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Media Center
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Media Center News - Summer 2010
Viewing a BrainPOP video about author Cynthia Rylant’s childhood in Appalachia enriched our lower-grade students’ understanding and enjoyment of Rylant’s When I Was Young in the Mountains. After sharing April Pulley Sayre’s Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out!, I wanted the children to see actual footage of loggerhead turtles; a sea turtle segment from The Jeff Corwin Experience Series on Discovery Education offered just that.
 Whenever I turn to BrainPOP or Discovery Education to compliment a Library activity, students express their desire to explore the websites’ corresponding videos, activities, games, etc. I encourage them to log in from home to pick up where we left off, and I remind them of the usernames and passwords. BrainPOP – username: saintmaryschool / password: brainpop. Discovery Education – username and password unique to your child (email me at cotec@stmarysparish.org if you’ve misplaced your child’s password). Although you may reach these sites through the Student and Parent Links on our school website, I recommend placing a shortcut to both BrainPOP and Discovery Education on your desktop to assist your child in visiting these expansive and curriculum-rich educational sites often.
In celebration of National Children’s Book Week, each classroom was treated to a guest reader, who gave witness to the fact that reading is important for people of all ages and professions. Classroom visitors included a high school senior, recent college grad, rock climbing specialist, cable TV manager, high school principal, dental hygienist, retired salesman, religious ed. director, Young Adult librarian, and senior parishioner.
We are grateful to them for sharing their joy of books with our students. Throughout National Poetry Month, students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 decorated our poetry wall with a wide variety of original poems. The interest in verse proved contagious; by April’s end, the shelves that contain our poetry collection were nearly empty.
With summer reading lists soon heading home in backpacks, you may be interested in the Summer Reading Double Dog Dare event at Borders Books in which kids 12 and under who read 10 books get one free. Look for the notice in today’s envelope to get the details.
C/W MARS funding update: thank you to those who urged legislators to protect the regional public library system’s services from severe budget cuts. Our efforts were successful – they decided to maintain level funding for C/W MARS! This resource allowed me to borrow 37 copies of Haddix’s 2010 Massachusetts Children’s Book Award winner, Found, for Grades 5 & 6 Book Club. For each Grades 7 & 8 Book Club member, I was able to secure Partridge’s Marching for Freedom, winner of the 2010 School Library Journal Battle of the Books. Where would we be without libraries?
Enjoy a book today!
Cecile Coté
Media Center News - Spring 2010
 Students in the lower grades are turning their attention to the 2010 Caldecott Award books. Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion & the Mouse is a very beautiful version of the classic Aesop fable. The amazing thing is that Pinkney achieves this moving retelling almost wordlessly, save for a few lion growls and mouse squeaks. In sharing the book, I found that its wordlessness encouraged students to think more deeply and creatively about the power of a simple act of kindness. All the World, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and beautifully illustrated by Marla Frazee, brought us to the seashore. Each student held beautiful seashells while we experienced the pleasure of spending a simple, yet magnificent day in the presence of a diverse and multigenerational family.
I am saving the third Caldecott book, a richly illustrated poem entitled Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Sidman and Zagarenski, to present next month, because April is National Poetry Month. I highly recommend any of these Caldecott books for your home library.
The 2010 Newbery Award books are rapidly making the rounds among our upper grade readers, with Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin and The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick being early leaders in popularity. Meanwhile, students continue to develop the library skills necessary to independently navigate through our age of rapidly expanding information. This calls for an interesting mix of class activities, for while the need is growing for students to know how to find, evaluate, and properly use electronic information, it is also critically important that they understand how to use the trusted resources in the hardcopy print world. Therefore, when we turn our eyes to Poetry next month, Library time will include a virtual visit to the Academy of American Poets via www.poets.org as well as a visit to our bookshelves to peruse our own wonderful poetry collection.
As part of the upper grade Library curriculum, students learn how to access the many resources offered through the C/W MARS library system. I encourage them to take advantage of this treasure and I rely on it myself to secure multiple copies of Book Club titles. In order to provide each Book Club member with a copy of the clubs’ current titles, I use the C/W MARS digital catalog to request books from all around the state. Between our school’s two book clubs, there are 50 members, and it is only through the borrowing power of C/W MARS that I am able to provide each student with a book. I mention all of this because there is a very strong possibility that this wonderful C/W MARS service may END on July 1, 2010. I urge you to join the effort to prevent this from happening by contacting your legislators and asking that $3.5M be restored to line item 7000-9401. Email me at cotec@stmarysparish.net or visit www.cwmars.org for more information.
Thank you to Mrs. Kathy Canfield and her parent volunteers for their hard work in bringing the Scholastic Book Fair to our school. The new books our library is gifted with from the fair make us better equipped to serve our students and teachers. The fair also earns us valuable Scholastic dollars redeemable for a wide variety of books and A/V media.
Wishing you a wonderful spring and a glorious Easter.
Cecile Coté
Media Center News - Winter 2010
In the midst of the usual Library activities of story sharing, book searching, information digging and Internet exploring, a couple of special events occur every January. The annual Caldecott and Newbery Medals are awarded for the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children. It’s always a treat to share the news of the announcement with the students and to join in the celebration by featuring the award-winning books in story times and book talks. Another celebration is called for this month…hooray for Thesaurus Day! This provides a great opportunity to visit the books in our library’s reference section and to review the appropriate uses of each resource.
Other than the monthly literary-themed events we commemorate, things follow a fairly routine wintertime rhythm. As I look ahead to tomorrow, I see that I’ll be sharing Steve Jenkins’ Never Smile At a Monkey and 17 Other Important Things To Remember with 2nd Graders. This wonderful new nonfiction picture book is sure to solicit many gasps, chuckles and wide-eyed looks. I can hardly wait for the reactions. During the Grade 7 library visit, students will be reminded of our resources on Japanese culture and I’ll show them companion novels to Yoko Kawashima Watkins’ So Far From the Bamboo Grove, which they are all reading in Literature class. Kindergarteners will be treated to Little Oink by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, author of crowd pleasers Little Pea and Little Hoot. Witnessing these youngsters eagerly select just the right book to borrow for the coming week is such a joy. Finally, 8th Graders will thumb through a display of books preselected for their Literature class Book Check 3 assignment.
An interesting website we’re visiting in library classes is James Patterson’s www.readkiddoread.com. The site offers age-appropriate reading lists, book reviews, author interviews and book-themed activities. A faithful friend to our school library is the Library of Congress website, www.loc.gov. Its Kids, Families link invites you to “log on, play around, learn something.” Try it at home…there’s so much to learn!
Of course, two very safe and age-appropriate websites to access, both here in the library and at home, are BrainPOP and Discovery Education. We are fortunate to have subscriptions to both. I hope your family takes advantage of them. To access these awesome resources from home:
Thank you to Mrs. Susan Lynch, who so kindly and efficiently coordinates the Gift of Reading program, and to all of the families who support the program by purchasing books for the Library. Each book on the Gift of Reading list is carefully chosen to support our curriculum, to expand our collection of high-quality children’s literature and to serve the interests of our patrons…your wonderful children.
Enjoy this winter wonderland!
Cecile Coté
Media Center News - Fall 2009
Classic children’s picture book character Amelia Bedelia is back, this time as a little girl. Amelia Bedelia’s First Day of School by Herman Parish, nephew of original series author Peggy Parish, proved a truly entertaining way to begin this school year’s story times.
 Grade 4 students are joining the ranks of older library patrons as they learn to navigate their way through Alexandria, our electronic card catalogue and book circulation system. Already, Fourth Graders are able to review and manage their individual electronic records while checking out, renewing and returning items through the system. With each Library visit they gain ease and confidence with their new-found independence. Soon we will focus on developing their search skills with Alexandria’s Researcher software.
This week students in Grades 5 through 8 are learning how to access the Digital Catalogs of the C/W MARS (Central and Western Mass) and the CLAMS (Cape Libraries Automated Materials Sharing) Library Systems. A public library card will give one free access to valuable digital media: Audiobooks, eBooks and Video. Via SMARTBoard projection, I am demonstrating the process of downloading an audio book to an MP3 or iPod. While I stress to student that for me nothing measures up to holding the actual book in my hands, there are many occasions when that is not possible. During those times, an audio book is a terrific alternative. Is this not a fabulous use of those iPods?
 The St. Mary School Book Club is off to an awesome start. Due to the large number of students joining the activity this year, we have formed two Book Clubs: one a Grade 5 and 6 Book Club and the other for Grade 7 and 8 readers. Fifth and Sixth Graders will meet on Nov. 4 to discuss Loser by Jerry Spinelli, while Seventh and Eighth Graders will gather on Nov. 18 to chat about Jip: His Story by Katherine Paterson. Students are already familiar with other books by both of these Newbury Award authors so I’m anticipating very interesting meetings.
Have a wonderful fall,
Cecile Coté
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