Presenting Armadillo Readers Choice Award at TLA

I had the best time presenting today at the 2018 Texas Library Association annual conference. Two of my favorite librarians, Emily Kupersztoch and Stephanie Inzana, and I, were thrilled to share The Armadillo Readers Choice Award with a packed room of hundreds of librarians! We hit capacity and were so excited! Check out our presentation.

TASL Media / Virtual Presence Award Nomination

I'm excited to announce that I've been nominated for the Texas Association of School Librarian's Media and Social Presence Award. This award is "given to those school librarians who show excellence in their virtual presence through several different avenues, including but not limited to Twitter, professional websites, Facebook, school library websites, blogs, Pinterest, and other social media. Winners for this award will be selected by the TASL MVP Award Committee."

We will find out the winner of this award at the Texas Library Association annual conference in late April, but it is truly an honor just to be nominated! 

Mrs. Fournier Meets LeVar Burton

I had an incredible experience at TLA this year. I got to meet one of my biggest inspirations as a reader, teacher and librarian- LeVar Burton. When he first came out on stage at TLA as our opening session speaker, 1,000 librarians were thrilled as he invited us to sing! We all sang the theme to "Reading Rainbow" together. His speech was awesome, weaving in attributes of technology, reading, freedom to choose your own things to read, and his various projects throughout the years.

After his speech, people could go buy his new picture book and get them signed.  I got to meet LeVar Burton! It was truly a dream come true for me! I told him that he was a big reason why I was a librarian, and that my daughter, Harper, loves to sing the theme to "Reading Rainbow."  He told me to tell Harper that LeVar loves her!

Texas Library Association Conference 2016

Mrs. Young and I were so excited to attend the 2016 Texas Library Association Conference in Houston last week.  We missed Forest North a lot, but we came back energized with lots of new ideas about how to make the library even better for our students and staff!

I participated in a session called "Speed Dating the Bluebonnet Books."  Librarians pay to come to this session to raise money for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and they get to rotate around about 20 tables, meeting authors or Texas Bluebonnet committee members to get background and programming ideas about the books.  They also get many of next year's books for free and can get them signed by the authors.  As an outgoing committee member, I showed up to help, but Doreen Cronin was unable to attend because of the terrible weather affecting Houston.  Suddenly, Doreen's publisher, Michelle, and I were in charge of presenting Ms. Cronin's book Chicken Squad, to all of the rotating librarians!  We came up with a short presentation and had a blast presenting it to tons of librarians!

Ursula Vernon, author of Hamster Princess

Cassie Beasley, author of Circus Mirandus

Josh Lieb, author of Ratscalibur

Joel Ross, author of Fog Diver

RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" Practice for State Competition

The RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" have been working since winter break to get ready for our entry in the Book Cart Drill Team State competition at the Texas Library Association conference.  We practice late in the evenings and write and record our songs on the weekends to get ready for this celebration of libraries and reading! I write the songs with some of my fellow team members, and do all the singing and rapping myself!  We have two new members this year, featured in the very front of this photo, including Forest North co-librarian Mrs. Young!  We're hoping to defend our state title and win the competition again this year.  Fingers crossed! Check out some of our older performances in these videos below:

2010

2011

2012

2015

#txla15 - Texas Library Association Annual Conference 2015

What a whirlwind week I had last week.  I was gone from Forest North (missed you guys!) for four days to participate in the Texas Library Association Annual Conference 2015, which was here in Austin, TX.  I co-emceed a Texas Bluebonnet Award Speed Dating Session where 192 librarians from around the state paid to learn about next year's list that my committee & I picked.  I participated in the 2015 Book Cart Drill Team Challenge (and we won, finally!) with 8 of my fellow RRISD librarians.  I also helped present the One Book, One Community: Share the Wonder, Choose Kind project that RRISD librarians participated in across the community last year.  I was honored to work on such amazing teams and with such amazing people.  I love my job!  Check out some of the fun I had!

RRISD "Hip Hop Librarians" win state Book Cart Drill Team Competition

Mrs. Fournier and her librarian friends get so excited each year to compete in the Book Cart Drill Team Competition.  This year was especially great because for the first time, we won!  Check out these videos of our performances, and our article in the San Antonio Express News all about our win!  Mrs. Fournier helps write the words, and does all of the singing and rapping on all of the songs.  She has helped with engineering some years, but not in the 2014 song. She edited some of the movies below, and is working on editing a great version of the 2014 performance, as well.

5th Grade Lunch Bunch Wrap Up

Have you ever done a simultaneous supertaster test with 35 fifth graders?  I have and it was awesome!

35 fifth graders stuck with me from October through December, meeting during lunch in the library twice a week to listen to the audiobook of Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead, a 2014-2015 Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee.  #txbluebonnetaward I really admire their persistence and willingness to stick to a goal and finish strong.  We loved the plot twists at the end.

On the last day, we did a taste test similar to the one in the book, but more an opposite, because instead of just a few people not tasting anything, most of us tasted nothing.  In the book, they tasted for PROP.  We tasted for the supertaster gene.  Check out these students right before they taste it!

It was a blast, guys.  Thanks so much for eating lunch with me in the library the past few months!

Texas Book Festival on Saturday, 10/25!

It's my favorite time of year - the Texas Book Festival!  This special annual festival celebrates reading & books, and has tons of fun, free, family-friendly entertainment. This year is especially great because for the first time, STUDENTS are presenting the next year's Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees.  We are especially lucky this year because 16 lucky Forest North students will be part of this amazing announcement, coached by Ms. Lynch, 3rd grade teacher, and myself.  Come see us at 1:00 on Saturday to watch them present next year's list to an eagerly awaiting crowd of authors, teachers, librarians, and readers from across the country.  Our amazing, adorable, talented, well-read 16 student presenters are:

Ceil Raia (3rd)

Sean Lee (3rd)

Aiden Allgood (3rd)
Lola Mutz (3rd)
Luke Contreras (3rd)

Savannah Ivey (3rd)

Talia Simpkins (3rd)

Da'quan Martin (4th)

Bianca Sanchez (4th)

Lilian Quach (4th)

Hondo Sanchez (4th)

Sebastian Guerra (5th)

Abiha Zulfiqar (5th)

Cecilio Sanchez (5th)

Christopher McKinney (5th)
Mercedes Salazar (5th)

Teachers Read Texas Bluebonnet Award nominees at Forest North

Here at Forest North, 3rd-5th teachers really love to participate with their students.  We have many teachers (Ms. Bell, Mrs. Peyton, Mrs. Koester, Mrs. Stewart, Mrs. Rhea & Ms. Lynch) who are planning on reading all 20 nominees this year and participating in the Battle of the Bluebonnets here on campus!

Check out these dedicated Eagle staff members as they talk about which was their favorite Bluebonnet nominee so far this year.

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!

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!

Library Nights

Attention Eagles! We have had 5 Bluebonnet Book Award Library nights throughout the summer! Many kids have a huge head start on reading 5 Bluebonnet Book Award nominees. All 3rd-5th graders who read 5 or more books are eligible to vote in the voting party. Last year's voting party had 37 kids come and play "Just Dance" on a Nintendo Wii, Bluebonnet Book Bingo, and received a free book and poster courtesy of Scholastic. We have all Bluebonnet Books available for checkout here at the Forest North Library, but they are also available at any branch of the Austin Public Library or for purchase at any local bookseller with children's literature. For a list of the Bluebonnet Book Award nominees this year, click here.

Mrs. Fournier is attending the Texas Library Association Annual Conference this week in San Antonio. She is learning about new books and new ideas to keep our library rockin' and rollin'!

One panel Mrs. Fournier really liked was on books and censorship. One author who spoke on the panel was Jude Watson of the 39 Clues series! Mrs. Fournier knows we have a bunch of 39 Clues fans here at Forest North, so she asked Jude (her real name is Judy!) for a picture!

See you next week, Eagles- I miss you!