Dear Parents,
We’ve had a great start to the year with the students in the library. Library helpers club has twenty nine 4th, 5th and 6th graders helping out in the morning. They go with their team to the hallways and collect books that students are returning. They bring them to the library for check in. They even set them up on the counter so that check in goes smoothly and quickly. Thank you to all of you who encourage your children to participate by helping.
The book fair will be coming to Einstein on November 30- Dec 4. Our library profits from all the sales we make. We can take our proceeds in a percentage of cash or in books, or a combination of both. With your support, this program has been a great benefit to the students at Einstein. We will be asking for parent volunteers to help at the fair, so if you could volunteer for a couple of hours, please let me know.
Students are excited about Battle of the Books and are already reading the books and forming their teams. This competition is voluntary for 4-5-6 graders. They form teams with no more than 4 per team and read the 12 selected books by the end of January. Then we meet in the library at lunchtime and run the “Battles” where the teams answer questions about the books. That tournament is double elimination. When we have established our building winning team, we go online to battle teams across the district. I am proud of the students at Einstein, because they have really kept the fun in the program. We have won the district battle once and always make a good showing.
Here is a brief overview of what your children have been doing in library so far this year:
· Kindergarten: Care of books, learning about responsibility when checking books out and returning them. They have listened to award winning books and learned about authors and illustrators.
· First Grade: Practicing with shelf markers; to learn to put books they’ve looked at, back in the same spot on the shelf. They have listened to award winning books and learned about the characteristics of fiction and non-fiction. They have learned about choosing “just right” books from any area of the library. They have learned what a publisher is and how to locate information about a book from the title page.
· Second Grade: Review of use of shelf markers. They have worked at locating books to support classroom learning, including AR books and books about insects. They have learned to access PebbleGo at school and home (electronic data base with multimedia information about animals, insects etc). They have been given the home access information. They have learned the parts of a book: Title page, Glossary, Index, Table of contents. They will be reading for information from a non-fiction book and answering questions specific to their topic.
· Third Grade: They have begun to learn about electronic data bases and how and why they need to cite their sources. They have explored PebbleGo and have been given the home access information. They have explored the Destiny library program and are learning to locate books using this program. They have learned about internet safety and why the district has rules for internet use. They are beginning to learn about the Dewey decimal system and how and where to locate books.
· Fourth Grade: They have established accounts on the Destiny library catalog program and will continue to learn to access information about the Einstein Library collection using it. They have learned about internet safety and begun to evaluate websites. They have learned about how and why to cite their sources; give credit where credit is due. They have been introduced to the Battle of the Books titles and Just So Stories.
· Fifth Grade: They have established accounts on the Destiny library catalog program. They have learned to access book reviews online. They have learned about web site evaluation, internet safety and etiquette and what you can tell from a website’s URL.They have used citation machine to make bibliographic entries. They will continue to use Destiny to access information about the Einstein library collection.
· Sixth Grade: They have reviewed using Destiny to access information about the Einstein collection and to locate books in our library. They have reviewed internet safety and visited www.pbskids.org/dontbuyit to learn some background about internet advertising and reliable information. They have used citation machine to make bibliographic entries as well as located the citations in online databases.
I am honored to work with your children. They enrich my life beyond measure.
Sincerely,
Anne Sandbo
asandbo@lwsd.org