Authors – MOOSE TRACKS

Author Spotlight: Shannon Olsen

March 2, 2025March 2, 2025 mrsbinthelibrary1

Author Spotlight: Shannon Olsen

Shannon Olsen is a beloved children’s author known for her heartwarming books that celebrate classroom communities, kindness, and connection. Her books, including Our Class is a Family, A Letter From Your Teacher, A Letter From Your Teacher on the First Day of School, and Collaboration Station, have resonated with students, teachers, and families alike.

Through her writing, Shannon captures the importance of belonging and the special bond between teachers and students. Her stories remind us that classrooms are more than just places of learning—they are places where friendships grow, encouragement thrives, and everyone has a valued place.

Shannon’s work is especially popular among young readers and educators for its uplifting messages and engaging storytelling. With her background as a teacher, she understands firsthand the importance of fostering a supportive and welcoming environment in schools, and that passion shines through in her books.

Her stories have become classroom staples, helping educators build strong classroom communities while inspiring children to embrace kindness, empathy, and self-confidence. Whether it’s through a heartfelt letter from a teacher or a reminder that a class is like a family, Shannon Olsen’s books continue to make a meaningful impact in schools around the world.

For those who haven’t yet discovered her books, they are a wonderful addition to any home or classroom library. Her storytelling reminds us all of the power of connection and the lasting influence of positive relationships in education. Grades 1-4 at HHCS are looking forward to a virtual author visit with Shannon Olsen on Tuesday!

Check out Shannon’s website here!

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Wild Robot/Author Peter Brown, Scholastic Digi-Flyer

September 29, 2024 mrsbinthelibrary1

I hope everyone has had a great start to the school year! This weekend the movie Wild Robot was released! My grade 4 class and I are really enjoying reading this book as a novel study. Check out the book trailer and the movie trailer:

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See the above link for Peter Brown’s website. There are also 2 sequels to The Wild Robot.

The Wild Robot Escapes

The Wild Robot Protects

You can have your child do some educational activities related to the movie here:

Gear Up for Adventure withThe Wild Robot

Peter Brown is also the author of picture books, as you can see in his video above.

Here are the Scholastic digi-flyers for September/October. You can order with my class code RC391237. Our library will receive 20% back in Scholastic rewards when you ship to the school.

Picture of September/October Flyer November Flyer

English Flyer

Picture of French September/October Flyer Flyer

French Flyer

Authors, Building Belonging- diversity, Growing Readers Tips

Love Letters to the Library, and Diversity Book Audit

May 31, 2024 mrsbinthelibrary1

Grade 1/2 read the book Dear Street and had an author visit with Lindsay Zier-Vogel earlier this year. Inspired by the events in the book, the students decided to write ‘love letters’ to our school. These are the letters they wrote to the library! What a treasure. Untitled design - 1

GROWING READERS TIP- WORD-RICH ENVIRONMENTS

Creating a home full of rich conversation and things to read sets the stage for lots of rich literacy learning. Here are a few ways to make your home word rich.

Label items in the house such as a door, a window, etc.
Talk about everyone’s day at dinner.
Bring lots of books into the home.
Stock paper and crayons or markers.

TAKE AWAY: Add words to the home through books, writing, and conversation.

Take a look at this e-book, created by a group of grade 4-6 students that I work with. We took on project-based learning this year to do a diversity audit on our library’s chapter books. You can read about our process and our findings here. Proud of our students!

Authors, Events

The Forest of Reading Awards- Silver Birch and Blue Spruce

May 21, 2024May 21, 2024 mrsbinthelibrary1

This past week I took a group of grade 4-6 students to the Forest of Reading Festival in Toronto, Canada’s largest literary event for young readers. Students read books by Canadian authors throughout the year and then voted for which author and book they felt was the most deserving of winning the Silver Birch Fiction Award. The winning author was announced on stage in front of a cheering crowd of school children from all over the GTA. Our HHCS students also participated in author workshops at the festival, received a free book, and of course asked the authors for their autographs. It was an amazing day!

Authors Kevin Sylvester and Colleen Nelson.

We also celebrated the Blue Spruce Award for the Forest of Reading for grades K-3 at home at HHCS! We made posters for our favourite books/authors, read with finger flashlights in the dark, watched the award ceremony on the screen, read the winning book aloud again, and finished off with a book trivia game of Kahoot! All the primary students looked amazing in their fancy outfits for attending the awards!

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips, Storywalk

Author Visits, New Storywalk, and Growing Readers Tip

February 12, 2024 mrsbinthelibrary1

New storywalk The Library Fish is now up in our wetlands! Come and take a walk with your kids and enjoy the story out in nature!

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Grades 3-6 had a fantastic Zoom visit with the hilarious author Chris Grabenstein! It was especially exciting to hear that the last installment of his Lemoncello book series comes out this fall! Many of his books are available at our HHCS library.

Kindergarten – Grade 3’s author visit was with Forest of Reading award nominee Lindsay Zier-Vogel! We loved having her read her book, Dear Street, to us and hearing about her love lettering project. Grade 1-2 adapted her project to write letters of appreciation to different areas of our school! I already found one in the library and am looking forward to seeing more around the school! Untitled design - 1

GROWING READERS TIP:

There is a lot of wait time during sports practices, music lessons, and club meetings. Carry along a book or two for these opportunities. Your child can look at books on their own or with siblings and friends.

Take away: Pack a few books in the practice bag.

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips

Field Trip to the Forest of Reading Festival

May 22, 2023 mrsbinthelibrary1

Last week I took a group of students to The Forest of Reading Festival – “the largest literary festival for young readers in Canada.” What an amazing experience! This group of students, over the past few months, had read a selection of books from the nominated list for the Silver Birch award. They then voted for which author they felt was most deserving of receiving the award. At the festival, the winning author was announced. It did indeed feel like a “rock concert for reading”! We also went to some author workshops, waited in line for author autographs, got some free books, and generally walked around and had fun!

One of our students got selected to be a presenter on stage! Very exciting!

It was so amazing to see kids everywhere reading, and during an author workshop to hear them share about books that have been special to them and their families and friends.

My shirt says, “It’s a good day to read a book.”

These girls waited so patiently to get a photo op with the winning Silver Birch author- Colleen Nelson, who won for her book Undercover Book List!

GROWING READERS TIP- DID YOU KNOW?

If you read to a child 15 minutes a day, by age 5 that will add up to:

27,375 minutes or

456 hours or

19 days!

TAKE AWAY: Read for at least 15 minutes every day.

Don’t forget- Spark Book Fair is coming in one week!! (Book Outlet). We ran this book fair a couple years ago with great success because of the amazing prices and wide selection for adults and kids.

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips

Author Visit with J. Torres

May 8, 2023 mrsbinthelibrary1

Grades 4-6 had a visit from author J. Torres last Friday! We were excited to meet this graphic novelist and comic book writer. Mr. Torres showed us his book Stealing Home, about a boy’s experience during the Japanese internment. We learned more about graphic novel terminology and what it is like to be an author. Some of our junior division students will be seeing Mr. Torres again soon when I take them on a field trip to the Forest of Reading Festival! Stealing Home is nominated for a Silver Birch Award- exciting!! Thank you so much to Mr. Torres for his presentation and his time with our students.

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https://www.jtorrescomics.com/

-From Growing Book by Book- BENEFITS OF BEDTIME STORIES

Bedtime stories hold a special place in many peoples’ hearts. Here are just a few of the benefits of reading or telling your child a story every night.

Provides a few minutes at the end of each day to bond with your child.
Shows that you value reading.
Helps kids calm down before bed.
Builds your child’s listening vocabulary.
Helps instill a love of reading and books.

TAKE AWAY- Read or tell a bedtime story every night to your child.

Authors, Events, Growing Readers Tips

Author Visit with Julia McKeown

April 24, 2023 mrsbinthelibrary1

Grades 1 and 2 had a wonderful visit with local author Julia McKeown. I invited Ms. Julia to come and speak to our classes as grades 1 and 2 are planning their Project Based Learning on the theme of the Zones of Regulation, which is a framework that teaches students to build awareness of their feelings and to use tools and strategies for regulation and wellness. Ms. Julia is an occupational therapist. An O.T. is a health worker who helps children and adults to participate in activities they like to do, want to do, and need to do every day. Ms. Julia wrote the story of “Bouncy Blake”, a sloth who is much more energetic than his fellow sloths and sometimes needs tools to regulate his sensory needs. She also told us that we actually have more than 5 senses! Ms. Julia taught the students about her process toward becoming an author and publishing her book. The students were very excited to meet a real author. They asked great questions and had insightful comments during the presentation. Thanks so much to Julia McKeown for this great learning opportunity! You can buy her book Bouncy Blake here-

GROWING READERS TIP- DID YOU GET THAT?

A piece of the learning to read puzzle is comprehending what we read. This starts long before your child can decode the words. The next time you are reading to your child, try these questions to build your child’s comprehension of the story.

Can you start at the beginning and tell me what happened in the story?
What was your favourite part of the story?
What do you think the author wanted us to learn or know from the story?
If you could be a character in the story, who would you be and why?

TAKE AWAY- Ask discussion questions about a story to build comprehension.

Authors, Events, Scholastic Book Club

Author Focus on Oliver Jeffers, Scholastic Book Fair and Other Library Reminders

May 23, 2022 mrsbinthelibrary1

Images from oliverjeffers.com

Oliver Jeffers has written and illustrated many children’s books and is a talented artist. His books have a wonderful sense of whimsy. Check out some of his work!

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Scholastic book fair is coming NEXT WEEK! Classes will visit the fair on their regular library visit day so be sure to pack spending money that day.

Last day to take AR tests is coming up on June 9! Students should plan accordingly to be able to meet their goals by this deadline.

Honours Reader program (optional challenge) is hosted in Google classroom- join code is qru34nw.

Please double check with your children if they have been bringing back their library books on time or if you might have received any late notices from the library that may have gone to your spam folder.

Have a wonderful week!