1. Students in Jr. K enjoyed listening to Let's Go Froggy and in Alpha we heard all about Froggy's First Christmas.We are all looking forward to that day for sure.

Fifth graders saw i-movie interviews with popular author Louis Sachar. Some of his books are There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom, Dogs Don't Tell Jokes, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, the Marvin Redpost series, Holes and Small Steps. Holes is a winner of the National Book Award, a New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of
the Year, a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, a Horn Book Fanfare Honor list Book, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, a Sunshine State Young Reader's Award Winner and a John Newbery Medal Winner. A movie was made from the book as well. Mr. Sachar is a writer who does not discuss his book with anyone until it is finished and it takes him 1-2 years to finish a book. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Our unit on Reference books began with the third graders working with partners to list the many uses of dictionaries and thesauruses. Students discussed thumb indexes, abridged and unabridged forms of dictionaries and the etymology of words. They will be using encyclopedias, atlases and almanacs in the weeks ahead. The final goal is to know when each type of reference book is used to locate the information you need. We will also be using the computer forms of these research tools.

A BIG THANK YOU again to all of our library volunteers. I am so grateful to Jodi Gayoso for making sure every week the library schedule is posted and coverage is available for all the classes. All of you are so appreciated and your efforts are making the students happy to visit the media center.