Library Checkout with Mr. Martir's Class

Forest North was recently featured by RRISD and we had a photographer come take photos of our kids in action.  Check out these beautiful shots of Mr. Martir's class checking out books in the library.  

 

Forest North: The Movie! Filming 12/19

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!

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.

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!

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!

Jacob's Letter

One of my favorite parts of being a librarian is that I get to work with every single student in our whole school! Some students write me notes and letters, and I keep them in a special place, and if I ever feel overwhelmed or frustrated, I look at them and it makes me remember why I love my job! Here's a special letter I got on Monday from Jacob. What a nice letter, Jacob! Thank you for thinking of me and making my day.
(Dear Mrs. Fournier, You are the best library teacher. You always help us find books and tell us where books are. Is it a hard job to be a library teacher? PS I want to be a library teacher they're cool. From Jacob)

"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore"

"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" was the winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. This is a touching animated short about the magic of reading, libraries, and even a little about librarians!

Thank you Forest North!

The library is thrilled to announce that Forest North Teacher of the Year and Paraprofessional of the Year were both won by our two person library staff. Mrs. Fournier and Mrs. Lajaunie are humbled by this honor and are especially happy to win as a team, because their teamwork is the secret to the library's success. We appreciate your support and thank you, staff and faculty, for believing in what we do! Keep reading, Eagles.

Online Book Fair through 10/21

The Book Fair was an intergalatic success! Please feel free to access our online bookfair through 10/21 and buy more books. 25% of all sales go directly back to the FNE Library to buy library books for students. So far, we have raised $935 for the FNE Library. Hopefully we can get a little more through our online book fair. Thanks for your support, Eagles!

Library Mailmen

I'd like to introduce Ethan and Joseph. Ethan has been my mailman since he was in Kindergarten, for over a year now. Joseph is my other mailman that started a few months ago. They are neighbors and classmates, but also co-mailmen for the library. This means that they are experts in lots of various systems we have. They take my outgoing mail every day down to the office, sort it by interoffice mail and literal postal service mail, and put it in the correct spots. They, then get my new mail (and I have 3 mailboxes!), bring it back down, and sort it. They sort returned interlibrary loan books, do lots of deliveries for me all school for new students' ID cards, books that students have put on hold, receipts, permission slips, and all kinds of other deliveries. They make copies, punch holes in new badges and attach lanyards, sort returned books for me on the bookcarts, and shelve big books, all in about 10 minutes a day. They're quick and quiet and always responsible. The library wouldn't be a success without them! Thanks for all you do, mailmen!

Library Impact on Student Achievement

Mrs. Fournier here, blogging to you live from the Forest North Library. I'm already back in the saddle, Eagles, cataloging new books, designing the Forest North Bluebonnet Book program for this year, getting new technology ready for our classroom teachers, and helping teachers know what the library can do to help you learn! This morning, I gave a presentation to our teachers new to Forest North. They are a very articulate, motivated, beautiful bunch of teachers! Check out my Prezi to see what we plan to work on together this year. Learn more about making fancy presentations at Prezi.com.

It won't be long now. I look forward to seeing everyone's new haircuts, shiny shoes and summer tans!