Happy Halloween!

I'm happy to be back in the Media Center this week!  It will be a busy one!  Linda will be out on Monday and Tuesday, so please be patient with me as I try to check in and out books!  Thanks!

Reader's Theater begins this week!  I hope to see them as soon as they can get to the Media Center.  I will start at 8:45 and go until 9:05.  The list is in the email from Rebecca Galloza.  Thanks!

In honor of the holiday this week, I have some fun choices for Kindergarten!

1. They are:  Too Many Pumpkins and a pumpkin sequencing activity, this would also include a Smartboard pumpkin life cycle activity.
2. Click, Clack, Boo!  Farmer Brown doesn't like Halloween, see how the animals help him enjoy it!  The activity that goes with this is a little book called What Will I be...
3. Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf,  and an Autumn Leaf Book.
4. The Strange Visitor, a flannel board story.

I will also be starting WiggleWorks this week.  Don't panic!  I have added all of the names of your students, if you haven't already.  Thanks to those of you who entered your students' names!  You might also want to go in and set the levels for your students.

I also have some fun choices for PreK!

Pumpkin Faces, Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Halloween Bugs, Bugs that go Bump in the Night, or Leaf Man.

Have a FUN week!

Busy Week!

Laminating...
If you would like to laminate, either email, call us, or come down and write your name on the little card above the laminator.  Sometimes we don't know who turned it on, and then we turn it off.  It only takes 15 minutes to warm up, so let us know and we will be happy to help!  Thanks!

This week I will be at GLAD training Tuesday-Friday.  I have a great sub, Carole Gerloff, who taught kindergarten here at Dierzen for many years.  She is also Beth Miller's sister!  I know she will do a great job!

Also this week, Katie, Jen, and Nuria will be doing the Second Step assessments during Media Center time for the Kindergarten classes.  

For the K classes, we will be reading either Fall is for Friends, or A Tree is Nice, which ever book your class did not get last week.  If this doesn't go with what you are doing, we also could read, Whoever you are by Mem Fox-- to go with the Second Step curriculum.

For PreK  I will read A Tree is Nice to the classes studying trees, and Can I Play too? or Watch me Throw the Ball for the classes doing the Balls unit.

As always, if you have any questions, or comments, please let me know!

Have a Great Week!!

Thanks so much!

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of those who helped with the book fair!  It went well!  We cleaned up so fast that I could go out too!  We brought in over $3000.00!  I think this is awesome!  Thanks to all who helped in anyway possible!

This week in the Media Center we are going to be looking at feelings or fall or trees!  For Kindergarten the choices are:

1. A Tree is Nice
2. Fall is for Friends
3. The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
4. When Sophie Gets Angry, Really really angry!

In technology, we can do WiggleWorks, or visit "Pierre, the Acorn" on the U of I website!

In PreK, I can read, My Many Colored Days,  How are you Peeling?, or a book about trees, if that's what theme you are working on now.

Have a great week!

Book Fair Week!

The Book Fair is almost here!  Be looking for the "Book Fair-oh" during conferences!  Please turn in your wish lists as soon as you can.  There will be Spanish books at the fair, so if you need to wait until it is open, that is fine too!  We will be setting up at 11:30 on Wednesday, and the fair is set to open at 1:00.  If you have any time I could really use some help!  I could especially use help for the clean-up at 9:00 on Thursday. I know that it's a lot to ask, but many hands make light work and we could be done in no time with lots of help!  Thanks!

In Kindergarten this week, I will be reading Book Fair Day!  Then we will watch part of the book fair video. We will also be playing  BookFlix on the computers.  Have you had a chance to check it out?  It is a really cool program that has a fiction video paired with a non-fiction book.  If you choose to use it, the user name is vdelc and the password is bookflix.  We were able to purchase it with book fair dollars last year.

In PreK this week we will be watching Yuck! Stuck in the Muck.  It is on Storia, a free app, also from Scholastic.  If you would like information about it, a flyer will be available at the Book Fair.

I am in the midst of moving all of the Spanish books to their own section.  They are all separated at the moment, but not quite all on the shelves as yet.   In doing this process, I have found we have quite a few interesting books!  Did you know we have more non-fiction books in Spanish, than fiction books?  I have also purchased many books relevant to the common core. Come down and take a look! 

The laminator is working well now!  If you need to use it, please let Linda O'Brien or I know when you need it. Please give us 15 minutes head start, so it will be ready for you.  If anyone has any ideas on how to save laminating film, please let me know!  Everytime some one uses the laminator, about 12 inches of film is wasted.  Each roll of film is about $28.00 and we use 2 rolls at a time.  If we keep at the same rate we have been, we will run out by Winter break!  

All the classes have been set up in Wiggle Works.  If you go into the program and click on Manager, you can log in using the password: teacher.  If it doesn't work, it could be that someone else is trying to use it at the same time.  For some reason, it will only allow one person at a time to use the Manager feature.  If you don't know how to add names or have any other questions, please let me know!

Have a great week!

October, here we come!

The Book Fair is coming!

  I have been given the opportunity to  be responsible for the book fairs this year.  I am excited to be able to get even more books into the hands of our students!  This week we will be putting the flyers into your mailboxes so that you can pass them out on Monday, October 6th!  Also, I will be putting "Teacher Wish List" forms into your box.  Sometime during, or even before conferences, come down and choose what books you would like and write them on the forms.  Many families like to purchase books for your classroom.  The theme is Egyptian this year and it will be a "Cool Place to discover Hot books!" (No, I didn't make that up, it comes from Scholastic!)

In Kindergarten, I have some choices for you, for your read aloud: (please respond to my email with your choice- thanks!)

1. Fire! Fire! by Gail Gibbons
2. A Tree is Nice by Janice Udry
3. Martha Doesn't Say Sorry (to go with Second Step)

In technology we will continue to use Book Flix!  This program we were able to get through Scholastic Book Fair money!  It is a great program that pairs a fiction video of a book, and a non-fiction book on the same subject.  For example, Click, Clack, Moo!  is the video, and the book is about dairy cows.  If you want to use it in your classroom, the user name is vdelc and the password is bookflix.  If you notice that it is running slowly, it may because too many people are using it at once.  It is a streaming video!  The kids who have used it seem to like it!
Also in technology news, WiggleWorks is coming.  I take the time to show the kids how to use each part of WiggleWorks, even the part where they can read to the computer (that's why we have microphones in the Media Center!)  I need your help with this one!  Please enter your students names into the program under your class so that when we start it will be all ready for them!  I will add the classes, so you can add the names and the reading levels for your students.  If you are having difficulty with this, please ask me, I would love to help!  Thanks!

For PreK this week I will read either, Daisy the Fire Cow or My Truck is Stuck. Please let me know if you won't be coming to library because of the Fire Safety Fair.  Thanks!

Our Library will be getting a new look!  On Friday, I will begin to pull all of our Spanish books and put them in their own section.  This is a direction that the entire district is taking so that we can match what they do at the Woodstock Public Library.  I will make a Bilingual section as well.  Hopefully this will make it easier for everyone to find those Spanish and Bilingual books!  

Since we have gotten such a positive response to the t-shirts, I will be putting in a new order.  The order forms should be here this week!

Have a great week!

Fall is here!

I hope you all have been enjoying the beautiful fall weather this weekend!

It has come to my attention that more people would like Dierzen staff t-shirts.  I need to know how many people are interested in order to make it worthwhile for an order.  They may be a bit more expensive because our supplier needs to remake the screens.  Please let me know if you are interested!

This week in the Media Center we are almost done doing the CPAA testing!  Please let me, or Christie Brown know if you have students that still need to be tested.

In Kindergarten this week, the Dual Language classes will be hearing Nico and Lola, Kindness shared between a boy and a dog.  The mono-lingual classes will hear either The Gingerbread Man Gets Lost, or Sometimes I Feel Silly!  If you have a preference for either of these, please let me know!  In technology, they will either do Jolly Phonics Fun! on the Smartboard, or will learn how to use our new program, BookFlix.  BookFlix pairs a fiction and a non-fiction book for the children to listen to on the computer.  Once all of the classes have learned how to use it, I will give you the login and password so you can use it in your classrooms as well.

For our PreK friends, we will be following directions by listening to Eric Carle's From Head to Toe, and learning a little sign language in Simply Signs by Cindy Wheeler.

Have a great week!

Fall arrives this week!

This week in the Media Center the Dual Language Kindergarten classes will continue the CPAA testing on the computers.  The monolingual classes will hear a story, Nico and Lola, about a boy who shows kindness to a dog.  We will also be trying a new computer program, BookFlix, purchased for us by PTO with Book Fair dollars.

Some of the PreK classes will be on a field trip to Woodstock Public Library during their Media Center time.  Other classes will be testing on the computers.  Still others will hear The Little Engine That Could. 

If you would like me to do something different with your class, please let me know!  I like to do different things with different classes!

I will be out of the building on Wednesday for an Elementary Library Media Specialists meeting.

Have a Great Week!