Wescott LMC

Are you looking for books for you or your students to read over the summer? Publications are starting to come out with recommended reads. Check out the lists below:

• Here is a lovely PDF of 2018 Summer Reading Recommendations from the Horn Book. Click these links for individual lists for picture books, early readers, intermediate, middle school, and high school.
• Summer Reading fun from Scholastic
• Summer Reading Fun from Bookopolis

Another great suggestion for summer is to encourage students to read books off of the 2019 Illinois Readers’ Choice Awards:

• Monarch Award for grades K-3 (I do this program with 1st & 2nd at Wescott)
• Bluestem Award for grades 3rd-5th (I do this program with 3rd & 4th at Wescott)
• Rebecca Caudill Award for grades 4th-8th (I do this program with 5th at Wescott)

This week we celebrated 3rd and 4th grade students who read all 20 books off of the 2018 Bluestem Award List!  The Bluestem Award is an annual Readers’ Choice Award in the State of Illinois for students grades 3rd-5th.  This year, over 32,000 students in Illinois read at least 4 books off of the list and voted on the award.  These students not only read 4 books off of the list in order to be able to vote, but went above and beyond to read all 20 books off of the list!

We also celebrated 5th grade students who read 14+ books off the Caudill Award list.  The Caudill Award is an annual Readers’ Choice Award in the State of Illinois for students grades 4th-8th.  This year, over 15,000 students in Illinois read at least 3 books off of the list and voted on the award.  These student not only read 3 books off of the list in order to be able to vote, but went above and beyond to read at least 14 books off of the list!

Well done, readers!

It is hard to believe, but the end of the year is almost upon us!  We need to take care of some housekeeping in the library before school gets out.  Here are some important dates to keep in mind …

The past few years we have done Camp Read-A-Lot at the end of the year, but this year we want to change it up a bit and do Books on the Beach!

As in previous years, teachers will sign up for a 50 min period. We will turn the entire library into one giant maker space, as students transform the library into a beach scene! We will read a story around the “bonfire” and then students will find a cozy spot in the library to read by flashlight.

Since we have so many homerooms this year and school ends on a Thursday, we will need to start Books on the Beach earlier than usual. We are planning on opening the Beach the afternoon of Field Day, and we’d like to start with the upper grades if possible.

It is hard to believe, but summer is just around the corner!  Librarians from the Northbrook Publc Library will be visiting Wescott the afternoon of 5/29 for 15 minute presentations about their summer reading program. Wescott will serve as a pilot school this year, as NPL will bring the summer reading sign-up forms that day.

The Makerspace was closed in April due to testing, the bookfair, and Poetry Cafe. The kids will be glad to hear that Makerspace is back for May! Starting Monday, students can come down to make a pretty pencil pinwheel!

In honor of National Poetry Month, Poetry Cafe is this week in the library!

Students and staff are invited to the library during Poetry Cafe to read a favorite poem or two. The library is decorated like a cafe, complete with jazz music (sometimes live jazz music by Mr. Brown)!

Courtesy of Scholastic Book Fairs, Lauren Tarshis, author of the very popular I Survived series, will be visiting Wescott the morning of Thursday May 3rd! She will be presenting to 3rd & 4th grade students, but all students will be invited to the book signing.

Order form and schedule details will be sent home soon!

“School Library Month is the American Association of School Librarians’ celebration of school librarians and their programs” and a recognition of “the essential role that strong school library programs play in transforming learning” (from AASL). Here is what New York Times bestselling author, Jason Reynolds, the 2018 Spokesperson for School Library Month, has to say about school libraries:

“It’s impossible for me to talk about the importance of the school library without talking about the school librarian,” said Reynolds. “In full disclosure, the library wasn’t a place I frequented in school, but if I were in school today I’d practically live there, because there’s a good chance the coolest person in the building works where the books are. Not only can the school librarian help to curate a comfortable and welcoming space for all students, not only can they usher them to a vast array of books and reference materials, librarians also usually have the ability to connect with students on a personal level, because, well, they’ve read the most stories, which makes their potential for empathy and openness ceiling-less.”

The spring book fair is NEXT WEEK! There will be no regular library classes that week due to the book fair.  Here is the schedule:

• Wednesday, April 11th:  9:00 am-12:00 pm; 1:00-3:00 pm
• Thursday, April 12th:  8:30 am-12:00 pm; 1:00-4:00 pm; 6:45-8:00 pm
• Friday, April 13th:  8:30-9:30 am

Teachers will be bringing their classes up for Book Fair previews on Wednesday 4/11.