I have had the opportunity to attend Peggy Sharp conferences several times since I have been a media specialist. If you have not heard of Peggy Sharp, here is the first paragraph from her introduction on her website

"Dr. Peggy Sharp is well known for her presentations about new children's books, connecting the books to all areas of the curriculum, and motivating children to read. She is an experienced teacher and library media specialist and has received national awards for her creative teaching ideas."

Go to the "Peggy Sharp" link under online resources to discover things such as reading/book ideas for each month, Peggy's picks (her favorite books) and much more. 

Last week we talked about choices. We reviewed the "Children's Reading Rights" created by Peggy Sharp. This gave us a few things to think about when making choices of what we will read. Students also helped to choose what the knight we are creating for the kiva will look. The younger grades listened to a story where the author made a different choice when writing his book, telling the story from the end to the beginning. It was fun to guess what may have caused events to happen in this story titled "The End" by David LaRochelle.

The winner is... a KNIGHT!

We had a poll last week on our blog to decide what our next project for "castle kiva" should be. The winner is a KNIGHT. This week each class will help in planning a design for our knight. Please save your empty milk jugs or other plastic containers that we can use to fashion the suit of armor for our knight and bring them to the media center for our project.

New Books Being Made into Movies

Did you know that 2 of my favorite picture books are being made into movies?

• "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak &
  
• "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" by Judi Barrett
  

If you haven't read these books yet, do it! 

Especially if you plan to see the movie version of the book. 

Please, Please Please... Read the book first!

Want to watch the movie trailers? 

Go to their links under online resources.

Read, Read, Read to Win A Bike!

Last year Orchard Elementary read over 2 million minutes and sent Principal Bezzant to the roof for meeting our goal. 4 lucky students also won bikes when their names were drawn from the "road to success" coupon boxes. We will be doing road to success again this year and have increased our goal to 2.5 million minutes. I know we can meet this goal and another 4 students will win a bike at the end of this school year. We haven't decided what the reward will be for meeting our goal this year, but give us your ideas and get reading!!

Discover the  “Magic” of books this year as we meet in the “Castle Kiva” and discuss the adventures awaiting us on our library shelves. Remember to start the year off right by practicing the 3 R’s of the library from the start... 

• READ
  
• RESPECT &
• RESPONSIBILITY!

Also be prepared each week to give 5 minutes of your time to our library to help it stay in order and be the best it can be. I am excited to be back at Orchard this year and can’t wait to discover new things and travel to new places with you through the "magic" of books.

What Did You Do This Summer?

In the book "Lawn Boy" by Gary Paulsen a 12 year old boy uses an old lawn mower, given to him by his grandma, to start his own business and have a summer adventure he will never forget. A few of the colorful characters included in the story are a hippie e-trader that helps the boy invest his earnings, a prize fighter "Joey Pow" that comes to the rescue of the boy & his friends, and a thug that tries to take over the successful business. This story will appeal to anyone that enjoys a funny, lighthearted read. It almost made me want to start my own lawn mowing business...what do you think?