Thursday, December 13, 2012

Forest North: The Movie! Filming 12/19

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Bluebonnet Fun Night: Postcards From Camp

Thursday will mark our third BLUEBONNET FUN NIGHT this fall. We've already celebrated Under the Mambo Moon at Sommer in September, and Play, Louis, Play! at Jollyville in October. Tomorrow night, we will celebrate Postcards from Camp at the brand new England Elementary. We've been advertising this event on our morning announcements with a British accent in honor of England Elementary... and also because our anchor Jack just loves to speak with a British accent.

Postcards from Camp: a Postal Story, by Simms Taback, is an awesome interactive tale between a boy and his father. Michael isn't so sure about summer camp, but his dad keeps insisting he'll have fun. Will Michael start to like it? Either way, he and his dad send the coolest letters and postcards back and forth.

Simms Taback, winner of the Caldecott Award, even includes real envelopes for taking the letters in and out, and Michael even writes one scary campfire tale that's in an envelope. The scary book is my favorite part- it has an owl on the cover.

From Forest North, on Broadmeade Avenue, turn right onto the 45 frontage road for 1 mile. Turn left on Parmer. After 1.7 miles, take a right on Avery Ranch Road. After 1.5 miles, you'll turn right onto Pearson Ranch Road. England is at 8801 Pearson Ranch Road.

We'll meet at jolly old England Elementary in the Cafeteria at 6:00. I would recommend to park in the back for the quickest walk to the Cafeteria, which is also in the back of the school. England students will read this wonderful book to us, we'll learn some fun campfire songs, and eat delicious s'mores, the classic campfire treat!

All Forest North 3rd-5th graders who attend this event will receive 2 genuine Fournier bucks, which are pretend money with Mrs. Fournier's face on it. Each buck is worth one extra checkout! Check in with Mrs. Fournier at England to redeem your Fournier bucks!
See you there, Eagles!

Monday, November 26, 2012

Barnes & Noble Book Fair 12/1/12 10AM-10PM

If you haven't heard the news, the place to be this Saturday is our local Barnes & Noble! We're having our 2nd annual Book Fair on 12/1, from 10AM-10PM. Our Barnes & Noble is located right near Lakeline Mall at the Homestead Shopping Center. The address is 14010 U.S. 183, Austin, TX 78717.


Students are invited to shop with their families, because Barnes & Noble has agreed to donate 25% of all sales from FNE supporters back to our school. Last year we made over $3100 in the 12 hours we were there, which was three times as much as usually make with a book fair in the library, where we have to shut the library down for a week, make our own decorations, and cancel all lessons and checkout for 5 days.
Purchases made in the cafe (like the special Forest North vanilla coffee-free frappuccino, colored red or blue special for our Eagles!), holiday cheesecakes pre-ordered, books, Nooks and any other merchandise will apply towards our total. Every little bit helps!

We've got hours of fun entertainment planned for Eagles and their families. The key to our success last time was the involvement of our faculty, staff, students and their families. Here's our schedule of events:

10:00-10:00 Art Gallery featuring PreK-5th Student Work
10:00-10:00 Free Faculty Gift Wrap - get your teacher to wrap your holiday gifts!
12:00-1:00 Free Face Painting in the Children's Area
12:30-1:00 Kindergarten Flash Mob to "Ice Cream and Cake"
1:00 -1:30 Cup Stacking Tournament
1:30-2:00 Fourth Grade Poetry Slam
2:00-2:30 Jump “In” Eagles 3rd-5th Jump Rope Team Performance
2:30-3:00 Third Grade Comedy Show
3:00-3:30 Teacher Dog Parade- come pet your teacher's puppy!
3:30-4:00 First Grade Read Alouds
4:00-4:30 Jump “In” Eagles 1st-2nd Jump Rope Team Performance
4:30-5:00 Forest North Choir Sing Multicultural Holiday Music
5:00-5:30 Second Grade Holiday Book Commercials
5:30-6:00 Kindergarten Flash Mob to "Thriller"

Fournier's Friends, our special 3rd-5th student library volunteer crew, will be helping Mrs. Fournier work the front door. We will hold a sign that says "no donations required," and students will be asking patrons whether they're here to support Forest North. If they say "yes," we'll give them a sticker. All customers who are wearing a sticker get 25% of their purchase donated back to the FNE Library! All funds will be used to purchase new library books for our students, so we can all share the fruits of our labor!

Please email Mrs. Fournier if you have any ideas about how to make the Book Fair a success, if you would like to get involved, or if you need more information about the event. It's a great way for our community to have fun, show off our academic and extracurricular successes, and work together towards a common goal.

Thank you so much for your support. Here's hoping we have another successful Barnes & Noble Book Fair. See you on Saturday!

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Multiplication Bee

Third grade was excited to show off their math skills in a Multiplication Bee right before we left for Thanksgiving break. All students were invited to compete one-on-one in a race to answer single digit multiplication problems up to 12x12. Students were encouraged to practice their facts and improve efficient strategies in problem solving ahead of time, and many students used a variety of different techniques to improve their efficiency at solving multiplication facts.
Students competed in a double-elimination bracket tournament style similar to the NCAA March Madness bracket. We kept the special names of the NCAA tournament to show our finalists. Here are 7 of our ELITE 8 CONTESTANTS! Congratulations to Ethan (not pictured), Bhavana, Ashwati, Cameron, Ryan, Dylan, Sebastian & Isaiah! They were cool under pressure as they multiplied their way through the competition.
After we got to the Elite 8, students competed another round to get to the Final 4. Here were our Final 4. At this point, the competition was so intense, the first student to answer was sometimes only a fraction of a second ahead of the other student. It was great to watch and set a great example for other students. Great work, Eagles. Our Final 4 were Bhavana, Ashwati, Cameron and Sebastian.
Our final two competitors left for the Championship round were Cameron and Ashwati. At this point, there were already murmurs in the crowd among students and teachers of a second bee this spring to try again for the championship. Cameron and Ashwati weren't intimidated- their quick math skills and mental repeated addition were ready for the challenge!
Our final champion was Ashwati. Ashwati, I was personally amazed at your dedication, and so proud of you. Your practice clearly paid off, and you prepared so well for this competition! Hard work is its own reward. Way to multiply! Ashwati will be defending her title later this spring against her grade level again. Other students will need to practice, practice, practice their strategies to get as efficient as Ashwati in solving these math problems as quickly as her. She's up to the challenge- it's going to be a great rematch. See you in the Spring, Eagles, and until then, keep multiplying!

Monday, November 12, 2012

First Grade Book Club

The Library is excited to announce 1st grade book club! A fantastic group of ten first graders, recommended by their teachers, come to the library twice a week to discuss our books. I'm amazed at how insightful these students are about their reading and how deep their connections, predictions, inferences, and observations are! Our first reading choice was Bink & Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee. We zoomed through our first title, and many of the participants already put the newly released sequel on hold. We loved comparing our two protagonists, learned new words like "bonanza" and "compromise" and discussed the choice of spot color in Tony Fucile.

Now, we've split into two groups, according to which book we were interested in, and are reading either Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie by Julie Sternberg and Ivy + Bean by Annie Barrows. We watched a short book trailer online to give us a preview of the books. We've got our special supplies ready- pencils, notebooks, sticky notes, and bookmarks to remind us of how we can categorize our thinking.
We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and students read their books between meetings, showing their thinking so they'll remember what they want to say when we meet next to talk about our books. Groups will change flexibly depending on what titles students are interested in reading. These ten students are deepening their understanding of literature, and their responses to it. Great job, first graders, and thank you to the first grade team for helping me help their students in the most meangingful way possible!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Forest North 2012 Mock Presidential Election

Let freedom ring! The Forest North Library & TAG programs were pleased to bring a mock presidential election to Forest North on 11/6/12, Election Day. While citizens around the country lined up to vote (even on campus) we had our own voting lines here at school!
Students Kindergarten through 5th grade registered to vote in previous weeks. They were told that they must register ahead of time by the deadline to be eligible to vote in the election, just like grownups do.
They each brought their voter registration card to our voting precinct, and were checked against a master list of students to determine their identity and to prevent voter fraud.
After this, they were led into the voting booth area, and chose their votes privately. On the ballots, students voted for their presidential candidate, and teachers were also asked beforehand if they'd like to answer any other questions. We asked questions about students' favorite Special Areas classes (PE beat Library by one vote- I demanded a run off but was denied, sadly. Next time I'll have to campaign more), whether students would be interested in learning another language like Spanish (yes, our voters said!) and to assess questions like whether students participated in running club before school, or if they prefer recess after lunch.
Students submitted their votes into our ballot box. After voting, I asked second grader La'darius at the ballot box how he felt now that he was a real voter. "Better," he replied with a smile. After voting, each student received a "I voted!" sticker.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Stewart's TAG students finished their long day as pollworkers by counting and recounting the votes. We triple checked our scores, and the votes are in.
Check out this graph made by Jack in 5th grade for the results. In a landslide victory, Forest North students re-elected President Obama for 4 more years.
















A special thanks to our pollworkers, Mrs. Stewart's students. They were excellent citizens, great role models, and very helpful to all of our students.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Phil Bildner's Writing Camp

Forest North was thrilled to receive Texas Bluebonnet Award winning author Phil Bildner direct from Brooklyn, New York, in the library. Phil led an intensive writing camp for 4th and 5th graders in two separate sessions. These smaller sessions allowed for a lot more individual attention from our honored guest. Phil encouraged the students to read to become better writers, and suggested some of his favorite recent books. He showed his progression as a writer from his childhood.
He showed how important it is to focus on getting things right, and how editing can make a huge difference. He then gave detailed examples on how students should visualize the scenes they're writing, focusing on tiny details and exploding the moment. His characteristic energy and charisma absolutely engrossed the students, as always. Phil was a school teacher in New York before he was a writer, and it shows. He has amazing technique in working with 21st century kids. Some students chose to buy a Phil Bildner book, and got it autographed by Phil and got a photo print from Mrs. Fournier.
All 4th and 5th graders were encouraged to submit a persuasive essay outlining why they should be chosen to receive a free signed book and eat lunch with Phil himself. It took many hours of careful study to find the top 4 winners of the essay contest. These well-written persuasive essays were read by 4 judges, and the winners were Rishi from 4th grade, and Cameron, Malikai & Mackenzie, all from 5th grade.
Since his visits, 4th grade teachers have employed his techniques and exercises and have continued them with their students. They've noticed a marked increased use of vivid, sensory imagery since his visit. Thanks so much for sharing your skills with us, Phil! We learned a lot, and had a lot of fun. Phil- if you keep writing, we'll keep reading. Deal?

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Bluebonnet Fun Night: Play, Louis, Play!

We had our second Bluebonnet Fun Literacy Night at Jollyville Elementary, hosted by their librarian, Mrs. Carter. We celebrated the Bluebonnet Award nominated title Play, Louis, Play! : The True Story of a Boy and His Horn by Muriel Harris Weinstein a Louis Armstrong biography told from the horn's point of view.

Mrs. Carter arranged for a real Jazz horn player to come play for us at Jollyville.  He improvised little riffs during readers' theatre featuring selected excerpts from the book read by Jollyville students. Other students presented biographical information about Louis Armstrong and his legacy.

After the readers' theatre portion of the night ended, our jazz trumpeter entertained us with lots of jazz classics, and showed us the difference between regular versions of songs and jazz versions of songs. The jazz versions were much more joyous and entertaining!

Two very special Forest North students were in attendance for this fun night. Thanks for coming, Jasmyn & Cam, and getting jazzed up over the Texas Bluebonnet Award!

Monday, October 15, 2012

Julie Sternberg's Author Visit

2nd graders and 3rd graders were in for a special treat on Monday, October 15th! Texas Bluebonnet Award-nominated author Julie Sternberg was here from Brooklyn, New York to visit us and talk about her amazing debut novel Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie. Students from 4th and 5th grade who had already passed the quiz on her book were also invited.  Julie was engaging, and our students were so well-behaved.  They sat still, asked great questions, and prepared for the visit ahead of time by reading her book (thanks, teacher!) Thanks for helping me make the most of our visit.

Author visits like Julie Sternberg are wonderful experiences for our children, but require a lot of financial help. Since Julie lives so far away, multiple schools pitch in and share her airfare and hotel costs. At Forest North, the PTA generously donates money to the library, and that paid for about 25% of our visit costs this year. The other 75% comes from fundraisers like the Barnes & Noble Book Fair (12/1/2012) and the Scholastic Book Fair (4/30/13-5/4/13).  Please support the library fundraisers so we can continue to have authors visit our school!















 Some students chose to purchase books and get them signed by Julie in person. I took a photo of each student who purchased a book and printed a wallet sized copy so they could have a souvenir of our special day. Pictured below is Julie Sternberg with Ruby, a third grader. Our books were purchased through local Round Rock bookseller The Book Spot, who were nice enough to let us buy books ahead of time, and took back any extras we didn't sell without financially penalizing us. How nice is that? They also covered the tax for us. Please patronize The Book Spot to thank them for donating their time and services to us! 

Thanks for a wonderful visit, Julie! The kids and teachers adored you, and we loved getting an inside perspective on your wonderful book. Can't wait for the sequel, coming out in April!



Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Bluebonnet Fun Night: Under the Mambo Moon

Three of my fellow librarians and I are on a mission to spread the word about the awesome Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees this year! We are each hosting a party at our schools to promote one title. The lovely Ms. Wimmer of Sommer Elementary volunteered to go first. She's the one on the far right with the red lanyard. We were overwhelmed by the response- we had over 200 guests at our first Bluebonnet Fun Night! This included 7 Forest North Eagles. Thanks so much for representing, my Eagles.


Ms. Wimmer arranged for a wonderful student production of Under the Mambo Moon to honor this expressive book about the joys of singing and dancing and Hispanic culture.
Sommer students coordinated a splendid readers' theatre. Her students did a fabulous job at costuming, reading with expression, using microphones, and really getting across the essence of the book- Latin dancing is awesome!

Then, Ms. Wimmer arranged for Austin High's Ballet Folklorico group to come perform for us. They got stuck on MoPac, but we played an interesting game called The Professor in the meantime for crowd control! After they arrived, got dressed, and were ready to go, we were blown away by their talent. What beautiful dancing, music, costumes, and audience participation was encouraged! They represented six different areas of Mexico with their dancing, and had authentic costuming and dance steps to show us what it's like to be at a real Mexican fiesta.
Our next Bluebonnet Fun Night for Literacy is on Thursday at Jollyville Elementary. Each of these rotations are within only a few miles of FNE. Jollyville is doing a special Jazz night in honor of Play, Louis, Play!I really hope lots of Eagles come out to celebrate the magic of jazz and this biography of Louis Armstrong.
See you then, Eagles! Until then, keep reading!

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Bluebonnet Selection Committee

Hi Eagles. Did you miss me? I missed you! I'll be back on Monday.

For the past few days, I've been hard at work in a conference room with my fellow Texas Bluebonnet Award Selection Committee members to choose the very best 20 books for next year's list. I've been taking lots of photos, but the only one I can reveal for now is my place card.

We've been reading hundreds of books in the past months to narrow it down to the most interesting, high-quality, fun books for 3rd-6th graders to read for pleasure. I have asked dozens of our students for their opinions on various books and topics, and I used all of it to vote for the ones I thought best.

We didn't always agree, but I definitely feel lucky to work with such a talented, smart group of librarians. Our list is amazing! I am so excited to reveal our choices at the Texas Book Festival here in Austin, October 27-28, 2012, downtown at the Capitol. It's going to be awesome, and I can't wait to see some famous authors, hear some great people speak about children's books, and most of all, hear the reactions when our celebrity announcers reveal next year's 20 nominees! See you there, Eagles, and until then, mum's the word. Trust me, though- you're going to love it!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Peyton, Fournier & Associates, LLC

Mrs. Peyton, Counselor, and I are excited to announce our new book club- Peyton, Fournier & Associates LLC (Lifelong Learners Club). Mrs. Peyton and I have recently read an amazing book called Wonder (R.J. Palacio) that we thought would be the perfect way to discuss ways that some of our students could work on reading and social skills. 

Mrs. Peyton, 8 of our coolest 5th grade students, and I are working together to read this book between meetings, and at our meetings, discuss the characters, plot and other features of the book and how it relates to our life. We're so excited as we start our journey together!

 Our first meeting was today during lunch. Students received a specially wrapped copy of the book (for keeps!), a small notebook and pencil to jot down their ideas, and we all wore a special sticker badge to celebrate our membership.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Texas Bluebonnet Award

The Forest North Library is excited to announce that the 2012-2013 Bluebonnet program has officially started! All 3rd-5th classes had orientations to the program last week, and every single book has already been checked out. Many quizzes have already been passed to boot! Students are motivated to earn their Bluebonnet dog tags, qualify to attend the voting Wii party, VIP Bluebonnet Breakfast, or the coveted position of Battle of the Bluebonnets competitor! Students only need to read 5 books to qualify to vote for their favorite. To come to the Wii party, 3rd graders read 5, 4th graders read 8, and 5th graders read 10. Some highly dedicated students who read all 20 get to wear crowns to the Bluebonnet voting party- check out the photo to see last year's champions! Classroom teachers are allowed to read one of the books allowed to their classes. Parents, mentors, family friends, etc., are allowed to read an unlimited amount of books aloud to their student. Students are NOT required to read the books independently, so feel free to help your student achieve their reading goals.  The library and FNE community work really hard to raise extra funds for additional titles of these books, but because of extremely high circulation rates, students may feel free to check out  Bluebonnet books from the public library, borrow one from a friend, or buy one at their local bookstore. Information about the nominated titles this year and recommended resources for each title are available on the TBA Website.

See you at the Wii party, Eagles, and keep reading!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Fournier's Friends Recruitment Video

Thanks again to the amazing 2011-2012 Fournier's Friends student volunteer crew for their awesome job in this video! I couldn't have asked for a more talented, witty, sharp, fun group of kids! Miss you, buddies.

2012-2013 Fournier's Friends Selected!

I'm so excited to announce that we have a fresh, new crew of Fournier's Friends ready to work in the library this school year.  We had many applicants, and it was a very difficult decision to choose which students would get one of the spots. I considered whether the application was turned in on time, and whether or not the students answered the questions correctly on the application. I wanted to choose students who were already familiar with finding books in the library on a certain subject, how to put a hold on a book, and the sections of the library. After that, I looked at whether students were already involved in a lot of other activities, whether they have a history of being responsible with their library books, and what their teacher recommendation indicated.

Thanks so much for applying, and congratulations to my new crew of Fournier's Friends. Mrs. Dickinson and I are excited to see you at our first meeting!

In other volunteering news, thanks so much to Dondi Bradley, Steve Howland and Brittany Gonzales, three parents who have already logged multiple hours shelving books. We have had a staggering increase in circulation this month compared to previous years, and while this is great for our library statistics, it means we have even more books to get back on the shelves for our students. Thanks to these three parents, hundreds of titles are already ready for another student to read. I really appreciate your help, parents! This frees me up to be able to teach your students lessons about Language Arts, library skills & technology skills they need to be successful.

Friday, August 31, 2012

Future Librarian? Apply to be a Student Volunteer!

This will be the second year that the Forest North Library will participate in Fournier's Friends- a group of 3rd-5th students who work in the library to keep things running smoothly. Last year's participants had a lot of fun!

We anticipate many applicants, so apply early and make sure you get your materials in on time - the deadline is September 10th and 3:00 PM.  Turn in 3 items: an application filled out by the student, a teacher recommendation, and a parent permission form.

I can't wait to hire some new library helpers and train them to be book ninjas!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Welcome back, Eagles!

Hello, Eagles! I'm Mrs. Fournier, your Librarian. I am halfway through orienting all of our students to the library this year, and have a few exciting things to tell you about!

First off, let's tallk books! Checkout limits will be the same this year as they have been in years past:

PreK-K : 1 book
1st-2nd : 2 books
3rd-5th : 3 books

Books are checked out for 2 weeks. There are no overdue fees. I try to send home overdue notices once a week to let you know if a book is late.  If you lose a book, please send a check or cash in the amount listed on the overdue notice so I can buy a replacement copy for our library.  Last year, we had an amazing group of 350 students and 50 staff members because EVERY single book and person had an account in good standing when we left for the summer. Because of this, high student circulation rates, and Mrs. Fournier & Mrs. Lajaunie's tireless work in cataloging new books and weeding out old books to move up the average collection publication date from 1997 to 1999, we earned an award of $4,238 for new books this year! How amazing is that? Thank you staff, students, and especially to Mrs. Lajaunie for helping me achieve this goal! Thank you also to the Library Services Department for helping me make a big difference in our collection. We RRISD Librarians are so lucky to have an amazing administrative staff.

This year, I am excited to announce my new library assistant is Jacque Dickinson. Jacque started this week and has already learned a hundred things about running a library. I'm thrilled to have her working afternoons in here with me, and we're already becoming an awesome team!

This is my fourth year as the Forest North Librarian and I am always tweaking things to improve. In the past, our library always had a fixed schedule. Every class came at the same time on the same day every week, and we had a lesson, and we did checkout, and it was great. The problem is, the whole schedule was full of these classes already, and now we've gone from 16 to 21 classes! There aren't enough hours in the week to fit everyone in anymore. So, to fix that, we're moving to a flexible schedule. Flexible Schedules are highly recommended by the American Library Association because they require higher levels of collaboration between teachers and librarians. Check out their position statement on flexible scheduling. Here's my favorite paragraph:

"The integrated library program philosophy requires an open schedule. Classes need to be flexibly scheduled into the library on an as needed basis to facilitate research, training, and utilization of technology with the guidance of the subject specialist, the teacher, and the process specialist, the librarian. Regularly scheduled classes in the school library to provide teacher release or preparation time prohibit this best practice. Students and teachers must be able to come to the library throughout the day to use information sources, to read for pleasure, and to meet and work with other students and teachers."

I'm really excited to move to this flexible schedule, so that I'll have more time during the school day to catalog new books, keep improving our collection, plan my lessons and activities with teachers, help students get books every day, and work on my programming so kids have fun in the library! Stay tuned for our first programs of the year- the 2nd grade Rainbow Reading Challenge, the school-wide Library Bookmark contest, Texas Bluebonnet Award for 3rd-5th, and the K-2 Armadillo Readers Choice Award kickoff. It's going to be another great year in the Forest North Library!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Bluebonnet Selection Committee summer work

It's been a busy summer, Eagles! The library has only been open on Library Nights for checkout, but Mrs. Fournier has been hard at work reading books that are being considered for next year's Bluebonnet Book Award! Most days, since March, when I open my front door, there are between 1-20 books on my doorstep! My dogs have been very excited about all the visitors.

So many books was starting to get overwhelming, so I bought two new huge bookshelves to keep them all organized. I've had to read all summer long! It was a very different break than I was expecting. Recently, I went to downtown Austin and met my 9 fellow Bluebonnet Selection Committee members. We talked all day about books. It was the most fun, intense book club discussion I've ever participated in - and it was so fun that I had read dozens of the same books as some super smart librarians from all around Texas!

The best part of my job as a Selection Committee Member is that I get to keep all the books I receive. Publishers around the United States send them to me because they want their book to be a Bluebonnet- it's a big honor, and makes you a lot of money if you're chosen. Guess what I'll do with all these books? Once we announce our choices for next year's Bluebonnet nominees (at the Texas Book Festival, in October, by the way), I will be donating all of the books to my amazing customers at the Forest North Library! Yahoo!

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Camp Bluebonnet 2012 - Thursday

As it always seems to do, camp flew by, and before we knew it, it was our (sad!) last day of Camp Bluebonnet 2012. We chose a very special book to help us get over our sadness. Clever Jack Takes the Cake is a special book for RRISD Librarians, especially, because it was chosen as both an Armadillo Readers Choice nominee last year, and a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee this year! It takes a very special book to be nominated for the two awards dearest to our hearts.
After reading the book, we did some clever activities. Every day at camp, we do an ice breaker where we get to know each other a little better. One day it's bingo, one day you get paired up with someone by finding your match on an index card, and one day, we play the game where a famous person is taped on your back and you have to figure out who it is. Mrs. K and I love this game, and our campers always have a blast with it too. After our daily ice breaker, we decorated our own cakes, just like Clever Jack's, down to the last detail.
After washing up, we tried our hand at letterboxing, Mrs. Fournier's favorite hobby (besides reading, of course.) Mrs. Fournier tried to make a summary of letterboxing on one page for our campers. Check it out at the bottom of this post. For more detailed information about letterboxing, check out atlasquest.com or letterboxing.org or just ask Mrs. Fournier next time you see her!

Mrs. Fournier (and Mr. Fournier, and Mr. Fournier's mom, the other Mrs. Fournier, who is a true artist) worked hard to hand-carve 5 stamps featuring characters from Clever Jack Takes the Cake. Our first session of students worked in teams of 3 and 4 to find a good hiding place at our camp campus to hide their group's stamp, and then wrote a not-too-easy, not-too-hard clue for finding the box. Then, we projected each of the clues with a document camera, and the kids set out to find the stamps and fill their log books. Our July session of campers received the clues from the June session, and only had to find them.

Well, that's all for now, Campers. Mrs. Fournier & Mrs. Kupersztoch were so pleased to have two sold out sessions of camp again this summer, and had a blast with the wonderful students who joined us. Mrs. Fournier also has plans to cut another movie featuring our camp adventures, too, so stay tuned for that!