In Honor of Earth Day-This Week in the Library

It's Earth Day today! In honor of this great day, and wonderful earth, here's what we are reading this week...

 

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I LOVE Peter Brown's books! We have several copies of his books here in our library, he's a favorite around here! Children Make Terrible Pets was a Beehive Nominated book this last year!

 

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This is one of my favorite illustrations from The Curious Garden, I wonder why...

I'm all ready to plant MY garden... how about you??

Also, at the end of the story, there is an author's note that mentions The High Line in New York City... (which I believe was the inspiration for this story) 

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Isn't it beautiful!! I'm traveling to New York City in June, and this is DEFINITELY on my list of things to see. I can't wait!!

It's National Library Week!

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We are celebrating National Library Week this week, with a fun activity! You can even do this at home! We are playing musical chairs (with a twist...) we've set out enough chairs for everyone (we don't want ANYONE left out) and on each chair is a book. We've selected books that one might not normally take off the shelves and look at/check out. They are from all sections in our library, some picture books, some non-fiction books, and a few fiction books. 

When the music starts, the students walk around the chairs, and when the music stops, they sit in the nearest chair and have several minutes to look at and read the book on that chair. We move several times (as our library time allows) and then discuss the different books we've had the opportunity to look at. It's been SO much fun to hear from the students who were surprised that they actually enjoyed looking at books they wouldn't have normally looked at. Several even wanted to check them out! =) 

It's been a great way to expose students to some new and exciting reading material.

Happy National Library Week!

 

Scholastic Read for the World Record!

 We will be participating again this summer in Scholastic's "Read for the World Record" challenge! Do you remember how fantastic we were last summer? We were FIRST in the state of Utah, and 14th in the WORLD!! Pretty impressive! We plan on doing at least that this summer...

 

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Pre-registration begins today, and the challenge begins May 6th! 

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last years record:

 and Riverview read 884,329 of those minutes! Our goal this year is to read OVER 1 MILLION MINUTES as a school! I know we can do it!!
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From the Scholastic website...

Critical Facts About Summer Reading

* Learning or reading skill losses during the summer months are cumulative. By the time a struggling reader reaches middle school, summer reading loss has accumulated to a two-year lag in reading achievement. 

*  It is estimated that the “Summer Slide” accounts for as much as 85% of the reading achievement gap between lower income students and their middle-and upper-income peers. 

* 3rd graders who can’t read on grade level are four times less likely to graduate by age 18 than a proficient reader. 

* Studies show that making sure there are always interesting books at home can increase the likelihood of a child being a frequent reader.

Happy Spring Break!!

We've got a WHOLE WEEK off school!  What shall we do...? You better be READING! =)