January 15th, 2009 · Comments Off on My new favorite website… TumbleBooks! · Educational Web Sites
It is virtual story time! One of my fellow librarians introduced me to TumbleBooks a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty fun, and a good way to check out new books. (This one is for our younger students. As my 9-year-old put it, “I’m not really into these books.” So jaded. She needs to go read, don’t you think, and forget about the video games for awhile?)
Click on “story books” and go explore. I’m especially fond of “Red is Best,” “How I Became a Pirate” and “All Aboard the Dinotrain.” I haven’t spent any time yet looking at puzzles and games, but my guess is that they’re pretty fun, too.
Keep reading.
Ms. Nancy
January 11th, 2009 · Comments Off on New books on the way… · Titles to Look For, Weekly theme
…and how did it get to be almost the middle of January already?
This week in library we will be learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Before I forget, the librarians are planning a big Community Forum from 6:30-8:30 p.m. this Wednesday, January 14th, 2009, in the library at Grant High School. I will be there and would love to have you join me!
Please attend if you can as we discuss the future of PPS libraries and talk over all of our ideas and thoughts.
PS — Have you started on your contest entry yet?
Now, for the next order of business: More Books.
I just placed a big order for new books, through federal grant money received by our school and a number of other K-8 Portland Public Schools. Yay for new books! The money was specifically for books for our 6th, 7th and 8th grade students, but I picked out many titles that we are all sure to enjoy. (And our younger students who are reading at higher grade levels will benefit, too. I also picked out some easier titles that our older students may enjoy reading with younger brothers and sisters.)
History, science, biographies, fiction and more fiction, multicultural books, books in Spanish and lots more will be arriving in the next month or two. A team of us from the school district, our school, and Multnomah County Library all helped with the titles. The students had a special category of their own — just their favorites. (I have been making a list since September — so many good titles to choose from. But guys? No “Goosebumps,” I am sorry to say.)
Here are a few of the authors and topics we selected, in no particular order:
Kathryn Lasky
Lloyd Alexander
Art books, animal books, more Harry Potter, Twilight…
Ancient Civilizations
Modern history… The list goes on and on.
Have a great week. Keep reading. This week I am reading Harry Potter 5 and a funny book called “Everything on a Waffle.”
Ms. Nancy
This week’s library theme will be…
New & New to You.
Welcome back to school (soon). As I write this, it is Sunday night and little snow flurries are coming down, so I shouldn’t say “welcome back” just yet, eh?
This has been a crazy holiday break, no? Hope you had a chance to play (and play and play) in the snow and that you, your families and friends had a lot of fun. We had a good break at my house, but now I am ready to get back to school. How about you?
For this week’s theme, I will have a number of new items (books, magazines and videotapes) available for check-out. Please stop by!
Even though students are not due back until Tuesday, January 6th, 2009, I am preparing for some winter fun for us. I would like to announce our next Peninsula K-8 writing contest, which will start as soon as we are all back to school. (If you’re reading this, you’ll get a head start.)
OREGON & YOU is the title of the contest. Oregon turns 150 on Feb. 14th (Valentine’s Day) and there are lots of fun things going on in our state to commemorate the occasion.
This contest will be open to all Peninsula students. We will have three winners total: one in Grades Kindergarten-2, one in Grades 3-5, and one in Grades 6-8. The deadline is Monday, Feb. 9th; winners will be announced Friday, Feb. 13th. Each winner will receive a $10 gift card from Barnes & Noble bookstore.
What are the rules? Write your own story (or compose a song, draw or paint a picture, or interview someone) about Oregon. It can be as short as one page, or longer if you would like. You might want to write about a place you enjoy visiting in Oregon. The beach? Mountains? Desert? Or somewhere in our neighborhood?
Our younger students may want to draw a picture, or write a short story about Oregon.
Our upper grade students might want to interview a family member or neighbor and ask them about how they (and their family) came to reside in Oregon. I know how creative you all are — use your imaginations. You can also try to write something in the style we used for the George Washington contest. Pretend you are a famous (or not-so-famous) Oregonian. Tell us a story, speaking in that person’s voice.
My story would probably have something to do with my mother and father’s families. My mom’s father (my grandfather) visited Oregon during World War II and fell in love with the big trees. He was from Arkansas, and had wanted to come here to fish, hunt and camp. He loaded up my grandmother, my mom and her four brothers and sisters, and the family dog, Prissy, into the family station wagon and drove and drove until he got here. That was in 1957. He owned a ranch in Redmond (central Oregon) for a long time and was happiest building houses and working his land.
My dad’s family moved here in 1945, toward the end of World War II, so my grandpa on that side of the family could work in the shipyards on Swan Island. They lived in North and Northeast Portland. After that, he worked in a paint store. He loved working with the public. My dad’s family moved here from North Dakota, and my grandma was wild about the beautiful flowers, trees and shrubs in the Pacific Northwest. She preferred gardening in Oregon to gardening in North Dakota! I still love gardening, too, and I love North and Northeast Portland, like my family did.
Here is some Oregon trivia for you…
Capital: Salem
Population: 142,914
Statehood: February 14, 1859 – 33rd state admitted
Nickname: Beaver State
Motto: Alis Volat Propiis (She Flies With Her Own Wings)
State Bird: Western Meadowlark
Flower: Oregon Grape
Tree: Douglas Fir
State Song: Oregon, My Oregon
Where can you find out more about Oregon?
Here are some websites, in case you are looking for information about Oregon and her birthday:
* The Oregon Blue Book has a Kids’ Corner you might enjoy.
* The Oregonian newspaper is having a count-down, county-by-county, and taking a trip to some “uncommonly cool places” around the state.
* The Oregon 150 Newsletter is chock-full of information. (You will find Oregon stories here.)
* Travel Oregon is a fun way for find out lots about our state.
I will post more websites here as I find them — so keep checking back. If you have any questions, leave me a message in the comments section (you can leave comments anonymously, if you are shy). Or just come find me in the library.
Have a great week.
Ms. Nancy
December 9th, 2008 · Comments Off on New Books! · Titles to Look For
Hello everyone,
There is nothing that this library person loves more than receiving a big box of books, and this week we were fortunate enough to receive two. Yippee! These books (mostly fiction, plus a few art books) are geared for students fourth grade and older. Since we have added upper grades to our school (including eighth grade this year), we have not had enough materials for the older students. We received a grant specifically to purchase titles for the “big kids” and that’s what we did.
I will check the books off on the invoice, put pockets and cards in them, stamp them PENINSULA and get them out on the shelves.
However, some of the seventh-graders and I could not resist the temptation. We opened the boxes and started picking out our soon-to-be favorites. They include:
American Born Chinese, by Gene Yuen Lang (that link will send you to an NPR slideshow — cool!)
The Charlie Bone series, by Jenny Nimmo
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders turned 40 last year and remains a popular classic with the students)
Quaking, by Kathryn Erskine
More Spiderwick!
Plus, we have added titles by Sharon Draper, Gordon Korman, Walter Dean Myers and many others.
Best,
Mrs. Rawley
Hi y’all,
Hope you are having a good weekend! I’m enjoying the sunshine. This weekend I’m reading…
Many of you have noticed that we are a library without computer check-out and inventory.
This will no longer be the case by next school year, if everything goes as planned.
A team will be making its way to Peninsula to help us make the transition, but we need your help, too. I need detail-oriented volunteers who can work on scanning books into the computer system. I am flexible on the times, but am in the library Monday afternoons and Tuesday-Friday mornings. District librarians will train all volunteers early next year. It is not too difficult to do, once you learn the system. Please call the school and ask for me, or e-mail nrawley@pps.k12.or.us.
Thank you!
Best, and happy reading to you,
Mrs. Nancy Rawley
Library Assistant
Hello everyone,
Our theme in the library this week is Old Books/New Books. We are reading “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,” “Harriet the Spy,” “Year of the Dog,” “Thora and the Green-Sea Unicorn: Another Half-Mermaid Tale,” the “Half Magic” books by Edward Eager, “Eragon,” the “Freddy in Peril” books and many others. Come by if you would like to take a look at the selection.
This is going to be one big thank you so get ready. I have only been at Peninsula since August, but in this short time, everyone has been so welcoming. I am glad to be part of your awesome community. Thank you for that. Thank you for the pointers and the help and for everything else. Thanks for having such cool kids. Our students are incredible and their families are, too.
Thanks to our staff for helping show me the ropes. You are a great group of co-workers.
Thanks, too, for dropping by the virtual library.
A huge thank you to our neighbors and students who have been bringing in bags, boxes and cartons of new and “gently used” books to add to our collection. Some of these books have been stamped “Peninsula” and are now on our shelves. We love to have new titles to choose from. (We also have a number of new books we have purchased — or that are on order. We purchased these with grant money we were fortunate enough to receive — more on that another time. I would also like to use this web page to provide you with the titles of some of our favorite books, so you will know more about what we are reading in the library.)
Some of the books that have been donated to us have been shared with the classroom teachers, sent home with students, or have been shared with our Book Swap. The Book Swap shelves are directly across from the main office. Please help yourself.
We have a pretty wonderful patron here at Peninsula: Mrs. Marsha Stewart, a retired teacher from the Beaverton School District and a Peninsula Alumna, 8th grade class of 1960. She basically packed up her classroom when she retired and brought it over to share with our library. Thank you, Mrs. Stewart. You are the best.
Mrs. Stewart remembers when Peninsula moved to its present location. She was in the second grade. The teachers loaded up all the students with books, and they used a “kid delivery” system to truck the library to the new school. Mrs. Stewart said this is one of her earliest memories of Peninsula School. She brought us close to 1,500 hardcover and paperback books, plus toys, posters, containers and bulletin board supplies. I hope she comes back to visit soon — we would love to welcome her as an honored guest, any time. And I won’t even make her move books around.
She is a great lady.
Thank you, too, to the ladies (and you all know who you are) who have been coming by (some of you daily) to help me shelve books, straighten up, and run the SMART reading program. It takes a lot of people and a big love of books to keep a library running right. You are amazing. (PS — I love library volunteers. Come by anytime, even if it’s just for a short visit.)
(Private note to the students: I’m glad you like to read. Keep up the good work.)
Best,
Mrs. Rawley
Library Assistant
