Library Night!

It's the 3rd Tuesday again... you know what that means! Tonight is Library Night. The library will be open for special hours today for our students and their families. We'll see you at 4:30!

We are also having the second installment of our Parenting Series Tonight. Pizza will be served at 5:30 in the cafeteria, followed by the Literacy@Home lecture here in the library. I will be giving a presentation on how to make the library work for your student at home. I will distribute flyers with usernames and passwords to all who attend in order to access our wonderful databases and subscription websites at home! There will also be special breaking news from my six ace reporters- Mackenzie, Quimara, Andy, Daniel, Angili and Nick!

See you at 4:30, Eagles!

Sylvan Dell eBooks free online!

Hello, Forest North Eagles! I'm here to tell you about another great resource we have available for our students to use at school and home.

Sylvan Dell Publishing is now producing an online reading program with 45 eBooks, each with selectable English and Spanish text and audio. The books are fun, fictional stories involving animals and nature and with spectacular art, but there is a lot more. The back of each book has a 3-5 page educational section called For Creative Minds that you can explore with your child.

Also, each title has its own homepage loaded with 30-40 pages of cross-curricular teaching activities and three interactive quizzes and it is all free online. We think you’ll find this program an interesting integration of fun reading with the option of serious science, math, geography and language learning. It is all online, so with broadband access from home or the library you can make this a family reading and learning event.

Because our school has this eBook site license, you and your family have complete access to this resource from your home computer and we encourage you to enjoy it with your children. A flyer was sent home this week with instructions on how to access this resource at home. Call the library at 464-6790 if you need help, or attend any Library Night for a flyer with the passwords for all of our wonderful resources! I will also be discussing these resources at length on our Literacy at Home Parenting Series on 12/15 from 5:30-6:30. Pizza will be served in the cafeteria at 5:00 pm.

TeachingBooks.net

Have you heard of TeachingBooks.net? All Round Rock schools subscribe to receive this awesome book resource. Get reading guides, author interviews, and reading lists to inspire your students and children to read! You can access the site at school, but also from home or at the public library. Contact the Forest North library or Kristen Fournier, librarian, for the remote access login username and password. Happy reading!

Thanksgiving Holidays

Thanksgiving holidays begin Wednesday and go through the rest of the week. I hope everyone has a wonderful break with lots of things for which to be grateful! Along those lines, I'd like to thank my fabulous library volunteers for all they do to help their students' library run smoothly!

Thank you, D'Anna Youngman, Brenda Speck, Hamid Velji, and Alison Seerley! I couldn't do it without your help!

Library Night - Science Research!

Last night was another monthly Library night. This time we focused on science experiment books for students and books on positive discipline for parents. We also featured BookFlix on our library computers!

BookFlix is a website we subscribe to where kids can see a short movie version of a book, paired with a similiar nonfiction text that can be read aloud as they turn the pages. You can even check out BookFlix at home! Look in your child's folder this week for a BookFlix instruction sheet with the Forest North username and password, and happy reading!

We hope to see you at our next Library night- it's 12/15, 4:30-6:00. Come check out books, math or science kits and check out some of our educational subscription websites! I hope to see you there. There will also be pizza served at 5:30 before the next Parent Education Series, also taking place in the library.

Math and Science Books and Kits!

Help your child succeed!

Forest North is proud to announce our new collection of science books and kits and math kits specifically for parents to help their children. Explore our solar system, experiment with force and motion, or learn zany animal facts together. It’s a great way to be involved in your child’s education and will familiarize you with our curriculum.

Our science Activity kits include vocabulary cards, ideas for experiments, and all the supplies needed for the experiments. They also include fun stuff like rubber stamps, stopwatches, balloons, magnifying glasses and electric circuits! Here are the kits we have available:

Animals
Electricity
Force & Motion
Insects
Matter
Plants
Properties of Earth
Rocks & Soil
Solar System
Weather

These books and activity kits can be checked out and taken home. We have special library accounts just for parents, so come by to set one up! The library is open to parents before school on Tuesdays and Thursdays or at our monthly Library night (next one is 11/17 4:30-6:00). Parents can check out anything from our regular collection as well as from our special parenting section. Our parenting section includes books on being a parent and helping your child become a successful, contributing member of our community both socially and academically. Help your son or daughter succeed through the library today!

Economics Fair!

Friday, October 30th, was the 3rd grade's economic fair. Third graders have been learning about different parts of an economy- goods and services, spending and saving money, supply and demand, and how pricing and selling affects profits.

To show off their new knowledge, they hosted an economics sale, selling entirely handmade goods and services. They generously donated all of their profits to the Make a Wish Foundation.

I was lucky enough to buy a pet rock from Desiree for $.25 and a bookmark from Aaron for $.50. My pet rock (named Desiree, of course) is now happily living on the library circulation desk, and my bookmark is trustily keeping my place in my book!