Texas Bluebonnet Award 2017 Voting Party

It is a unique privilege in my life to observe our students as they discover their love of reading. Our amazing students read 1,716 Texas Bluebonnet Award nominated books - that's an average of 11 books per student! 

Thank you so much to everyone who helped support our students in this endeavor, from spending your lunch reading a book to student/s, braving the chocolate fountain and/or the party in general, touching base with students, celebrating their successes, and bottom-line, making sure every student who wants to succeed does! For many students, this is one of their first experiences setting and meeting long-term goals, and modeling this process is so helpful to them! The students were so excited and proud to be there Friday. 

Our marvelous 5th grade classes were wonderful role models for the younger grades, and they were truly safe, respectful and responsible. Props also to 3rd & 4th grade teams for making sure every single one of their students qualified for the party- even ones who started after winter break!

I'm so proud to be a Forest North Eagle, and so lucky to have all of you support our students.

Texas Bluebonnet Award Voting Party 2016

Huge kudos to FNE students and teachers for our achievements with the 2015-2016 Texas Bluebonnet Award program! Check out these numbers, and think about the dedication & skill-building they represent. Think about the teamwork with so many staff & volunteers that made it happen! Thanks for helping our kids read in new genres, get exposed to awesome works of high-quality contemporary literature, and most importantly, feel like successful readers!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ 

1,732 books read (That's 10 quizzes per 3rd-5th FNE student. This number is HUGE compared to other schools around RRISD and the state, even though we're small and Title I!) 

157 students voting for their favorite book at the party last Friday (& taking home a new book to keep, trying the chocolate fountain, getting a manicure, playing video games, and watching the drone - video below!)

45 students qualifying for the VIP Breakfast (that's 10+ books for 3rd, 15+ books for 4th & 5th) - this is a HUGE increase above any other year.

13 students qualifying for the Forest North Battle of the Bluebonnets (reading all 20) - also a new all-time high! 

8 teachers who supported 15+ kids as they qualified to vote, who get a free lunch on me! 

1 grade level who had 100% participation- a new record, even with new students coming in the days leading up to the party. Way to go, 4th grade! 

 Super special thanks to teachers, paraprofessionals, former students, former staff & parent volunteers who were on hand during the party - 157 kids had a blast and they loved spending time with you! Thanks for keeping them safe while they had fun- I literally couldn't do it without you! 

 We'll find out the state winner soon, but here were our top books! 36 votes - Misadventures of Salem Hyde 26 votes - Skyjumpers 17 votes - Mountain Dog 

Check out this drone video Mr. Fournier took during the party:

Drone at Bluebonnet Voting Party 1/29!

"Are you coming to the Bluebonnet party?  My drone is!"

Texas Bluebonnet Award Update

We are thrilled to announce that the Texas Bluebonnet program is going well at Forest North.  On 11/5, Kieron in 4th grade was the student to read the 1000th Bluebonnet Master List book at Forest North!  The next day, Aiden in 4th grade finished his 20th book.  He's our first participant at the Battle of the Bluebonnets in February!  Our second qualifier for the Battle of the Bluebonnets in Michael, also in 4th grade!  We have many other students who are very close to reading all twenty books.  I'm also excited that we have our first class where every single student has qualified for the voting party- you go, Ms. Velasquez' 4th grade class.  Yesterday, the last student qualified and we all jumped up and down and whooped and hollered in her classroom!  It was a very exciting moment.  I've never had a class have everyone finish so early!  All together, we've already read 1159 Bluebonnet books, and the number keeps going up!

Texas Bluebonnet Award Update

The Texas Bluebonnet Award program goes on at Forest North for about 20 weeks each fall semester.  Right now, we are on week 9.  Many students are working hard on reading books and getting ready for our Bluebonnet party on 1/29/16! We already have 94 voters, and 63 people that have qualified for the Bluebonnet Party!  We also have 13 people who have already qualified for the VIP Bluebonnet Breakfast.  I can't wait to see who will be the first person to qualify for the Battle of the Bluebonnets, and to see which book wins at Forest North!

Need more information about the Texas Bluebonnet Award program at Forest North?  Check out the document below for more information!

142 Bluebonnet Books Already Read!

I am astounded daily by our amazing students and the incredible teachers that support them.  We only put the Bluebonnet quizzes up live on the network last Thursday, and already our students have passed 142 quizzes!  Our first reader to qualify for the voting party on 1/29 is Gabriel in 3rd grade.  Great work, Gabriel!  

Bluebonnet Award Program Starts This Week!

Nearby classrooms heard multiple cheers today as 3rd-5th grade classes celebrated with me in the library - "It's Bluebonnet Day, it's Bluebonnet Day!"  I was singing that even as I brushed my teeth this morning.

I'm so excited to kick off another awesome school year of the Texas Bluebonnet Award here at Forest North!  We go big here at Forest North when it comes to TBA - we always have almost 100% participation.  Our readers astound me every year!  Get more information about this awesome award below, in our parent tip sheet (click for full-size view), or on the TBA website.  Get more information about how we do TBA at Forest North by clicking on the embedded Prezis below for the appropriate grade level.

You go, Natalie!

Natalie in 5th grade is super excited because she's the first student to pass all 20 Bluebonnet Quizzes here at Forest North this year!  I'm so excited for her, too.  She will be participating in the Battle of the Bluebonnets here on campus in the spring.  If you need a recommendation for a good book, Natalie is the person to ask.

At the time of this post, we've already had kids pass 142 quizzes here at Forest North, and I've already given out two of these tickets to people qualified to come to the Voting Party.  I can't wait to get to 100 kids!  Keep reading those Bluebonnet books, Eagles!

Texas Bluebonnet Award KickOff This Week!

I can't wait for another great year of the Texas Bluebonnet Program at Forest North!  It's my favorite time of year!

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!

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.

Forest North Bluebonnet party- Guest Blogger, Mrs. Lajaunie

The Forest North Library was bursting at the seams at the Bluebonnet Wii party last month. 118 students read enough Bluebonnet books to be eligible to vote for the 2011-2012 Bluebonnet Book Award winner. Students who attended the party enjoyed snacks, played the Wii, and were able to choose a free book and poster! Fun times were had by all. Ms. Moore and Mrs. Rataj won top honors for having their WHOLE class eligible to vote and attend the party. That is a lot of hard work and encouragement! Honorable mentions go to Mrs. McCollum, Mr. Helmlinger and Mrs. Albin for having 15 or more of their students attend the party. They, along with Ms. Moore and Mrs. Rataj earned a free lunch from Mrs. Fournier for their accomplishment. The top voted book at Forest North was Out Of My Mind, followed by Hallelujah Flight. Congratulations to The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda for being voted the winner of the 2011-2012 Bluebonnet Book Award.

Some students went beyond the required reading in order to reach other goals. For example, students who read 15 or more books are invited to the Bluebonnet VIP Breakfast and will recieve a $5 gift card to the Forest North Spring book fair. Students who read all 20 Bluebonnet books are invited to the VIP Breakfast, will recieve a $10 gift card to the book fair AND they get to participate in the campus-wide Battle of the Bluebonnets. The top five students from the Forest North battle on February 23rd will get to represent Forest North in the district battle next month! Fingers crossed that we bring home the RRISD Traveling Trophy.

Thanks to all of the 3rd-5th grade teachers and students for making this year's Bluebonnet season a HUGE success. Next year's list of Bluebonnet books is now available online, and Mrs. Fournier plans on offering 2 sessions of Camp Bluebonnet again this summer for students interested in a head start. Get reading, Eagles!

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.

Forest North @ 1st Annual RRISD Battle of the Bluebonnets

2010-2011 Forest North Bluebonnet Voting Results!

Ladies and Gentleman, I am pleased to announce the Forest North Texas Bluebonnet Award winners!

I will post the statewide official winners as soon as I hear!

1st place: 2nd place:
3rd place:

Texas Bluebonnet Book Award Voting Party!

Forest North is proud to announce we had 85 qualified Bluebonnet Voters this year! That's up from 37 last year, and 7 the year before. Let's go Bluebonnet books!

Our 85 kids were treated (by 12 lovely volunteers, both staff and parents) to a Nintendo Wii party! Kids came in, got a free snack, poster and book. They voted for their favorite book of the year (winners to be announced soon!) and all took turns playing a variety of games on nine simultaneous Nintendo Wiis! It was amazing!

Thanks to all of our smart Eagles for working so hard! More later on the winning book and our 10 dedicated students who read all 20 of the Bluebonnet nominees!

Bluebonnet Voting Party 1/21

Dan Yaccarino

Mrs. Fournier was kindly invited by some of her fellow librarians last night as they took to dinner the esteemed author and illustrator and Bluebonnet Book Award Nominee Dan Yaccarino of The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau! It was so interesting to hear him talk all about the hard work it's taken him to become an author and illustrator, and to ask him about his cool graphic, retro illustrative style we all love. He also told Mrs. Fournier what he's working on now and what he has plans to do in the future. Mrs. Fournier was so excited to meet him, she asked if he'd pose for a photo so she could show all of her dedicated Bluebonnet nominee readers! He was happy to do so for all of his awesome fans at Forest North! Keep reading, Eagles.

Bluebonnet Pictograph Bulletin Board