Presenting Research

Earlier in the school year, you may remember that I was a lucky recipient of a RRISD PIE Foundation Grant where I won $1000 to buy new animal books for the library.  It's really paying off now as 1st and 2nd grade are working on their animal research projects!  We used these new books to learn facts about new animals, and 1st grade is putting them into a poster or book to present to their classmates and other audience.

We have invited the PIE Foundation Board Members to attend these presentations next week and are waiting for a response, fingers crossed! Check out this lesson we've been working on this week with our 1st graders to teach presentation skills.

Summer Reading!

Summer is almost here!  What will you read this summer?  Here are some tips to make sure you beat the dreaded summer slide!  Keep your reading mountain going higher and higher so you start next year at the same spot you left!

1.  Visit the Austin Public Library!  The Spicewood Branch is only a few miles from Forest North.  Get unlimited free checkouts with a library card.  Check out the amazing programs they're having this summer, too!  

2. Come visit Forest North during Summer Library Hours.  Our library will be open during the summer on these Tuesdays from 4:30-6:00 pm.  Come check out some books, play games with teachers, and see your friends!

• Tuesday, June 16th
• Tuesday, June 30th
• Tuesday, July 14th
• Tuesday, August 11th

3.  We'll also have our 2nd annual LIBRARY LOCK IN on Wednesday, July 29th, so save the date now!  More information on that to come!

4. Ways for librarians, teachers and parents to prevent summer slide!  Just a few ways listed in this article include turning on closed captioning on TV, cooking with a recipe, looking things up on the internet, having quiet time during each day to unplug from devices, read on the go, and limiting screen time.  It's all about increasing the number of words read, in any way!

5. Read something fun!  Find something that's interesting for you.  Here are some ideas:

• Next year's Texas Bluebonnet Award books for kids in 3rd-6th grades.
• Next year's Lone Star Reading List for middle school readers
• Adults should read too!  Check out this year's Lariat Reading List!
• Next year's 2x2 Reading List for readers 2 years - 2nd grade.
• The New York Times Best Seller List for middle grade fiction
• Horn Book Magazine's recommendations for newly independent readers ( entering1st-2nd)
• Horn Book Magazine's recommendations for intermediate readers (entering 4th-6th)
• Horn Book Magazine's recommendations for picture books (fiction & nonfiction)
• Most of all, read what YOU like.  Anything and everything counts as reading!
• Think you're too busy to read?  You're not!  Read on your way to your grandma's, while you wait at the doctor, while you're at your sister's swim practice.  Read in the edges and you'll always be in the middle of a book!

6. Make a list!  Remember we talked about this during our Thanksgiving Bookathon?  Always keep a list ready of books you want to read next so you're never stuck between books.  Good readers are never done with their "to be read" list.  Keep track of your list on goodreads or write it down!

7. Take a photo!  Make your title match your setting and save that snapshot for our annual Special Reading Spot Photo Contest!

5th Grade Book Club is "Boundless!"

Our 5th grade book club has been hard at work all year reading lots of young adult titles.  We've read Mazerunner, Eye of Minds, Cinder, & our latest title is Boundless by Kenneth Oppel.  We celebrated finishing that book earlier this week with some ginger beer.  It's kind of like root beer but with a spicy ginger zing!  Check it out!  

We'll be reading one more book for these kids zip off to middle school and a brand new world of cool young adult literature!  I'll miss these kids for sure.  Many of them have been my students for six years!  Forest North won't be the same without them!

Special Reading Spot Photo Contest Winners 2015!

We decorate the library walls each year with 10 blown up photos of our students reading in unusual or special spots. I'm excited to announce our winners who will be displayed for the 2015-2016 school year!  Check them out & congratulations to our winners.

Armadillo Readers Choice Voting & Battle of the Armadillos

Today we're getting right back into the swing of things with a couple of Armadillo Reader's Choice Award Voting Parties and Battle of the Armadillos!  Now we've had many Armadillo votes & dance parties before, and we've had lots of Battles of the Bluebonnets before, but this is our first time doing the Battle of the Armadillos!  Special thanks to Mrs. Miller over at Herrington Elementary for her amazing idea.  I'm so excited to try it with our K-2 classes.  Check out Mrs. Miller's class below getting it done.

Students will use iPads (courtesy of Ms. Bell, our lovely art teacher with a NextGen classroom) to scan this QR code and vote for their favorite book.  Then, we'll use the iPads to play a Kahoot where students answer 2 questions from each of the 10 Armadillo books, and the student with the fastest, most correct responses wins from each K-2 class.  Sounds fun, right?  Which book will win?  Only time will tell! See you on the flip side, readers!

 

Book Fair Under the Sea Wrap Up!

Dear Forest North,

Thanks so much to all the staff who dressed up for our Creatures from the Deep program, bought books, & made a wishlist for the Book Fair Under the Sea!  

Special thanks to the students Robotics and Theatre Club for having performances in the library to boost sales! Thanks to Mrs. Chadney for overlapping Field Day to give us a boost, too! Thanks so much to all the students and their families for supporting literacy & the library and making purchases at the book fair! A big thanks as well to our Book Fair volunteers who helped organize our helpers, decorate, help students make wishlists, serving as "personal shoppers" for students, and being a cashier.  Check out some of our helpers- not pictured are Terea Mills, Shelby Mills, and both Ethans - thanks y'all for helping Mrs. Vetter & me take the whole thing down!







Check out these facts:

• $6,576.43 worth of merchandise sold (a new all time high!) 
• $1600+ in profit earned.
• 52 books purchased as gifts for Teacher Appreciation this week. 
• After 6 years, I finally got Ms. Jacobs to dress up in a crazy costume.

Love,

Mrs. Fournier & Mrs. Vetter

Team Library

Book Fair Under the Sea Thursday Program!

On Thursday, we had an amazing night here at the Book Fair!  First of all, we set a record for Thursday sales at a Book Fair for the last 12 fairs!  That's amazing and great news for our students- every little bit helps us earn more money for new library books next year.

We had some special programs that helped earn us so much money.  The Robotics team shared their cool SUMO BOT competition with us.  We also had the Theater Club entertain us with some monologues and a great fractured fairy tale play!  Finally, we had a kid costume contest.  We had 7 awesome contestants and our winner was Madelyn in first grade.  Congratulations, Mermaid!

ROBOTICS SUMO BOT COMPETITION

THEATER CLUB PERFORMANCE

STUDENT COSTUME CONTEST PARTICIPANTS