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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Camp Bluebonnet 2012 - Wednesday

On our third day of camp, we read the beautiful nonfiction picture book Just Being Audrey. It's a biography. That means (as I'm sure you already know, you smart reader, you) it's a book about a person's life.

After reading, we then watched some of the primary source material (including a few really cool videos) provided on the Texas Bluebonnet Award resources website about Audrey Hepburn's life, good deeds, movies, & fashion. In the book, we learned how after WWII, when Audrey was just starting out as an actress in Paris, she had few clothes, but didn't let that stop her from being fashionable. She had one scarf that she wore 12 different ways- as a head wrap, a bow tie, belt, etc. Mrs. Kuperzstoch and I tried to be tricky. We brought random items from around the house that we thought would be difficult to find uses for. But our genius campers blew us away with their creative ideas for our paper fans, measuring cups, wooden ring holders and koozies.

Speaking of creativity- Just Being Audrey didn't lend itself easily to a snack. Audrey does mention a delicious candy bar she was given by a sweet volunteer when they were liberated from their hideout in Belgium after the war, but that didn't seem unique enough for our campers. So, we looked elsewhere. Each year at Camp Bluebonnet, in addition to our daily picture book, we also work towards reading an entire chapter book. Every day we read 1/4 of the book. This year, our chapter book was Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie. That title, as I'm sure you can imagine, lends itself to a very creative snack.

Camp Bluebonnet 2012 - Tuesday

On our second day of Camp Bluebonnet 2012, we read and worked with Hot Diggity Dog - the History of the Hot Dog. We read the book (with all the sidebars) and worked up an appetite. We studied Coney Island, America's unofficial hot dog capital, through a Prezi I created with primary source material from the kind folks over at http://westland.net/coneyisland.

After that, we were starving! Mrs. Kuperstztoch and I provided a hot dog bar, with all beef or veggie dogs, and all the condiments you could imagine. They were delicious.

Our second activity of the day was creative - our campers created a menu to their own hot dog stand. They were encouraged to give it a punny name, include prices, and could include any specialties they wanted!

Camp Bluebonnet 2012 - Monday

This is the second year I've taught Camp Bluebonnet through Round Rock ISD Community's Education Program. Mrs. Kupersztoch, Librarian of the new Elsa England Elementary (formerly of Brushy Creek Elementary) and I really enjoy spending time doing fun reading activities with our readers each summer! Here's a picture of us after camp one day with our buddy, Joel.

Camp Bluebonnet also helps to start getting us familiar with the twenty nominated Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees for the upcoming year. This is a special year at Camp for Mrs. K & I because we are both honored and delighted to be serving on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Committee! Mrs. K is their webmaster, on the program committee (thanks for the great website, Mrs. K!) and I am on the selection committee, which m

eans next year, the books will have been chosen in part by me!

This summer, we chose 5 of our most favorite of this year's Bluebonnet nominees to feature as we read, played, & ate our way through camp! Each da
y we read one book, (except our chapter book, which we read a quarter of each day), then did two book-related activities, and had a book-related snack!
Postcards from Camp is a great epistolary novel. (I learned the word "epistolary" in college when I studied English. It means a book where it's letters written back and forth.) Postcards From Camp is about David, who is nervous about going to summer camp for the first time, and the postcards and letters he exchanges with his dad throughout camp. It's so funny! Mrs. Kuperzstoch and I had lots of great ideas that went with it- we played camp charades, braided lanyard key chains, made and ate delicious s'more treats, and wrote our own awesome postcards with scrapbooking materials to take home.

Battle of the Bluebonnets covered on KVUE News!

The RRISD 2nd annual Battle of the Bluebonnets, emceed by KVUE morning anchors, made the news! Congratulations to the Brushy Creek Blue Jays. Way to go Forest North for winning 3rd in a competition that made it on television. Pretty impressive!

Mrs. Fournier on Bluebonnet Selection Committee!

Mrs. Fournier is proud to announce that she has been chosen to serve on the 2012-2014 Bluebonnet Book Award Selection Committee. That means she and a group of fellow librarians will choose which books will be the 20 nominated to win the top honor of being the most well-loved children's book in Texas. The Bluebonnet Book Award is a library program for students in 3rd-6th grades that encourages students to read for pleasure, to develop their powers of discrimination, and gives them access to various genres. At Forest North, we design our fall programming largely around this Book Award due to its high quality of nominated titles. Students who read 5 or more are qualified to vote, and some qualify to attend our Bluebonnet Wii party.

Bluebonnet VIP Breakfast

Twenty five dedicated readers found that hard work really does pay off this morning. Students who read 15 or more Bluebonnet Book Award Nominees were invited to a special VIP Breakfast this morning. They were treated to a smorgasbord of delicious and nutritious breakfast foods. A great time was had by all. They enjoyed their food in the library on a special poster placemat made by Mrs. Lajaunie from dust jackets of the nominated titles this year. They also got to order 1 of 6 selected titles from the Bluebonnet list next year. Orders were already placed and books should arrive soon, so that these Eagles can get a head start for next year, and then share the book with their classmates. Congratulations, readers, and for half of you, good luck on the campus battle on Thursday!

Bluebonnets available on Thursday!

The most popular question in the library since school started is "Where are the Bluebonnet books?" Mrs. Fournier is thrilled about this, and bought more copies than ever to meet our intense demand for the nominated titles. Last year, over 90 kids attended the voting Wii party. 3rd-5th graders are invited to participate again! Here are our Bluebonnet Champions last year, who won 3rd place in our district Battle of the Bluebonnet. Way to represent us, Eagles! Who will represent Forest North this year? You can qualify by reading all 20 books. If there are more than 5 students again who read all 20 nominees, then we will have another campus level battle. The top 5 winners of that Battle will go on to the District battle! As you can see in our video, Ms. Jacobs, our principal, came to support us- everyone is invited to come root for us again! See you there, Eagles.

Camp Bluebonnet 2011- Thursday

Thursdays were our last day at Camp Bluebonnet. How sad! It flew by. On our last day, we read Balarama: a royal elephant, and did lots of fun activities and snacks relating to India and elephants! Check out what we did in this video, especially our awesome Bollywood dancing!

Camp Bluebonnet 2011 - Wednesday

Today we read Phil Bildner's Hallelujah Flight. Phil Bildner is going to vist our school this year! How exciting that we'll have a real Bluebonnet author visiting us! Check out all of the activities and food we had on Wednesday relating to our book:

Camp Bluebonnet 2011 - Tuesday

On Tuesday we read The Duchess of Whimsy! It was awesome. See all the activities and food we ate relating to the book in this video:

Camp Bluebonnet 2011 - Monday

Hello Forest North! We had 2 awesome sessions of Camp Bluebonnet this summer through the RRISD Community Education Center. It was great to see some of my favorite Eagles even during our vacation! Here's a video of what we did on the first day of camp. If you like it, keep your eyes peeled for flyers going home this spring regarding next summer's camp!

New Awesome Books!

Two new exciting books to report today! First, there is a new Gerald and Piggie book out by Mo Willems! It's called Should I Share My Ice Cream? Also, I finished one of our Bluebonnet books, The Shadows from The Books of Elsewhere and it's awesome! The second Book of Elsewhere, Spellbound, will be released in 4 weeks. Mrs. Fournier will work on getting a copy for our library as quickly as possible! Check out this awesome video about The Books of Elsewhere!

Camp Bluebonnet!

There are still a few spots left in our June session. Come sign up for Camp Bluebonnet with Mrs. Fournier (and Mrs. Kuperzstoch, the Brushy Creek Elementary Librarian) and be ready for the voting party before school even starts! Go to the website listed to register your incoming 3rd, 4th or 5th grade student. All RRISD 3rd-5th grade students are welcome! We'll be posting entries each day after we do our awesome activities at Camp!

Summer Reading

Can you believe we only have one day of school left? I can't! I know just the thing to keep you entertained and your reading skills sharp during summer break - read some of the 2011-2012 Bluebonnet Books! You could buy them at a book store, or borrow them for free at your local library! The Spicewood Branch of the Austin Public Library just came to Forest North last Friday for a visit and told us all about the fun events they're having this summer. Stop by for their awesome summer programs like a dance party, dog police officers, tap-dance man, Dinosaurs Vs. Aliens, and the Chicken Big puppet show! Don't forget to check out some of these awesome new 2011-2012 Bluebonnet Book Award nominees while you're there. If they're all checked out, you can put books on hold there too just like at school!

Forest North @ 1st Annual RRISD Battle of the Bluebonnets