Remembrance Day memories!

In November, the grade 2 and 3 classes were reading the story, A Bear in War by Stephanie Innis and Harry Endrulat. It tells the true story of a Canadian family living in Quebec who's father signed up as a medic to help in World War 1 overseas. He leaves behind his daughter, Aileen, son, Howard and wife, May. Aileen has a teddy bear that she loves dearly and decided to send to daddy to help protect him and remind him of home. Unfortunately, Daddy dies in the battle of Passchendale and Teddy is found in his front pocket.
Over 50 years later, Lieutenant Rogers' granddaughter finds a family briefcase in the attic containing Teddy and over 200 letters from Daddy to his family back home. This is the beginning of the story of "A Bear in War".
The following video, shares more of how this amazing picture book about war and remembrance came to be...

Manitoba School Library Day at LM!

Way to go, LM students for your support and love of reading! On Monday, October 25th at 11:00am all students and schools in Manitoba were supporting our first province-wide DROP EVERYTHING AND READ! At 11:00am sharp, all students (no matter where they were in the school) were asked to READ for 20 minutes to show their support of school libraries and their passion for reading.

Here is a video of our students, deep in their books...

Where have I been? It's October already!

Ok...I don't know what to say here...it's almost the middle of October and I have just started blogging again for the 2010 school year. That's pretty sad!

What's my excuse? Well...I'm taking ANOTHER course this fall that has me knee deep in Children's Literature, so I've been reading, READING, READING!!! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT! But it does take time and actually pulls me away from writing and keeping up with my blogs and websites.

Today, I felt some compelling urge to say "Hello" to all our students and promise to make a better effort to keep my library blog more current.

I've been working at putting "Fun Sites of the Month" on the front of the Library webpage instead of inserting them in the blog (they are more visual and accessible).

On the flip side, we have been extra busy in the library again...starting up MYRCA club on Day 3's, training a whole new set of STUDENT LIBRARIANS (They are so awesome, dedicated and learning so much...along with being a super big help for the library! Books are getting on the shelves instead of sitting on carts, YEAH!!!).

We've also created a new section in the library called GRAPHIC NOVELS! These books have become more and more popular over the years and hard to find amongst the other novels. We made an "executive decision" to put them in an easily accessible and separate section for our GN fans. I hope you like it and discover this alternate mode of reading a novel. We have mysteries, science books and classics in comic book, graphic novel format...how cool is that! Come check one out!

October is NATIONAL LIBRARY MONTH! We have our middle years students promoting their favorite books through book trailers, book posters and book talks. Our grade 4 classes are making 2 different videos about the library to promote all the benefits a great school library can provide for its students. I hope to share them on our blog as soon as they are done!

Well...that's it for now! I will check in soon...

Mrs. Eby

(Teacher Librarian)

Celebrating Writers Workshop at LM!

What a fun second last day of school! The library was a buzz this morning with students from Grade 1 to Grade 4 sharing all the writing they've been involved with over the past couple of months. It was exciting to see the students proudly read their published books in multi-grade groups spread out around the library and spilling out into the mini-gym and outdoor stage!
WAY TO GO, Linden Meadows Writers!

It's June! Tell us about library this year!

At the link provided below, you will find an "End of Year" Survey for the Middle years students of Linden Meadows School only! Please click on the link and follow the instructions to fill in this survey. The information you provide will help to make the Linden Meadows Library the best place it can be for you to learn, explore and grow while you are at school.
Thank you so much for taking the time to fill out our survey!
Mrs. Eby
(Please do not fill out this survey more than once.)

Linden Meadows Library "End of Year" Survey

Empty Bowls - Winnipeg Harvest 2010

Ms. Wyant's grade 5 class had fun creating Animoto "commercials" about hunger issues facing children and the world in preparation for their Empty Bowls fundraiser on Tuesday, May 18th.
These commercials were designed and shared with several classes in the school,to encourage donations and to share the research they had done about poverty and hunger around the world as well as right here at home!

It's been awhile...

Hello everyone,
I know it has been awhile but I haven't forgotten about, I've just been very busy! MYRCA club has just had it's wind-up today and they've created a video of the MYRCA books from 2010 to share with you!



The library is a buzz with National Poetry month activities. We are currently growing a POET-TREE on the wall of the library and trying to fill it with poems written by our Linden Meadows students. It's a nice tie in with Earth Day!

The grade 5's are reading "LOVE THAT DOG" by Sharon Creech and writing poems that mimic the style of the poems presented in the book.

The grade 6 students are preparing themselves for presenting at our first annual POETRY SLAM!

What can I say...it's been a busy month!
Stay tuned for more...

A virtual tour of our Library...Be Proud LM!

GOTTA KEEP READING - music video!!!

I found this great video of the Black Eyed Peas Song adapted for "Gotta Keep Reading"!
Perfect for the library...check it out!

Our Olympic Month of Reading Closing Ceremonies!

What a fun month of activities! The Olympics this year have played a key role in our reading events and ideas this year. Here is our final video of the "Olympic Mascot Book Reading Relay" that took place from Feb.1st to Feb.25th (along with some other highlights!):

I love to read month "Opening Ceremonies" video!

Olympic Fever and I love to read month!!!!

I am so excited about February!! I was explaining to friends that "I love to read" month for a teacher-librarian is like Tax season for a financial advisor. It's busy, busy, busy but we love it at the same time. It's my favorite part of being a TL, promoting a genuine love of reading that lasts a lifetime for my students. To top it off, Canada is hosting the Winter Olympics this month and my family members are HUGE Winter Olympic fans!

There are a lot of exciting activities going on this month surrounding the Olympics and Reading (as you've probably already heard!).

Here's just a quick recap:

• Opening Ceremonies for our Kick-off to "Getting into the Olympic Spirit of Reading at Linden Meadows School" on Monday, Feb.1st!



• Fill the Torch Reading Challenge...everytime a student reads a "Just Right"book at their reading level, they can fill in a mini-flame to help fill our big flame in the hallway! Check out this picture...we've got a lot of reading to do!

• Olympic Book Relay - Starting at Kindergarten on Feb.1st, the picture book, "The Story of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascots" will be passed around the school and read in the individual classroooms until it reaches the Grade 8 classes before Feb.25th!





• PAINT THE TOWN RED AND READ Fridays! - Wear red to support our Canadian Athletes and Drop Everything And Read (D.E.A.R.) on Fridays in February!
  
• Closing Ceremonies on Feb.25th at 2:45 - Our Schoolwide Read-in event with a live appearance from an actual Torch Bearer with her torch!!!
  

How will we ever top a month of celebrating reading like that?

Here are some fun Olympic links to watch and play this month:

Olympic Games and Activities with the Mascots

Keep track of the medal standings!

Google Earth images of the Olympic sites in 3D!

Become an Olympic sportscaster "You make the call"!

Path of the Athlete - Olympic game

HAVE FUN...GO CANADA!!!!

Mrs. Eby

Diary of a Wimpy Kid...it's going to be a movie!

Hello everyone...here's the latest news...Diary of a Wimpy Kid has been made into a movie and it should be released this Spring!
Here's the trailer...ENJOY!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So much for trying to post more often...December turned out to be a busier month than I expected!

But it's onto a new decade...HELLO 2010 (that's "twenty ten" by the way!)!!! A new year with new hopes and new goals for the next 365 days or the next 10 years...however you see it. The Linden Meadows Library is off to a "kicking" start with January being NATIONAL HOBBY MONTH and we are promoting our non-fiction section with books filled with interesting hobbies and activities to take up in the new year. We've got everything from magic tricks to cooking books to origami folding!

Along with our promotion of Non-fiction literature, the early years grades are involved in an author study this month of JAN BRETT. Her most famous book, The Mitten, celebrated it's 20th anniversary in 2009. She has written well over 20 books with amazing illustrations and fun, animal loving themes which convey wonderful messages of friendship, family and life. She has an amazing website full of resources if you are interested checking out here http://www.janbrett.com/.

The middle years students are learning about strategies to help them find a book more efficiently in the library (besides just cruising through the shelves!). We've also been having fun with a neat new Web 2.0 tool called Wallwisher! It's an easy fun tool that has the students creating their very own webpage in seconds and allows them to leave sticky notes about anything they want. You can check it out here at http://www.wallwisher.com/.

Before you know it, February will be here with tons of excitement surrounding I LOVE TO READ month and of course the 2010 Winter Olympics!

Stay tuned for more details coming soon ...

In the meantime, here are some fun links to try:

Find me a hobby - a website filled with ideas for a new hobby this year

Monoface - play with the features on this face to create unusual expressions

Take a personality test and find out what character of Star Wars, The Simpsons, Friends, Twilight that you are most like!

Have fun...until next time!

Happy Reading!

Mrs. Eby