I Hit the Ground Running!

This has been a crazy start to school.  I'm still not feeling organized yet!  But I'm getting closer to being settled into this year.  This week is the first full week and I'm really dragging going into Friday.  I'm so glad that due to Labor Day I have Monday off.  I need this weekend to finish organizing myself and clean my house.  

I'll post this weekend about my QR Scavenger Hunt which went over so well!  I enjoyed myself and so did the kids.  I also hope to get some reading in the weekend as well.

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

The Kids Come Tomorrow!!

I am excited that the kids come tomorrow.  It was great to see all of them today.  Some of them have gotten so tall over summer!  Still trying to finalize my plans for my little kids.  For my big kids, I've got a really great activity planned.  On the blog Sharing the Shelves I found a great activity using QR codes.  I created 15 questions and made QR codes for the students to scan to find the answers.  Click here for the link to post.  It gives a great explanation about the activity.  I thought this was a new and fun way to introduce the library and the procedures.  I hopefully be able to post some pictures and let you know how it goes.

Also I'm going to be a guest blogger this week.  I'll be posting a link to the blog.  It will be about my top ten favorite books that I read during the Summer Thowdown.

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme was started by Sheila at Book Journey and the kids' version borrowed from the wonderful ladies at Teach Mentor Texts. 

I so wanted to write a post mid week, but with the funeral of my family friend and starting back to work it just didn't happen.

I did manage to do quite a bit of reading this week.  I think part of it was an escape from reality.

When I posted last week I was only on page 78 of Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani.  Well I finished it early in the week and I loved it! It was really great how the two characters found similarities even though they were so different. I really enjoyed the letter format of the book.  I think that in this electronic age letter writing is becoming a lost art.  I remember the joy I felt growing up when I went to the mailbox and found a piece of mail addressed to me.  This past year, I had my fifth grade students write letters to different authors.  It was great that some got a response.  Even if I was emailing the author, I made sure they wrote a complete letter to attach.  

Another book that I found on the library shelf was Threads and Flames by Esther Friesner.  This book was about a 13 year old girl, Raisa, who leaves her Polish shtetl to come to America.  There are many hardships that she encounters being new to America.  Raisa goes to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and is there during the tragic fire.  I drawn to this book because I've always been interested in that time period and the tragedy.  Sometimes this book dragged on with little events that didn't seem very important.  While the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory seemed to be over before it even began.  I did enjoy the book, but was a little disappointed in the perfect happy ending.  Many places said that this book was for 5th grade and above.  I would not recommend this to anything less than 7th grade and above.  

The other book that I just finished reading is The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen.  Once again, I heard about this book from the wonderful people on Twitter.  I started this book and I really wasn't sure I was going to like for about the first few chapters.  But then the story took a hold of me and I could not put this book down.  I knew I had to finish the book in one day because I had to know what happened next.  I was excited to realize that this was book one of a trilogy.  But then I realized there would be a wait for the next book, since this was published this year. :( 

Not sure how much new reading I'll get done this week, since the kids start back on Wednesday.  But I'll be sure to post about what I'm doing with them.

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme was started by Sheila at Book Journey and the kids' version borrowed from the wonderful ladies at Teach Mentor Texts. 

I had great intentions of posting midweek last week, but life got in the way.  I had a very close family friend pass away.  So that kind of took over my life and I didn't do a lot of reading.

Though I did get some reading done this week. I was so excited to get my copies of The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee by Tom Angleberger!  He has got another winner on his hands.  I LOVED this book!!  Once again we meet up with the gang from McQuarrie Middle School, except Dwight and Origami Yoda are not there.  Everyone wonders what to do without them.  After a while Fortune Wookiee makes an appearance and begins to give advice.  If you want to find out more, you have to read the book.  I think this is my favorite out of the three.  If you have not read this series, run don't walk to the library or bookstore and check it!

I also read the newest Junie B. book, Turkeys We Have Loved and Eaten (and Other Thankful Stuff) by Barbara Park.  I have to admit that this is the first Junie B. book I have ever read!  I can see why it appeals to kids, but it was not a favorite of mine.  I'm not going to run out and read more.

Giants Beware! by Rafael Rosado was a book that I had on hold for quite a while.  It finally came in this week.  I was thrilled with this book and it was worth the wait.  I really liked how main character was a female.  This book is going on order for this coming year!

When I went to the library I also saw sitting on the shelf Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani.  I have been waiting to read this book ever since I read Jen Vincent's and Colby Sharp's blog posts about the book.  Click here to go to Part One of their blog posts.  I am only on page 78 and I am loving this book!!  I don't want to put it down!

Happy Reading!!

Stacey (@libraryjo92)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme was started by Sheila at Book Journey and the kids' version borrowed from the wonderful ladies at Teach Mentor Texts. 


This is going to be a short post because even though I read a lot not many book really excited me.  I guess I've had half of my brain focusing on school stuff.


The one book that did stand out for me was Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney.  This book was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in.  This would be a great book to have in any classroom library.  I'm adding a copy to my order this year for my library.  I truly loved the illustrations by Brian Pinkney.


I guess this is a post of what I'm looking forward to reading this week.  The one book I cannot wait to get my hands on The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee by Tom Angleberger!  I am a HUGE fan on Tom Angleberger's books.  I love the Origami Yoga books and have high hopes for Fortune Wookiee!  I was lucky enough to get a digital doodle from him for my Fortune Wookiee books!  Now I just need the book!!


On a side note, I'm thinking about doing some book clubs this school year.  I've never done one at all.  I would love some suggestions on how to start it, and how to run it.  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Thanks in advance!!


Happy Reading!!


Stacey (@libraryjo92)

My "Other Blog"

I've been having so much fun with this blog, I decided to start one for my school Library Media Center.  I'm having a lot of fun with that one too.  Granted it is a lot more work having to post on two different blogs, but I think that it is a great way for me to share book ideas, websites, and news with my students and their parents.  One thing that I decided to do to keep my students reading this summer was to create the "Take a BOOK on Vacation" program.  The point of the program is to get pictures of them reading over the summer.      


At the end of the school year I showed the students the blog and my examples of me reading at Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania.  I passed out the form that I created and waited.  Since this was the first summer I was trying this, my goal was to get one student picture back.  So far I've gotten four students pictures back!  One student even sent back five different pictures!!  I even got pictures from my school nurse.  (I sent the form to the staff as well.)  When I go back to school I will have the pictures printed out and they will be part of my first bulletin board.


Here is a link to my other blog.  Feel free to look, but if you wish to comment please do so on this blog.


Happy Reading!!


Stacey (@libraryjo92)