Uncategorized – Page 4

HHCS BOOKMARK CONTEST 2020

Theme- FAVOURITE BOOK CHARACTER

This year’s theme for our new bookmark contest will be Favourite Book Characters. I can’t wait to see what book characters you like the most and how you will draw them! Feel free to put a quote from the book to go with your character and bookmark!

Your bookmark must represent this theme. A winner will be chosen for each of the following groups:

GROUP 1- Jk/Sk/Grade 1

GROUP 2- Grades 2, 3, and 4

GROUP 3- Grades 5, 6, 7, and 8

The winners will receive a $5 Indigo gift card from Mrs. Baillargeon, the teacher-librarian. Winners will be chosen based on creativity and artistic effort.

All designs and drawings must be original. Your design may be in colour or in black and white. If in colour, make sure to colour it in well and very neatly. If in black and white, it should be outlined with a thin marker or a pen. No pencil drawings will be allowed. Make sure your design is neat, easy to read, and reflects the contest theme for this year. If you write something, make sure all writing is clearly printed and words are spelled correctly.

A paper copy of the bookmark contest rules will be sent home with your child- they can design the bookmark in the space provided.

TAKE A PICTURE OF YOUR BOOKMARK AND SEND to Mrs. Baillargeon at l.baillargeon@hh-cs.org with your name, grade, and homeroom teacher by: Friday Nov. 13. (due the same day as the Book Fair order!)

space suit reading

I am late to tell you about World Space Week but I figured it would be good to feature about it anyway!

In keeping with the space theme, check out https://storytimefromspace.com/! This site features astronauts reading children’s books aloud as they float weightlessly on their space station! So fun! Some of the books that the astronauts read are Astronaut Annie, Mousetronaut, and A Moon of my Own.

A reminder to everyone to keep working on your Accelerated Reader goals for Term 1. Parents, you are able to have your child take AR tests at home if you would like, just as we did last spring. Connect with your child’s homeroom teacher if you have any issues with this. Of course the students are taking tests at school as usual too. Keep reading HHCS!

Moose fact of the week: A flap of skin called a bell hangs below the moose’s throat. Go HHCS Moose!

black moose under tree

Building Belonging- diversity, Digital Literacy, Events, Uncategorized

Upcoming Book Fair, Common Sense Media, and Books About Thankfulness

October 11, 2020October 12, 2020 mrsbinthelibrary1

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!

We may not be able to do the book fair like we usually do, but a virtual version is coming your way soon! The Living Books Book Fair will be launched on Grandparents’ Day – stay tuned!

Many of you attended the parent seminar with Paul Davis last week which included the topic of online safety. At HHCS we also teach about this in the classrooms. As part of the Information Literacy class that I teach, I use Common Sense Media to help teach lessons on digital literacy. This helpful website also has many resources for families such as articles about “Parent Concerns”, “What You Need to Know”, “What’s New”, guides to various popular games, apps, and movies, and so on. http://www.commonsensemedia.org/parent-concerns

Thanksgiving weekend may be over but the thankfulness is not! Check out these books about being thankful on the amazing site, Read Brightly:

An Attitude of Gratitude: 15 Books That Show Kids What It Means to Be Thankful

Thanks a Million

readbrightly.com

This week’s moose information:

Book - If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff

Scholastic.com

Try out this book- If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff! Go moose!!

Authors, Building Belonging- diversity, Uncategorized

Learning Disabilities Month, and Author Spotlight on Eric Walters

October 5, 2020October 12, 2020 mrsbinthelibrary1

Hello HHCS! October is Learning Disabilities and Dyslexia Awareness Month. I hope you will try out some of these books with your children! It is important for children to see themselves reflected in literature as well as to look out into the world and learn something new about other people or places. Whether learning disabilities are something your family is very familiar with, or a subject that is new for your kids, some of these books would be great to use as either a “mirror” to reflect themselves or a “window” to look out and learn something. Check out the link at http://imaginationsoup.net for more.

Best Children’s Books With Characters Who Have Learning Differences (Disabilities)

Imaginationsoup.net

Author spotlight: Eric Walters.

Canadian author Eric Walters has written over 100 books for young readers ,middle grade readers, and young adults. I introduced his book “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”, written about a group of students during the Covid pandemic, to several of the classes I teach at school. I also showed them a video interview with Eric Walters and talked about his impressive catalogue of books that he has written. Check out his work at https://ericwalters.net.

Moose information of the week:

Moose are usually very peaceful animals. Only male moose have antlers.

black moose on green grass

Book quote of the week:

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home. “ – Anna Quindlen

Building Belonging- diversity, Uncategorized

Orange Shirt Day, and Netflix Series- Bookmarks

September 27, 2020October 12, 2020 mrsbinthelibrary1

MOOSE

MOOSE

Moose information for the week- check out Moose by Robert Munsch! You can listen to the read aloud at his website, listed above.

Netflix has a new series highlighting Black authors and children’s stories called Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices. It features “Black celebrities reading children’s books from Black authors”. The show will cover topics about “identity, respect, justice and action.” Some of the read alouds so far are books like I Love My Hair, Sulwe, I am Enough, I am Perfectly Designed, The Day You Begin, and Let’s Talk About Race. You can also access some of these read alouds on the Netflix Jr. Youtube channel!

This week we observe Orange Shirt Day at HHCS. I have purchased some new books for our school library on this specific topic and also about First Nations in general, and many of the teachers including myself will be using them in their lessons this week.

http://www.orangeshirtday.org/

31258103. sx318

Goodreads.com

CBC books

Socialjusticebooks.org

A Stranger At Home - A True Story

Annickpress.com

Orcabook.com

Have a great week HHCS!

Building Belonging- diversity, Uncategorized

Books About Back to School, Dot Day, and Winnie the Pooh

September 21, 2020October 12, 2020 mrsbinthelibrary1

Hello HHCS Community! As you will have seen on Sycamore News Nuggets, Sept. 30 we will be observing Orange Shirt Day. Teachers will be talking with their classes at different age-appropriate levels about Canada’s history of residential schools, and about reconciliation. Students will learn that “Every Child Matters” and will participate in creating a school art mural. Please prepare for your children to wear an orange shirt on that day. If you would like to purchase an official Orange Shirt Day one like above please visit https://www.orangeshirtday.org/

brown moose on brown grass during daytime

Moose fact of the week:

Moose are the largest of all the deer species. Males are immediately recognizable by their huge antlers, which can spread 6 feet from end to end.

HHCS, have you been spotting our various moose and moose tracks around the building? Bruce the Moose is on the loose!

The Winnie the Pooh exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum is scheduled to be open until January 17! Royal Ontario Museum Exhibit -Winnie the Pooh

Have you seen these books about the true story behind the “world”s most famous bear”?

Finding Winnie

Source: Amazon.ca

How has your child’s start to school been? In the primary level grades that I teach we are looking at some books about the beginning of school:

Amazon.ca

We also did activities for International Dot Day when we read The Dot by Peter Reynolds and learned a song about it by Emily Arrow.

International Dot Day

Have a great week HHCS!

“When I say to a parent, “read to a child”, I don’t want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.”
― Mem Fox, Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever

Digital Literacy, Uncategorized

Welcome Back to School HHCS!

September 11, 2020October 12, 2020 mrsbinthelibrary1

welcome

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!

black moose lying on field during daytime

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)

research skills (creating inquiry questions, plagiarism, note-taking, using reliable websites, effective search terms, graphic organizers…)
digital literacy (finding balance in using technology, digital footprint, cyberbullying, credible news)
media literacy ( bias, Purpose and audience of media texts, interpreting messages, media conventions and techniques, produce and reflect on a variety of media texts)

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

Bitmoji Image

Category: Uncategorized

Space Week, and Upcoming Events- Book Fair and Bookmark Contest

Upcoming Book Fair, Common Sense Media, and Books About Thankfulness

Learning Disabilities Month, and Author Spotlight on Eric Walters

Orange Shirt Day, and Netflix Series- Bookmarks

Books About Back to School, Dot Day, and Winnie the Pooh

Welcome Back to School HHCS!