RES Library Media Center News

One mentor "text:"  The Terrible Two  book trailer professionally produced by Abrams Books As part of their current unit on persuasive writing, third graders will be writing book trailers to convince their classmates to read the books they recommend. A book trailer is like a movie trailer: it's a short video advertisement that tells an audience a little about a book. The third grade scholars have been watching book trailers made by professionals who work for book publishing companies, and also book trailers made by other students around the country. These book trailers will be their mentor "texts," examples they can refer back to, when they start to write their own. The third graders have already come up with some great lists of things to include (and avoid) based on these mentor texts. We can't wait to see the book trailers written by our own scholars!  The links below will take you to some of the other book trailers we have b...

2014-2015 Red Clover nominee  A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin  by Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet First and second graders are enjoying this year's Red Clover books in the RES library. Named after Vermont's state flower, the Red Clover Award is Vermont's children's choice award for picture books. Every year, a group of teachers and librarians puts together a list of  10 fiction and nonfiction Red Clover books. Students who read or listen to at least five titles from the list get to vote on their favorite book. Their votes, along with votes from students all over the state, help choose the Red Clover Award winner. Scholars are practicing their critical thinking skills while they are discussing these books in library classes. Our questions to focus on are: do I like or dislike this book, and why? What specific details in the text or illustrations make me think this book is interesting or boring, beautiful or ugly, serious or funny? This wee...

January 15 is National Thank Your Mentor Day ! We would like to thank all the library reading mentors who read aloud to our kindergartners and first graders during library classes. These volunteers include RES parents, students from Camels Hump Middle School, educators from the RES and CHMS communities, and members of the Richmond community. These dedicated people model the joys of reading for our youngest scholars, and we appreciate them very much.

  Fourth graders teaching each other Scratch computer programming  during Hour of Code December 2014 at the RES library, by the numbers: Number of library books and other materials checked out by RES scholars, families, and staff: 1184 -- that's 85 per day.  Number of scholar visits to the library: over 700 (15 classes per week plus individual visits)  Number of checkouts for our most popular book: 8 for Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping by Melanie Watt   Number of audio and video book commercials created by fourth graders in enrichment library classes: 21 (you can see them all here ) Number of fourth graders who wrote computer programs during Hour of Code activities in enrichment library classes: 48 (try out their interactive Scratch games here )