RES Library Media Center News

To all RES students and families: here are some ways to keep your winteriffic reading going during holiday break: Read or listen to the books on the TumbleBooks website ! Great books and readalouds you can enjoy on your computer or tablet. Visit the Richmond Free Library!  The Richmond Free Library Visit the Richmond Free Library! The RFL is located at 201 Bridge Street in Richmond Village, right across from the post office. You can get a free library card there and check out books galore. The RFL's holiday hours and other information are available on the RFL website . Let me know what you have been reading this holiday break by filling out the form below! I will share this list of books with our entire RES community of readers when we return in January. To see what other RES readers are enjoying so far, click this link . Loading... Have a wonderful break! - Beth Redford, RES Teacher Librarian

RES fourth graders writing computer code with  Scratch programming language Fourth graders at RES are learning to write short computer programs in their Enrichment Library classes. They are using the Scratch programming language, which was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an engaging introduction to programming for students and other beginners. These activities are part of the nationwide Hour Of Code initiative to encourage young people to try writing or "coding" computer programs. Our scholars worked hard and helped each other as they were coding! Here's one program written in Scratch by an RES fourth graders. Check out the others online at the RES Scratch Page ! Click the green flag to start Press the spacebar for other fun! More information about Hour of Code can be found at the links below: Hour of Code video Hour of Code website Scratch is a free programming language! You can program with ...

RES fourth graders have been learning about advertising and media literacy in their enrichment library classes. As culminating projects, the fourth graders created their own commercials for books they wanted to recommend to others. Their goals for these projects were to provide some information about the books to use at least two advertising strategies to convince other people to read them Students were able to choose the format of the commercials: audio or video which books to promote which advertising strategies to use We are very proud of their work! Take a look at the advertising strategies in the photo at the bottom of this blog post and see if you can identify the strategies in the different commercials. We hope you enjoy these first few samples; we will be adding additional commercials to the enrichment library class blog, ThinkCreateCollaborate , as they are completed. - Darcie Rankin, RES Enrichment Teacher and Beth Redford, RES Teacher Librarian Mrs. Berline...

Author-Illustrator Mini Grey Kindergartners are learning more about authors and illustrators in their library classes. This week we began sharing books written and illustrated by Mini Grey. Our first book was Ginger Bear, which reminded the scholars of their own gingerbread hunt! After we share books by Mini Grey, we will start reading books by Margie Palantini. Mrs. Palatini is an author but not an illustrator, so we will have a chance to learn about the many different artists who have illustrated her books. Author Margie Palatini all images from amazon.com

Author Juli Brenning shares her book Maggi and Milo with RES scholars on November 19 November 2014 at the RES library, by the numbers: Number of library books and other materials checked out by RES scholars, families, and staff: 1562  -- that's 104 per day in our three weeks of school this month Number of scholar visits to the library: over 800 (15 classes per week plus individual visits) Number of checkouts for our most popular book: 7 for El Deafo by Cece Bell , a comic book memoir about the author's childhood Number of scholars who learned about the writing process firsthand from our fabulous visiting author, Juli Brenning: over 200 . We can't thank Juli enough for sharing her time and talents with us! Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Miss Darling's second graders in the library on November 21

Fourth graders have started a unit on media literacy in their enrichment library classes. We began by brainstorming a list of types of media, then continued by discussing advertising strategies. The scholars have been evaluating magazine ads to see if they can identify what strategies the advertisers use. We have been impressed with the critical thinking our scholars have been using about the messages that surround them every day! Here's a video that shows some of their thinking.

October 2014 at the RES library, by the numbers Number of library books and other materials checked out by RES scholars, families, and staff: 2241 --  that's  107 per day Number of scholar visits to the library:  over 1,000  (15 classes per week plus individual visits) Number of new library volunteers: 3 , which brings our total to 15 . Thank you all very much! We're still looking for volunteers for kindergarten library classes on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Please contact Mrs. Redford if you're interested. Number of checkouts for our most popular book:  13  for  Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace , a 2014-2015 DCF book being read by our fabulous fourth graders

Third graders have been visiting the library to find library books about animals as part of their current Writing Workshop unit: Information Writing. These scholars will be writing informational books about hedgehogs, bearded dragons, mountain goats...and that's just the beginning of the list! They are using these library books to learn about the habitats, physical features, and life cycles of their animals so they have plenty of information to include in their own books. In upcoming weeks Mrs. Redford will be going to third grade classrooms to work with scholars during their writing times. Here are just a few of the books our scholars will be using:

First graders are sharing fairy tales in their library classes and learning about the story elements many fairy tales have in common. They are especially enjoying their conversations about good and bad characters in these famous old stories. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the wild animals are bad and the people are good ( Red Riding Hood ) but sometimes the wild animals are good and the person is bad ( Goldilock s)? Over the next few weeks we will be reading several of James Marshall's retellings of fairy tales. All images from barnesandnoble.com

Learning to quote, paraphrase, and cite information on Crazy Hair Day Fourth graders at RES visit the library once a week for a combined enrichment and library class. More information about the class is available at our class blog, ThinkCreateCollaborate . Mrs. Rankin, our enrichment teacher, and Mrs. Redford co-teach this class in which students learn to use information and technology resources. Throughout the year, the scholars complete several research projects based on topics they choose themselves. They also learn different creative uses of technology, such as building wordclouds like those shown in the photo below. wordclouds based on students' research interests Internet use - green, yellow, and red sites Fourth graders also use their enrichment library time to select and enjoy books and audiobooks. reading mysteries listening to a DCF audiobook

Second grade library classes have been sharing folk tales from around the world. We have been connecting the retellers' storytelling styles to the scholars' own storytelling in their classroom Writing Workshops. We have enjoyed folk tales from the countries of India ( One Grain of Rice , shown above), Liberia, Japan, Wales, and Benin (Dahomey). all cover images from Amazon.com