Thank you library monitors!

Wednesday at recess, the students from divisions 1-6 who have helped in the library before school and at lunch as well as during their classes' library times dropped into the library for a "thank you" cup of hot chocolate.

Just a small showing of appreciation for all the work our library monitors do to help the Blair Library!

~Ms Novakowski

learning about Dewey

Melvin Dewey was the designer of the Dewey Decimal system - the system used to categorize and organize information (non-fiction) books in libraries. The primary classes were introduced to this system in a basic way earlier this year through a Curious George book and over the last few weeks, the intermediate classes have been learning a little more about Dewey.

Division 2 created mini-posters on the iPads for each general category and these are now posted in the library and are being well used by students to help them locate books. Here are a few examples of the mini-posters the students created:

We read the book Do You Know Dewey? which explains the system in an introductory way and describes how books are ordered on the shelves using more and more specific categories as the decimal part of the "call number" gets longer and longer.

Division 2 has also been creating some interactive games that we will have the other classes try out to review what they know.

This week, all the intermediate classes have broken up into teams and  have played competitive (eg. LOUD) rounds of Dewey Jeopardy. The students worked together to choose a category, the question they wanted to try based on the number of points it was worth and then had to come to consensus as a team before offering their answer to the question. The interactive powerpoint game can be found HERE.

It was fun getting to know Dewey a little better and it sure came in handy as the students helped shelve all the library books being returned before the holidays!
~Ms Novakowski

more early primary storytelling

The students in divisions 10, 11 and 12 have continued to develop their oral language skills as they tell stories using character puppets they created and have them interacting with other "characters". We have been practicing dialogue between characters...

and thinking about how a story might change if the setting was a farm...

or a forest...

On Tuesday of this week, the students took their little character stick puppets home and I am hoping they will find ways to create stories at home!

~Ms Novakowski

Tumblebooks

Our school district has a subscription to Tumblebooks which is an online ebook library. There is a large range of books from early picture books to beginning chapter books to more mature novels available. The books available on Tumblebooks are authentic literature, re-created in ebook format. The illustrations from the original books are used as is the text. The narrator (sometimes the book's author) reads aloud the book and often, the words in the text are highlighted as the book is read. Listening to books read aloud and reading along (by tracking the words visually or with a finger) are important experiences leading to developing reading fluency.

This week, many of the primary classes enjoyed some winter picture books viewed on the big screen in the library (notice the snow outside!). We read books about hibernation and migration, penguins in Antartica, animals playing hockey and a funny favourite, 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch.

Bookmarks were sent home this week with the website and login information (you'll need the username and password). Because of our district license, students are able to access and enjoy Tumblebooks at home!

~Ms Novakowski