happy summer reading!

The Blair Library is closed for the summer! I hope lots of the Blair students will visit the Richmond Public Library and sign up for the Summer Reading Club.

The Blair staff has some summer reading planned as well!

Have a great summer and I can't wait to find out about the great books you discovered over the holidays!
~Ms Novakowski

Life through Flame's Eyes

The intermediate students in divisions 3, 4 and 5 did some writing in June that focused on writing from a different point of view - that of Flame, our library fish. The students were also asked to consider using personification in their writing. I read excerpts from two books to inspire the students and model both point of view and personification.

Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian is a fun story that starts on Day 1 with a goldfish alone in a very empty goldfish bowl and all he has to do is swim around. As the days go on, more living and non-living things are introduced into his home (decorations, plants, other fish and a snail) and he shares his feelings about the overcrowding and the resulting changes.

Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin (also available are Diary of a Fly and Spider) is a part of a fun series of books with comical illustrations. The book is written in diary form with entries for specific dates, detailing the the worm's daily adventures.

A special thank you to Simon from division 3 for taking care of Flame over spring break and this summer!
~Ms Novakowski

potato stories

The primary classes have enjoyed some fun potato stories to help celebrate our potato harvest.

All the students enjoyed the sing-song rhyme of Potato Joe by Keith Baker. Some grade 1 students from division 10 helped to create an art canvas for the library, inspired by this book.

Another favourite was The Enormous Potato by Aubrey Davis . This story is based on the traditional folktale about the gigantic turnip. Students in division 10 enjoyed role-playing the different characters ad the pulling and pulling of the enormous potato!

~Ms Novakowski

thank you library monitors!

Today at recess, the intermediate library monitors came into the recess to receive a little thank you for all that they do to provide service to the library. Each student received a little "bookworm" treat and their choice of bookmark.

The intermediate students who volunteer to be library monitors check in and check out books using the library computer system, learn how to shelve books in the various areas of the library, help put barcodes and spine labels on new books and help me organize things around the library. I have many students who come in before school, during rainy recesses and at lunch to lend a hand and it is much appreciated!

~Ms Novakowski

tomatosphere results

Divisions 6 and 7 and a group of primary students in the library, all participated in the Tomatosphere project this year. The students observed and collected data on the germination and growth of two groups of seeds - the treated  seeds and the control group.

Some students will be taking home the seedlings and maybe we'll have some tomatoes to enjoy in September!

We submitted our results which contribute to this international research project and received the following certificate for our participation.

We've had so many fun gardening and growing experiences this year at Blair and hope to expand these opportunities for our students next year!

~Ms Novakowski

spuds in tubs: harvesting, counting, cooking and eating

On Tuesday morning, divisions 5 and 10 and four students from division 3 headed outside, turned over our tubs and hunted for potatoes!

The students couldn't believe how many we found and we were surprised how big some of the potatoes were.

It was fun to try and find our original seed potatoes.

We laid out all the potatoes on the picnic table and counted them into bowls of 100. The students and teachers couldn't believe when we finally stopped counting at 307!

Some of the students helped to wash and scrub the potatoes and then we boiled them and tossed them in some butter and a bit of salt.

Each student in the school got to eat one of the potatoes. I couldn't believe how excited the students were to line up with their toothpicks to grab a potato!

This is the first year we've done Spuds in Tubs at Blair and we are hoping to do it again next year. It was a great learning experience for all our students!

~Ms Novakowski

spuds in tubs: nearing the end

Our potato plants are coming to the end of their life cycle. They are beginning to droop and some of the leaves are turning yellow. Last week we added lots of ladybugs to the tubs so hopefully they will be safe from aphids!

We will probably be harvesting the potatoes on June 19th and will be boiling them up for our students to have a taste!

~Ms Novakowski

kindergarten storytelling

For division 11's last visit to the library this year, I set out five different storytelling stations with different materials related to two topics the students have been studying - dinosaurs and the farm. The kindergarten students were divided into groups and rotated through all five stations.

For the dinosaur stations, they were asked to choose two dinosaurs (characters) and create a scene (setting) using the natural materials that were out on the tables. The students were then asked to "tell" a story (plot). I loved listening to their stories and seeing how they used their factual knowledge of dinosaurs in their stories.

There were three farm stations - plastic animals, soft animals and puppets. At the farm stations, the students needed to work as a group, each choosing one character to work with. They needed to work together to come up with some sort of story. This was much more difficult for the students.

For our young students and for our students learning English, oral storytelling is an important activity to participate in before asking students to "write" their ideas on paper. Having materials to inspire ideas and to actively engage the students resulted in some fun stories!

~Ms Novakowski

ladybugs in the library

This week we had 500 little ladybugs spend some time with us in the library. Divisions 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 all got to spend some time observing the ladybugs. The students were asked to observe the ladybugs appearance and behaviour.

We talked about how we can learn things about an animal by observing it. Some of the things students noticed were that:
-there are different kinds of ladybugs with different markings
-some ladybugs don't have any spots
-ladybugs can be different colours
-ladybugs have six legs and the legs move in pairs at different times
-ladybugs can crawl upside down
-ladybugs have cases that open up and their real wings appear and spread out

By reading about ladybugs, we learned that:
-ladybugs have four stages in their life cycle (egg, larva, pupa and beetle)
-they eat aphids
-they hibernate in winter
-there are about 5000 species of ladybugs in the world

At the end of each day, we took the ladybugs outside to set them free to find food for themselves and we discussed the importance of beneficial insects to gardeners and farmers and different ecosystems. We let them go near the potato plants in case there were any aphids there!

It was so fun to watch the students be so excited about the ladybugs and for some of them to be able to hold one for the very first time!

~Ms Novakowski