HHCS LIBRARY BLOG
Support our school by ordering your child’s new books from the Scholastic Digi-Flyer! Enter in class code- RC391237.
Check out this helpful article from Growing Book by Book! 
We will be hosting a used book sale soon! Proceeds will go towards a student-led project – a school Time Capsule for the HHCS 60th anniversary, coming up in September! 
Screen-Free Week/Digital Citizenship Week is here! During this time, we’re inviting your child to take part in a fun challenge by signing a pledge to go entertainment screen-free for 5 days (Monday-Friday). Pledges will be available at school and proudly displayed on the wall across from the gym. Last year, we had 100 students take the pledge, and this year, we’re hoping to break that record! We’d love for parents to join in the fun too! Teachers are also using lessons from Common Sense Media to instruct about media balance, being safe and kind online, giving credit when doing research online, and using reliable websites.
Here are some conversation starters and other resources from Common Sense Media to help you out as parents!
SELF-AWARENESS IN DIGITAL LIFE
Talk About How Your Child’s Behavior Online Affects Themselves and Others
Your child is learning how their behavior online can affect themselves and others. Use these questions to talk with
them about what it means to be their best selves online.
Ask these three questions:
1. I hear you learned about the Rings of Responsibility in school. Can you tell me about them?
○ Listen for:
■ Self: Responsibilities you have to yourself, such as keeping yourself safe and healthy.
■ Community: Responsibilities you have to your community. This includes the people you know well, like
friends and family, and people you might not know as well, like a clerk in a grocery store.
■ World: Responsibilities to the larger world, including people you don’t know but who might be affected
by your actions.
2. What are some things we value in our family? Are there any similarities to the Rings of Responsibility?
3. How could you use the Rings of Responsibility to help you think through the choices you make when you’re online?
RELATIONSHIP SKILLS IN DIGITAL LIFE
Talk About How Your Child Can Keep Online Interactions Fun and Friendly
Your child is learning how to keep their online games, texts, and other interactions fun and healthy. Use these
questions to talk with them about how to stay positive online and avoid risky situations.
Ask these three questions:
1. I hear you watched a video about some kids who were playing an online game. Can you tell me about the video?
What happened?
2. How do you (or your friends) interact with others online? Does it look different if it’s a group text versus an online
game or social media, etc.?
3. What are some ways you can keep online interactions fun and friendly?
○ Listen for:
■ Be kind to people you interact with.
■ Report and/or block someone who is being mean or disruptive.
■ Avoid strangers online if they make you feel uncomfortable.
I had a mini-assembly with grades K-3 to talk about Screen-Free week and to share this book with them- Rocket Says Look Up! Rocket is so excited to see the Phoenix Meteor Shower, but her older brother Jamal is more interested in looking down at his phone all the time. Will Jamal miss the beautiful event in the sky because he is too busy on his screen?
The Living Books Christian book fair starts this week! Ann the Book Lady will have the fair open at school during parent-teacher conferences on Thursday this week. Students may have a preview on Thursday or Friday this week to make a list of what they might like to purchase. Then classes will come to shop on Monday Oct. 21. Ann will also be open for shopping on Grandparents’ Day on Oct. 23. Check out the website to start making your list !
https://livingbooks.ca/home
Hope to see you at the book fair! Your children will have class time to check out the books- ask your child’s teacher if they are shopping on the Thursday or the Monday.
Be sure to encourage your child throughout the week if they are participating in Screen-Free Week! We are so excited to have some of our students taking on this challenge! What a great opportunity.
As all of our teachers are doing digital citizenship lessons this week in class for Digital Citizenship Week, I encourage you to check out the information and resources below.
What does media balance look like for you and your family? Let’s have these important conversations both at home and at school to help our children learn responsibility and respect. Here’s some advice from Common Sense Media:
Managing Media with Children Ages 3-8
What is Digital Citizenship and Why is it Important?
Digital citizenship is using digital resources effectively and responsibly. Digital citizenship encompasses areas such as media balance, giving credit for others’ work, finding reliable internet sources, being kind online, being aware of our digital trail, using safety and privacy online,, and using media smarts to make responsible choices as consumers.
Our HHCS mission statement says:
“We confess that the goal of education is to nurture children to grow in a sure knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Lord of life. We equip children with the skills necessary to develop their gifts and talents to their full potential. We challenge them to serve God according to his Word and teach them to discern their role in responsible service.”
This mission statement is applied to every area of life at HHCS, including digital citizenship. We want our children to be responsible digital citizens in the same way we want them to be responsible citizens of the world in general. Our children can serve God and develop their gifts and talents through digital activities as well as other activities in life. They will need guidance to do this. By having home and school working together as partners, we can be proactive rather than reactive in guiding students how to be their best selves in all areas of life.
If the Tech Planners that we sent home didn’t make it to you, here are the digital versions:
“Digital citizenship should be a community effort.
The impact will be more powerful when students have multiple trusted adults they can discuss issues with,
and when they’re hearing the same messages reinforced from both home and school.” – Kathleen A. Morris
It was so nice to see so many families come through on Friday night for a visit to the school! I enjoyed having you all come through the library with your children. Thanks for stopping in!
Here is a link to a presentation I made for our school about Digital Citizenship. I used resources from Common Sense Media which is an amazing site for parents and educators. I hope that you will find this useful and refer back to it during the school year. (link below.)
Digital Citizenship for Families
You can also go to this link from Common Sense Media and get free text message tips about how to promote healthy media habits with your family!
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/techbalance
The Canadian Children’s Book Centre has a very helpful article about how to choose a book for your kids. It has general advice and then also specific advice for each age group and for different book genres.
https://bookcentre.ca/resources/how-to-choose-a-book
It’s Hispanic Heritage Month! Let’s celebrate with some great books.
https://imaginationsoup.net/picture-books-hispanic-latine-heritage-month/
I have a whiteboard outside the library where I am starting to post a ‘library question of the week’ for students to write their answers. The first week’s question was “What was a great book that you read this summer?” and the current question is “Where do you like to read?” How about you? Feel free to leave a comment below! Have a great week HHCS and don’t forget about Culture and Curriculum Night on Wednesday!
If you haven’t seen these pictures of the display at the front entrance of the school yet, please enjoy. The writing prompts were “children felt… at residential school” and “children should feel… at school.” This was an amazing school-wide application of the students’ knowledge and feelings about Orange Shirt Day. Thanks to Mrs. S. for organizing this project and to all the teachers and students who participated!
Welcome back to school, Halton Hills Christian School community! It was so great last week to see the students come back to class after 6 months of being away for distance learning and summer break. I am Mrs. Baillargeon and I am the HHCS Teacher-Librarian. I am excited for a new school year and I am looking forward to writing this blog!
Here throughout the year you will find: resources for helping your children to find books that they will love, information about various authors, information about what is happening in the world of children’s literature, pictures of school reading events and classes, articles about digital and media literacy, and more! Please feel free to comment below and I look forward to being a support for all of our school families.
You’ll notice the “moose” theme on this blog- last spring we were excited to premiere HHCS’s new school mascot- Bruce the Moose!
While we cannot do our regular school library checkout this year, we have adapted our routine for 2020/21. Homeroom teachers will take bins of books that they have chosen for their classroom, and then the students will be able to choose and read from that limited selection. Please refer to your child’s homeroom teacher for the exact specifics. We will be running the AR program this year but will adjust the settings so that students can read from a more broad reading level range, since our access to books will be more limited this year because of Covid.
I will be teaching in some of your children’s classes. For the classes involved, I am teaching a class that I am calling “Information Literacy“. This class will look slightly different at each level but in general this class will be a combination of 4 different areas:
–library skills and special topics (taking care of books, parts of a book, how to find books in the library, Dewey Decimal, book genres, Black History Month, Women’s History month, etc)
As we come back to school in this time of Covid, I will be spending some time in class with read-alouds on this topic. I thought that you as parents might be interested in looking for some of these books to have at home:
I hope that you found some of this information here helpful! Looking forward to this new school year with our UNSTOPPABLE GOD! You will see this theme often in our school communications this year!
“Reading should not be presented to children as a chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious gift.” — Kate DiCamillo
This week is national Digital Citizenship Week! Learning never stops, and neither do our digital lives. We are helping our students reflect on their media balance, make responsible decisions, and treat themselves and others with kindness. Use these conversation starters to help your kids talk about their digital lives:
