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