The library is decorated for the holidays, and I must say it looks amazing. My fifth grade junior library assistants helped me put up the tree, and even decorated the tree skirt. I let them each sign their name so I will remember over the years who made the tree skirt.
The library has received some gifts for this holiday season. We just received 3 new large bean bag chairs and a beautiful rug for our reading area. I have to rearrange some shelves soon to make room for the rug, but it will be ready soon. The bean bag chairs are already getting a lot of use.
We also finally received our eBooks in the Hillside catalog. The students were so excited when I told them about the eBooks, and already I have almost half of the eBooks in use and checked out now. It made my heart happy that the kids were so excited about books.
Alright, let's talk books now! Kindergarten has been comparing stories in the library. In their classes, kinder students have been reading and listening to different Gingerbread stories, such as The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Man, and The Gingerbread Girl. In the library, I read the kinder students The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires, then we discussed the similarities and differences.
First graders compared stories and made text-to-self connections in the library this month. We read the famous poem by Clement Moore, The Night Before Christmas. The students were upset that Rudolph was not in the story, so we had a discussion about how the poem was written before Santa found Rudolph and asked him to lead his sleigh. The following week, I read Texas Night Before Christmas by James Rice. The kids laughed at my southern Texan accent. After they finished giggling, we compared the two versions of the story.
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| This is one of my favorite versions. The illustrations are beautiful! |
Last Friday, the students had their house holiday parties. Each house had hot chocolate, made an ornament, and was able to invite their parents. The best part of my day was being able to go to my kids' house parties and seeing their bright smiles during the school day.
