Monarch Voting Official Results
Across the state of Illinois, students in kindergarten through third grade voted for their favorite Monarch Award-nominated book. In all, 89,656 students voted and the official Monarch Award winner is Sam and Dave Dig a Hole with 11,118 votes. In second place is Red: A Crayon’s Story with 8,923 votes. In third place with 7,026 votes is Moldylocks and the Three Beards. All of our copies of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole are checked out. The students are eagerly waiting for the vote totals for each book, which I will share this week during library. The complete voting results are here.
Thank You for Book Fair Library Books
A big thank you to families and the PTA for the success of the book fair. It allowed us to order 246 news books and sets of beginning reading books for the library. These up-to-date books include biographies and information about national parks, zamboni machines, countries, robots, science, STEM careers, holidays, cats, engineering marvels, crafts, and wild animals. The books also include some new fiction and replacements for some much-loved series books that are wearing out.
Library (photos)
Read Across America started us off on a Dr. Seuss study this month, which led to discussing fantasy books in general. Our many examples were greeted excitedly by all our students. Many familiar characters are fantasy and were highlighted this month such as Elephant & Piggie, Fly Guy, Flat Stanley, Clifford, Splat the Cat, Scaredy Squirrel, Curious George, Thomas the Tank Engine, Corduroy, Froggy, Tacky the Penguin, Biscuit, the Berenstain Bears, Franklin, Arthur and D.W., Angelina Ballerina, Dear Dragon, Trucks in Trucktown, and Oliver and Amanda Pig. Our second graders learned about science fiction and fantasy. The second graders were so excited about their science fiction and fantasy books, we are keeping them out longer.
In addition to read alouds and booktalks, we played games in the library this month. The kindergarteners played color ball after hearing My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss. Right before spring break, all the students played reading ball and shared about what books they are enjoying reading (authors, series, genres, and/or titles) and spring break reading plans. That sparked a lot of great book recommendations.
In the photos, can you tell how much fun we had this month in the library with books, building, computers, and each other? Students worked together after check out to build as well as using PebbleGo on the library computers. Our new biography bookmark display also makes an appearance. And, of course, we enjoyed reading, talking about books, and sharing books.
Computers (photos)
Kindergarteners were lucky this month as they explored the backgrounds available in Wixie. These students chose a background and created a sentence that included the word “lucky” to go along with their picture. The pictures included drawings, stickers, or both to complete the scene. Students oohed and aahed as they shared their work and now you can enjoy it all. It is an impressive wealth of details they added and a variety of ideas. Click here to see the kindergarteners’ work and writing about luck.