National Library Week - April 12-16, 2014

To celebrate National Library Week, we introduced Chris Grabenstein and his new book, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, which is an award winning chapter book and a Beehive Nominee for next year.

In Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library twelve-year-old Kyle gets to stay overnight in the new town library, designed by his hero (the famous gamemaker Luigi Lemoncello), with other students but finds that come morning he must work with friends to solve puzzles in order to escape.Destiny Quest

Meet the Author: As a child, Chris Grabenstein would perform puppet shows with his brothers. The only people who paid to attend were his parents. In middle school and high school his teachers told him he would be a writer when he grew up. When he was older he moved to New York with six suitcases and very little money. In New York he wrote advertisements for Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, 7Up, and many more companies. He wrote for television as well. He was part of a comedic improvisational group including a young Bruce Willis. Robin Williams would sometimes drop by and enjoy doing improv with the group as well. Chris has co-authored books with James Patterson. I, Funny is one of them. The sequel, I Even Funnier, came out in December, 2013. To learn more about Chris visit his website at chrisgrabenstein.com

April is National Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month at Bella Vista! We celebrated by reading five different poems about dogs from different poetry books and the students voted on which ones they liked. Their favorite poem was "Mr. Beefy" from Once I ate a Pie. The second favorite poem was the book, Dogku. These poems were shared during story time to help me complete a district media module assignment. 

Before the book, Dogku was read to the students they were taught what a haiku is. They held their fingers up for the syllables in each line: 5,7,5 as the haikus from Dogku were read to them. Third through fifth grade students had the opportunity to write their own animal haikus in class and return them to the library when done. A teacher commented on this optional activity being very refreshing for the students to be creative, write and color. She said it was a nice fifteen minute break from testing. The haikus have been hanging up on the library windows through the month of April.

Fairytales and Fractured Fairytales

Bella Vista's Library Media Center is showcasing fairytales and fractured fairytales. A fairytale is a children's story about magical and imaginary beings and lands. A fractured fairytale is a children's story that uses common fairytales then changes the characters, setting point of view or plots. Here are some examples:

Fairytales                                                 Fractured Fairytales

Cinderella                                               The Rough Faced Girl

The Three Little Pigs                              The Dassies 

The Gingerbread Man                           The Stinky Cheese Man… 

Little Red Riding Hood                          Lon Po Po 

Jackie Robinson, A Life of Determination

"Take me out to the ball game..." Baseball season is here!  The biography of Jackie Robinson, one of the greatest baseball players to ever live, was read to the Kindergarteners and first graders this week during story time.  The students learned what it means to have determination. According to the book, determination is deciding to do something and not giving up.

Jackie Robinson, A Life of Determination 
by Colleen Sexton

 

"Jackie showed the world how determination 

can help make dreams come true."

After the story, students explained their own determination with learning how to read, play baseball, soccer, basketball, the piano or violin and more!  These students are working hard, even when it isn't easy.

Bella Vista Tigers have determination!

Announcing the Beehive Winning Books for 2014 Featuring Author Brandon Mull

2014 Beehive Book Awards Night

featuring author 
Brandon Mull

Saturday, April 19 at 7:00

Free and open to the public

5:30 p.m. Beehive Awards Dinner & Announcements

($25/members or $35/non-members)

For more information or to RSVP for dinner, visit www.clau.org

The Veridian Center

8030 S. 1825 W., West Jordan

Brandon Mull is a New York Time's Best Selling author of children's chapter books. His latest book, Sky Raiders, book one from the Five Kingdoms series, was released on March 11, 2014.  He has also penned the Fablehaven series, the Beyonders series, Candy Shop Wars series, and the Animal Spirits series. Wild Born, book one of the Animal Spirits series was released on September 10, 2013.
To see the Beehive Winners for 2014 click the link to Children's Literature Association of Utah:
clau.org

New Books are Here and Disney's Frozen Tops the Book Wish Lists!

A new book shipment is here with books spanning interest level and educational purpose for kindergarteners through fifth graders. By the end of the week of class visits when the new books were introduced, over 140 holds for new books were requested by students! Which book was placed on hold more than any other?  Disney's Frozen. There were 37 holds on this book alone and more students request this book daily. Of course we want to meet student demand for this book, so we asked teachers to consider purchasing this book for their classrooms and we purchased more copies for the library as well. Parents may want to consider purchasing this book as a reward for excellent grades at school or for a birthday gift. We now have book one in the series, Spirit Animals by Brandon Mull (author of Fablehaven, Candy Shop Wars, & Beyonders).

Other student favorites are the sports books, especially the Olympic athletes. The two most popular sports books are Usain Bolt, a biography about the life of the fastest runner on earth today and Gabby Douglas, an Olympic Champion in gymnastics. Also popular are the new Pete the Cat picture books, origami books, Katie Woo easy chapter book series, Lego Chima,  books on real life scary places, such as the Tower of London, Paris Catacombs and Alcatraz. Also popular are the I Survived chapter book series and much more!

 

  

Dr. Seuss

 

Dr Seuss

1904-1991

Hooray! This week we are celebrating Dr. Seuss's Birthday (which is on Sunday March 2). Did you know that a publisher made a bet with Dr. Seuss that he could not write a book with 50 words or less.  Well he did, "Green Eggs and Ham".   Here are some more fun facts on Dr. Seuss:
- His real name is Theodor Seuss Geisel.
- He graduated from Dartmouth College.
- He wanted to be a cartoonist.
- He ended up working in advertising for 30 years
- 1937 he published his first book "And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street".
- 1957 he published "The Cat in the Hat", his 13th book.
- 1984 he was the winner of the pulitzer prize.
- He has an Acadamy Award, 3 Emmy Awards, 3 Grammy Awards, and 3 Caldecott Honors.
- He wrote and illustrated 44 books all of which are still in print today.
- His books are in print in over 12 languages.

 We would like to thank our wonderful Principal, Mr. Prescott, for the fun Dr. Seuss pencils, erasers, bookmarks and crayons!

 Dr. Seuss characters have taken over our Meet the Author wall in our school

Truffula trees have sprouted up all over our library.

For more fun with Dr. Seuss visit this website.

www.seussville.com