K

     HAPPY SUMMER READING!  A BOOK IS A GREAT COMPANION AT HOME, ON THE ROAD, or WHEREVER YOU FIND YOURSELF.  LOVE YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HAVE FUN!

May 26th - Our final class for the year included a special treat:  Our wonderful volunteer, Eun Young, who is studying for her library degree at Catholic University of America, read a folktale from her homeland, Korea, Rabbit and the Dragon King.  She told us this story is at least 1000 years old, and the children were spellbound as she told us about Rabbit quickly figuring out how to fool the Dragon King and have things turn out well for all.  Then she taught us how kids in Korea show respect to their teachers and parents by bowing.

May 17th - Just for the sheer fun of a good story we shared Tasty Baby Belly Buttons, Judy Sierra's retelling of a Japanese folk tale.  The oni's wicked chant was irresistible!  That was followed by a similar story of defeating the oni called the Funny Little woman by Arlene Mosel.

       

May 12th - K is learning all about butterflies.  We shared a Lois Ehlert's Waiting for Wings.  That was followed with the story of Bob and Otto, two friends, one a worm and one a caterpillar, written by a father and son team.  Then we projected a non-fiction BrainHive book with amazing photographs of all different kinds of caterpillars.  You can look at our electronic books by clicking on a link in the library catalog, or by searching the BrainHive site.  The login is composed of the first five letters of a student's last name and the first two letters of their first name.  The password is friends.

      

Beautiful!  

May 3 - Spring is here and our thoughts turn to growing things.  We shared the story of Mr. McGreeley's  problem with rabbits eating his garden, Candace Fleming's Muncha, Muncha, Muncha! Illustrated by G. Brian Karas, a fun story with lots of participation.  That made us think of the Dave Mallet song, "Inch by Inch" which we sang with gusto.

March 31st - It is Black-eyed Susan season!  Over the next few weeks we will be reading picture book nominees in the Maryland kids' choice contest.  We have to read at least five to be able to vote, but we will read more than that.  We began with Carnivores by Aaron Reynolds with funny illustrations be Dan Santat.  It was followed by Dog Vs. Cat by Chris Gall, a funny story about  how different creatures can get along.  We also shared Julia's House for Lost Creatures, another tale where the characters have to work out how to live together. Ben Hatke creates a cast of creatures and a way of moving house that are very original.

        

 

March 15th  - While Elizabeth was away on intersession Aldona covered the library.  Kindergarten had their stories read by parent volunteer Kaya Sau.  They enjoyed Daft Bat by Jeanne Willis with pictures by  Tony Ross.  Bat shows his friends there are different ways to look at things.    The Great Ballgame a Muskogee folk tale retold by Joseph Bruchac  - long ago, bat didn't know if he was a bird or a land animal -- which team should he play on in the great game of lacrosse?

           

March 10th - We read a new book called How to Read a Story by Kate Messner with illustrations by Mark Siegel.  It took us through the steps of reading that include finding a good book, finding a reading buddy and finding a good place to read .

March 1 - Continuing on in  the world of Seuss we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck,  After an adventure where he thinks he should rule the sky the king learns that simple words like "I'm sorry" can work magic.

February 25th - our reading program Books Change Lives is in full swing and we talked about the books we are going to send to make a new library in Nkwanta Ghana.  The wildebeest in the library is marking our progress.   Dr. Suess is one of our favorite authors and we shared his book I Can Read with my Eyes Shut.  It includes the famous quote - “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” 

February 2nd - After testing and testing and then encountering a last minute glitch, we managed to have a Google Hangout with KB and Denise Sumida and one of her Kindergarten classes at Pearl Harbor Elementary School in Hawaii.  They showed us pictures of their school and the shorts and T-shirts they were wearing , and we showed them our magic 5.  Since KA wasn't part of it, I recorded them sharing some of the same things.   There is a a YouTube of our hangout, but our side doesn't look too great because our right-out-of-the box camera that was the last minute fix for the iPad not mirroring to the computer still had its little protective film over the lens, making for a pretty blurry focus.

January 19th - We enjoyed a guessing game book from BrainHive called What Am I?: Texas, to find out a little bit more about things in Dallas. Margaret Lewis and Tim Mills put together some of the  things that make Texas Texas in a fun format.  And we gathered the rest of the answers for our friends in other places.  You can read books on your computer by finding them in the library catalog or going to the BrainHive site.  You login in with a username made of the first five letters of your last name and the first two of your first (Elizabeth Thornton would be thornel, for example).  The password is friends.  If you have any questions, just call the library at x212 or x145.

January 14th - We looked up some things about Maryland to answer the questions we got from kids in Hawaii and Texas.  We read a book called Hide and Seek in Hawaii by Jane Hopkins, Ian Gillespie and Ray Wong.  It was a picture game book and showed us some things from Hawaii and some words in Hawaiian. Lori lent us a Maryland state flag so we could send a picture of it to our new friends.

   

January 5th - We got a box full of leaves and papers from Dallas Texas!  We passed around the bags full of leaves to see if we recognized any.  It looks like they have oak trees around their school.  They also sent us books they wrote about leaves, a leaf investigation and  thank you letters for the box of leaves we sent to them.  We looked online at the book we wrote  called Leaves are Great! to see if we should make any changes before we have it printed.  It is about fall in Maryland, our leaf walk and the art we made from the leaves we collected and pressed.  We'll send a copy to them when we get it, and we'll answer their questions as well.

December 17th - We read Angel Like Me by Mary Hoffman.  The protagonist asks a lot of good questions, like "Why aren't there any boy angels?" and "Why don't the angels look like me?".   Here Comes Santa Claus is a picture book version of the Gene Autry classic illustrated by Bruce Whatley.

 Here's a picture from the Kindergarten Class in Dallas.  We'll be reading all the letters from both Texas and Hawaii when we get back from winter break.

Dallas Kindergarten Class

December 8th -We read Latkes, Latkes, Good to Eat by Naomi Howland with its wonderful repeating refrain.   Lil' Rabbit's Kwanzaa by Donna Washington, illustrated by Shane Evans also has lots of participation

                                   

December 3rd - We looked at the pictures the librarian in Pearl Harbor sent of the kindergarten class there.   The kids are standing in front of a mural painted by Hilton Alves and we looked at pictures of some of his other works.  You can see some, too.

November 24th - we read two Thanksgiving books and talked about things we could add to the bulletin board" thankful tree".  This First Thanksgiving Day by Laura Melmed, illustrated by Mark Buehner continued our counting theme from last week.  Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland, illustrated by Selma Lemut had some leaves for us to talk about.

                            

November 19th - We read the letter Elizabeth had put together from all our ideas and questions and signed it to send away.  Then we read This Tree Counts by Alison Formento, illustrated by Sarah Snow.

November 10th - We talked about what we now know about leaves and what we want to tell our far away friends about fall in Maryland.  We also brainstormed some questions we might ask them.  We read the new book  Fall Walk by Virginia Brimhall Snow and knew many of the leaves she illustrated.

November 5 - We took our pressed leaves and a sheet of white paper each and arranged them into wonderful works of imagination to make all different kinds of pictures.  We will send these pictures to kids in Dallas, Texas and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii along with some leaves and a letter.   Elizabeth will make a copy for each of us to have, too.

October 27th - We took time to celebrate Halloween with a flannel board version of Hallowhat by Alan Benjamin, and a digital version of Tahsa Tudor's tiny gem, Pumpkin Moonshine.  We made up some rhyming verses to "Trickety Treat and away we go". We were amazed by the leaf art in Look What I did with a Leaf by Morteza Mohi, some more inspiration for our own leaf art to come.

October 22 - It was a beautiful day for a leaf walk and we brought home many different leaves in a fall rainbow of colors.

October 13th - we read more books about autumn and fall leaves, gathering facts and ideas.

October 8th - We began our fall leaf project.  We read the book that inspired it all - The Fall Leaf Project by Margaret McNamara.  Those kids sent their leaves to a school in Arizona, but we are sending ours to a school in Dallas Texas.  Lois Ehlert's Leaf Man was our next story, her illustrations giving us ideas for the art that we could do with  the leaves that we find.

"A Leaf Man's got to go where the wind blows..."

September 25 - At our Friday class rescheduled from the Eid on Thursday we shared the beautiful book, I wish tonight by Lois Rock and illustrated by Anne Wilson and then talked about our individual wishes. We weren't sure if the protagonist was a boy or a girl, and then we talked about whether that made any difference in this story.   Not everyone knew the nursery rhyme, "Star Light, Star Bright" and we learned a song version of it.

What are your wishes?

September  16th - We talked about the alphabet and how much it is used in the library. We shared the rollicking, paticipatory, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault with illustrations by Lois Ehlert.  Students found the place in the story room where books by people with their last names would go.  Then we sang the alphabet song, and while we were doing that, Riggs Shultz brought in sheets of letters in ABC order, just like magic. We worked some more on our shelf markers.

 September 10th - We talked about the library and started making our shelf markers so we can put things back where they belong.  We shared the story Library Lily by Gillian Shields, illustrated by Francesca Chessa. Our time goes so fast!  Our next class will meet on September 16th (green week Tuesdays)

It's great to have a friend to explore with.

 

 

WELCOME TO THE 2015-16 SCHOOL YEAR!

KINDERGARTEN LIBRARY TIMES WILL BE GREEN WEEK TUESDAYS (KB 1:10-1:40 AND KA 1:40-2:10) AND GOLD WEEK THURSDAYS (KB 10:40-11:10 AND KA 11:10-11:40)

What did you think about William and his windmill?

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5/7 - We shared Compost Stew and Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer for our stories.

                                                            


4/23 - after reading the last Kindergarten friendly titles amongst the nominees, we voted.  The Kindergarten favorite was What if you had animal teeth? by Sandra Markle, followed closely by The Magic Bojabi Tree and Lion vs. Rabbit (the overall SSFS winner)

4/16 -

What we're reading:



3/12 - We began our Black-eyed Susan reading with this fun book about a little axolotl who thought he was a monster, and what happened when he met a real monster.







We talked about the reading program and shared Sarah Stewart's The Gardener, with illustrations by David Small.