LOL@Linden Meadows Library

International Dot Day is September 15th!

2011-09-13T21:59:00.002-05:00

In celebrating "International Dot Day", the early years students have been listening to the story, "The Dot" by Peter H. Reynolds during library class. The book tells the story of a young girl, Vashti and how she doesn't think she can draw. Her teacher encourages her to leave her mark, so she makes a dot on a piece of paper. Her teacher asks her to sign it and proceeds to hang it in a frame in the classroom. Vashti realizes she can do better than a small dot and proceeds to let her creativity and imagination shine by producing an art gallery's worth of "dot" paintings.
Our gr.1-3 students have been leaving their own mark by designing their own dots for display! Just a small reminder that even small mark can take you on a journey of creativity!
Celebrate International Dot Day on Wednesday by leaving your "dot' somewhere or with someone.

Another school year begins!

2011-09-09T11:15:00.000-05:00

Once again, I have left this poor blog to flounder! I really want to make this a regular feature for students, staff and parents to find out about our themes and activities in the library. So here goes my third year in the library and I'm ready to make yet another valiant effort to keep this blog alive!

We are starting September looking at THE BOOK OF AWESOME, written by Neil Patrischa! I had a lot of fun this summer reading this book and putting sticky tabs on all my favorite "awesome" moments. Our students are now helping to create an AWESOME wall at the entrance of our school to celebrate all the awesome things about Linden Meadows. As always, the students surprise me with their creativity, thoughtfulness and "outside the box" ideas!

Our Bulletin Board inside the library showcases our new library theme "Back to Basic Training BOOK CAMP"! We will have some fun reviewing library skills and research stuff with a few drills (hahaha!).

Celebrating "I love to read" month!

2011-03-20T18:34:00.002-05:00

Check out the highlights from February's Reading Rocks month:

READING ROCKS!!

2011-02-17T10:10:00.003-06:00

February is a great month in the library and at our school as we celebrate "I love to read" month!! Our theme this year is READING ROCKS. With the help of a great committee and Mrs. Dueck's support this year, we have been having a blast looking at how we read music and how music is expressed through great literature. We had a "rocking" assembly on Feb.1st with our school's own rendition of "Gotta Keep Reading" inspired by the students at Occee Middle School who performed it on Youtube last year.

We had a full day of "Rocking and Reading" as we had a reading marathon through the grades as the students took turns reading for 15 minute intervals in the rocking chairs located just outside the library doors. We had those chairs moving from 9:00 until 3:30 with readers of all ages (even STAFF!!!).

On Friday, Feb. 11th, we continued with our Rock music theme and had our DROP EVERYTHING AND READ day with all the students and staff dressed as ROCK STARS!. We had everyone getting into the spirit from Hannah Montana look alikes, John Lennon, Justin Beiber and Avril Lavigne (OK, I tried!!!).

The following week was classical music themed as we played 10 minutes of classical compositions while the whole school silent read at the beginning of the day. What a peaceful way to start learning!

On top of all this fun, we've had students from our Leadership team preparing a snappy version of "Don't forget the Lyrics" every Thursday morning.

Thank you LM students for making "I love to read" month a rocking way to celebrate my favorite thing to do...READ!!!!

Stay Tuned for our wind up "Animoto" video with all the highlights from the past month!

Happy Reading :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2011-01-20T21:40:00.004-06:00

Ok...this is embarassing! I've let it happen again. A whole month has flown by and I haven't posted my blog. I'm going to lose my audience if I don't keep my followers reading on our latest happenings in the library.

We had a busy December learning about all the amazing resources, databases, subject directories and websites available for research beyond Google...Remember "DON'T GET CAUGHT IN THE WEB!"

We've started off January as most people do with making resolutions...but at our LM LIBRARY we have all made READING RESOLUTIONS for 2011!!

We have students resolving to complete certain series, try new genres, read a novel a week, read an extra 20 minutes a day and the goals go on and on. Come by and see the bulletin board filled with all our students reading resolutions. We are truly building a community of readers at LM!

To help keep track of our Reading Resolutions, our middle years students have set up their first online Reading Log called SHELFARI. It as "book" networking site for the students to keep track of what they've read, what they plan to read and find out about what other people are reading too!

We have started 2011 off on the right track, with some great BOOKS!!!!

Stay tuned for my favorite month of the year... I LOVE TO READ month!

This year our theme is taking a musical twist as we work with Ms. Dueck... READING ROCKS!

Remembrance Day memories!

2010-11-22T13:52:00.004-06:00

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!

2010-10-26T15:08:00.002-05:00

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!

2010-10-16T18:09:00.005-05:00

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!

2010-06-29T13:46:00.002-05:00

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!

2010-06-14T15:35:00.003-05:00

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

2010-05-13T15:16:00.004-05:00

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...

2010-04-22T15:31:00.002-05:00

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!

2010-03-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

GOTTA KEEP READING - music video!!!

2010-03-08T13:52:00.004-06:00

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!

2010-02-25T18:20:00.002-06:00

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!

2010-02-02T21:15:00.001-06:00

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

2010-01-30T14:38:00.007-06:00

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!

2010-01-24T19:31:00.002-06:00

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!

2010-01-09T16:48:00.004-06:00

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

I love books!

2009-12-06T16:15:00.002-06:00

Check out this cool Shape Collage I created using http://www.shapecollage.com/online/!
Try it out...it's fun!

Seasons Readings in the library!!

2009-12-06T15:17:00.006-06:00

YIKES!!! I did it again and forgot to update my blog! We've been having so much fun in the library re-organizing and learning new library and information literacy skills this month that my blog slipped my mind once again.

So what can I share that is new and exciting?

We have a lot of new books getting catalogued each day so stay tuned to the NEW RELEASE section of our library shelving to catch the newest books hitting the shelves.

Christmas is coming and with that comes some of our Christmas classics at storytime...as well as some new ones!

As promised, here are some fun links I've discovered this past week:

Win a visit from Robert Munsch contest

Xtranormal - a neat site that puts images with text to create video!

Mugurdy - a visual search engine (you can see the front page of the website before you visit it...kind of cool!)

Sumo Paint - kind of like KidsPics but more exciting!

Big Huge Thesaurus - need a rhyme,antonym or synonym...here's the site!

Let's hope that keeps you busy for awhile...I'll try to hunt down some fun interactive Christmas sites soon! Stay tuned!
Mrs. Eby

More than just storytime...

2009-11-09T20:37:00.004-06:00

Ok, Ok...I need to apologize for being so neglectful of my new library blog!! I am going to try much harder to keep this more current and I think I want to make it more of a learning space rather than just a "newsletter" of library events.

In order to get students checking this blog, I need to make it more active and worthwhile for everybody. So I'm going to try and share some fun websites and interesting learning opportunities as I explore and learn of new educational digital experiences!!

Just to recap though, we had a lot of fun over Halloween sharing the story of "Scaredy Squirrel at Night" sitting in the dark and playing with our new Scaredy Squirrel puppet as well as exploring the amazing resource for research topics using "World Book Online" with our older students.

To honour Remembrance Day this month, the students have experienced various picture books during their library classes to better understand this important day (A Time for Toys, Proud as a Peacock Brave as a Lion, The Poppy is to Remember...).

November is also CANADIAN CHILDREN'S BOOK WEEK!! For the rest of the month, the students of LM will be introduced to various Canadian authors of picture books and chapters books and encouraging them to "check them out". For every book written by a Canadian author that a student reads, they will be able to fill in a maple leaf to add to our library bulletin board! GO CANADA!

Mrs. Eby's fun links...

The Twilight Saga official website..."New Moon" premiers on Friday, November 20th!!

Be funky...turn your photos into works of art at this free fun site!

Fresh Brain... a technology learning site for teens!!

Edheads...lots of virtual fun science games to explore.

Until next time! Happy reading and digitally learning!

Mrs. Eby

It's an Extreme Library Makeover...come and "check us out"!

2009-10-22T21:21:00.006-05:00

It's been a busy place in the library over the past couple of weeks! We've truly undergone an EXTREME MAKEOVER in the library this year. Just before the Book Fair began, our new shelves finally arrived. With the help of the division`s library consultants, we were able to get all the books properly shelved and in circulation almost instantly! Our Fiction section has also been revamped to make it easier for the students to find their favorite books at their reading level.

Of course the big news in the library this month are the brand new colorful mitt chairs...a popular spot for reading or hanging out in the library working on our latest puzzle!!

A big THANK YOU to all our parents and students for your support of the Book Fair this past week. We sold over $5000.00 worth of Scholastic books and products to earn us a profit of nearly $3000 in books and cash toward our own school library!!! Way to go, LM community!

With the Book Fair packed up, it was back to business as usual in the library. We continue to celebrate LIBRARY MONTH at LM with our Name the Library Kitty contest and learning about how to choose a PURR-fect book with the early years students. Our Middle Years students have been introduced to our library website http://www.protopage.com/lmlibrary and discovering the wealth of resources and research tools right at their fingertips.

Next week, we will have some fun with Halloween websites and stories as well as taking a closer look at the book "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak that has been turned into a movie!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Mrs. Eby

Giving thanks for libraries!!!

2009-10-04T21:02:00.003-05:00

September has been a whirlwind month of firsts and new beginnings as we begin to establish routines and schedules in the library! The students had a lot of fun learning about the works of Roald Dahl and now we are into October and celebrating National Library month.

To begin the celebrations and make our library even more cozy, we have adopted a new friend to our library...a fuzzy orange stuffed kitty. He has found a comfy spot on our library futon but is desperate need of a NAME!! The early years students will be listening to several stories about cats, in particular the tale of Dewey, the library cat...to help inspire them as they enter various ideas for names in our contest to "Name the library kitty".

With our first round of Tri-conferences coming up after Thanksgiving comes our annual Scholastic Book Fair! It's a huge event in our school library and an amazing fundraiser as we receive 60% of the total sales in money to spend on new books and resources for the library.
Watch for the flyers coming this week...
Book Fair begins Tuesday, October 13th and runs until Friday morning, October 16th! Volunteers to help with running the cash desk are welcome. Please e-mail Mrs. Eby if you are interested in helping out.

Along with all the fun in the library, we are also working as a school to create our social contract for how we want the LM library to "look, sound and feel". It's been refreshing to see the enthusiasm and creative ideas the various classes have contributed to our contract. The tricky part will be to sum up our ideas into a school library motto that expresses our combined thoughts and sets the stage for a fabulous year.

HAPPY LIBRARY MONTH!

Scrumdidlyumptious September with Roald Dahl!

2009-09-22T22:44:00.006-05:00

We've been having a lot of fun this month learning about the wonderful books of Roald Dahl! September 13th is Roald Dahl's birthday and widely celebrated around the children's literary world. Here at Linden Meadows the students have been learning about this famous British author and the connection he makes with children through his humour and fantastical imagination. From "Oompa Loompas" and talking animals to magic fingers, Roald Dahl has captured a wide audience of readers. His books have derived a lot of their popularity from the many movies they have been turned into...

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Matilda

The Witches
James and the Giant Peach

and now...coming to theaters in November...FANTASTIC MR. FOX!!! Right now, the grade 3 and 4 classes are having the novel read aloud to them during library class. Click HERE to see a preview/trailer of the new movie!
The grade 2 class is "taking a big bite" out of Roald Dahl's book, The Enormous Crocodile! Watch out for this guy...he likes to eat children!

Check out a Roald Dahl book from our library this month and find out what all the fuss is about!

A new beginning in the LM library!

2009-09-14T13:54:00.001-05:00

Welcome to a new year at LM!! I am so excited to be a teacher-librarian and start off this new adventure in my career at this school. We've been very busy getting the library ready for the students. In some ways, I like to call it our "EXTREME LIBRARY MAKEOVER". I plan to post pictures as soon as our last few pieces of funky furniture arrive...(if I can wait that long!).
We are hoping to make a library more of a learning commons rather than just the place to find books and talk quietly! In fact my slogan for our library is LOL @LindenMeadowsLibrary, where the LOL means Learn(and even Laugh) out loud!
Our new comfy reading space is also home to a fun puzzle that we'd love for you to visit and help put together! We want to make our library both welcoming and fun for all.
We will be starting our regular schedule of LIBRARY CLASSES on Wednesday of this week (Sept.16th) and students should be able to begin taking out library books as well as spending time with me. As you enter the library for class, the K-4 students will move to the cozy meeting space I've created at the back of the library, while the 5-8 students can have a seat at the tables in the library (4 students per table PLEASE!).

We had a wonderful assembly on Friday to welcome all the students back to LM! Unfortunately we had some technical difficulties for the grade 5-8 assembly and they were unable to view the movie of our Flag Raising ceremony. I have embedded the video into this blog so you can view it at your pleasure.

See you in the library!
Mrs. Eby