Wescott LMC

Back by popular demand – Book Madness!!

The Book Madness nominations are in and the brackets will be decided today! The tournament opens next week for voting in grades 3rd-5th. The kids will be voting once a week until Spring Break. We will leave for break without the final vote so that students can read the two finalists over break if they choose.

Check the Book Madness Website for the brackets and voting results or the physical bracket outside the library. Help get your students excited about reading by encouraging them to participate.

I am VERY excited to announce that we have some new modules in PebbleGo & PebbleGo Next that you AND your students are SURE to love! PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next are great resources for nonfiction reading!

• We all know that one student who just LOVES dinosaurs!!! Have them check out the new Dinosaur Module in PebbleGo!
• Our younger students have used the biography module in PebbleGo A LOT, but now your higher readers can log into PebbleGo Next biographies! They are adding new higher-level biographiesto this module all of the time!
• We added an entire Social Studies module to PebbleGo Next, which includes: Culture, Economics, Fields of Study, Geography, Technology & the United States! There are SO MANY subtopics under each of these, so be sure to check it out!

The BIGGEST DAY in children’s literature is Monday when the Youth Media Awards are announced! (Caldecott, Newbert, Sibert, Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpre, etc). I will be streaming the results whenever I don’t have a class – stop by and share the excitement with me!

We are excited to announce that author Jason Henry will be visiting Wescott 3rd & 4th graders on Friday 3/15. The assembly will take place in the library – 4th at 9 am and 3rd at 10 am. Jason is the uncle of Wescott students Atticus and Micah Kim!

Jason will read his nonfiction picture book Up and Away!, sign copies, and talk about the history, science, and adventure behind the invention of the world’s first flying machine. He will also talk about the nonfiction writing process. Book order forms will be sent home in a few weeks.

“Every year, on World Read Aloud Day, people all around the globe read aloud together and share stories to advocate for literacy as a human right that belongs to all people.” Click here for ideas on how to celebrate, including a link to Skype with an author that day.

MAKING FOR A CAUSE!

STARTING NEXT WEEK, JANUARY 14th, students can come to the maker space to make no-sew fleece blankets for animals at the Orphans of the Storm shelter. I will be teaching the kids how to make the blankets this week during library.

The Northbrook Public Library’s Winter Reading Program goes from December 1- January 31. It is perfect timing for Winter Break reading! Here is the link for more info. Sign up today!

Looking for something to read during the dark days of winter?  Check out the “best books of the year” lists from the following sources (They Say Blue, pictured here, by Jillian Tamaki, has appeared on several of the lists):

• Notable Children’s Books of 2018 from The New York Times
• NPR’s Book Concierge: Our Guide to 2018’s Great Reads
• Best Children’s Books of 2018 from the Washington Post
• The Best of 2018 (so far) from Audible
• School Library Journal’s Best Books of 2018

In honor of Hour of Code, we will have a coordinating activity in the maker space. Students are invited to “unplug” and challenge themselves with computational thinking by playing a coding board game in the maker space.

Check out this video from PBS News Hour with beloved author Kate DiCamillo speaking about the Magic of Read Aloud.

” … We humans long not just for story, not just for the flow of language, but for the connection that comes when words are read aloud. That connection provides illumination, it lets us see each other.”