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!
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.
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.
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.
-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.
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.
Peter Reynolds has written and illustrated many books for children- here are a few that I will share. The Dot is his most famous book, which sparked a movement to celebrate International Dot Day each year. I did some Dot Day activities with the kindergartens last month and it was fun! Peter Reynolds’ books have social-emotional themes that are so helpful for using with kids. They always love the pictures and story lines too.
Here is a short film produced by Fablevision, a company that Peter Reynolds is involved with. It’s about teaching and education, aptly titled Keepers of the Flame. Be sure to share the last video here with your kids- they can draw along with Peter Reynolds! I think it’s important for students to get a glimpse into the illustrating or writing process- Kidlit TV is a great resource for this.
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!
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 you and your children checked out the Who HQ series? This huge collection of non-fiction books helps kids to learn the who, what, when, where, and why of the world! I have recently purchased some more of this series to enrich our collection in the library at school. There is even a tv version of this book series on Netflix!
Images from whowasbookseries.com
The book fair is coming up… I could still use one more volunteer! Email me at l.baillargeon@hh-cs.org if you’re able to help during the school day. Parents will be welcome to stop in to shop after school after the Arts Assembly on Wednesday June 1.
This week I am featuring an author focus on Arnold Ytreeide! HHCS students in grades 4 and up are very familiar with Mr. Ytreeide’s books. In grades 4,5, and 6, the classes rotate reading a different Christmas-themed book of Mr. Ytreeide’s for each year that they are in the junior division. This year all of grades 4,5, and 6 are reading Bartholomew’s Passage! I am teaching grade 6A Bible this year and we are really enjoying this book, set in the time that Jesus was born. Mr. Ytreeide’s 4 Christmas-themed books can be read during the Advent season and have short devotional reflections at the end of each chapter. These stories are adventurous, funny, and thoughtful. The students love being surprised by the recurring characters’ appearances and by the many dramatic twists and turns in Mr. Ytreeide’s writing.
In spring of 2020, as we moved into our first lockdown of the pandemic with online learning, I wrote to Mr. Ytreeide, who was so kind as to send us a personalized video to say hello to the students. I then had the students come up with some questions to ask Mr. Ytreeide about being an author and about his books and he sent a video message back again to us answering those questions. He also sent us some of his Mike Danford books (see below) for our library. It was so great for our students to be in contact with an author whose writing they really appreciated!
Amon’s Adventure is going to have a sequel, published in 2022! Apparently there have also been some conversations about having one of Mr. Ytreeide’s books made into a movie one day! Which book do you think should be the first to be a movie??
Check out this interview with Mr. Ytreeide on one of my favourite reading websites- The Read Aloud Revival!
Mr. Ytreeide also writes other types of books besides his Advent series and the Amon books. We have the first 3 books of the Mike Danford series in our school library, and the number 5 book just came out!
Here are some articles from Read Brightly about some book-ish Christmas activities! Some great ideas here for making book-themed Christmas ornaments! Don’t forget to start working on your ornaments for our library Christmas tree, HHCS! Have a great week!
Something a little different for you this week! Last year around this time I posted some pictures of vintage children’s Christmas books that I have at home. I love children’s literature and feel that is so important- and I also love vintage children’s literature! I have a collection at home of my favourites. My number one favourite author-illustrator from my childhood is Gyo Fujikawa. I had forgotten all about her books until one day I saw “Oh What a Busy Day” and I was immediately transported back to childhood.
Source: Goodreads.com
Gyo captured childhood so well in her writing and illustrations and lovingly depicted children from all cultures playing together, at a time when that was not commonly featured. You can read about her amazing life in this article from The New Yorker. It includes anecdotes about when her family was in an internment camp and when she worked for Disney. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-gyo-fujikawa-drew-freedom-in-childrens-books
There is even a fairly new book about Fujikawa’s life, titled “It Began with a Page-How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way.” You will love reading these books with your children, they are really special!
The awesome thing about these vintage books is you don’t have to hunt them down- they are easy to find as the re-prints are available at Amazon or your local bookstore!
I think it is important to show our own kids the books that we loved when we were young! Such treasures!
Don’t forget our upcoming Book Character Christmas Ornament challenge! I can’t wait to see what the students come up with!
A heads up- the AR due date is coming up soon on November 18! Please check in on your children to see how they are coming along with their reading goal for the Accelerated Reader program. Check in with the homeroom teacher if you are not sure how to access your child’s information on Accelerated Reader/Renaissance.
It’s Remembrance Day this week and we will be observing as a school. Enjoy these resources here to help your children at home to understand the subject more.
I have just purchased The Mysterious Benedict Society series for the school library and the books will be ready for the shelves soon. Author Trenton Lee Stewart has written these amazing books. Has your junior or intermediate division child read these books yet? If your child loves adventure, humour, and brain-teasers then these books will be a hit. Here is a book trailer and also a tv series trailer for the version now on Disney Plus. Enjoy!
https://www.mysteriousbenedictsociety.com/series
Take a look at the NOVEMBER Scholastic Book Club digi-flyer! Your order will ship to your home and you can order online whenever you’d like! When you enter the ‘class code’, your order earns 20% back for new books for our school library. Orders over $40 are free shipping.
