Book Club @ Randerson



Students gathered, food was eaten, great books were discussed, laughter occurred...what more could one ask for in a book club?  Today's book club, discussing Carl Hiaasen's book Hoot, was a great success. The discussion flowed from characters, to events, to setting.  It was non-stop!  The detail and POV from students was tremendous, including Courtney empathising with Roy for moving so often.


Book Club enjoying snacks before discussion

It took no time at all to dive into the story and discuss what we really liked about the book and what might have been a bit of a stretch. 

Stephanie loved how empowering the story was for young people. If three teenagers can save the owls against a conglomerate than we could do something like that too.  Mercedes liked the book but felt Roy's ability to 'take off' for hours at a time without his parents knowing where he was ....was a bit unrealistic. Austin really liked the character development, especially Roy, Mullet Fingers and the teacher who cared enough to bring his whole class to the opening to help. Cassidy enjoyed the book but felt Roy's parents weren't realistic in that they didn't seem as upset as she thought they should have been when he went missing.  Max was intrigued by Mullet Fingers and his ability to live in the Everglades and

catch the very fast mullet fish. Grace has read the book 3x and seen the movie.  She loved the book! 

Everyone had read the book and seen the movie and felt the movie was a close actualization of the book. Hannah felt the movie accurately portrayed the characters and the story and though the teacher role played by Jimmy Buffett, was a little more developed I the movie.  Annika enjoyed both the book and the movie, especially Beatrice the Bear, a strong female character.  Austin thought is was very cool that Beatrice took on and beat, the school bully Dana. 

We had so much fun discussing Hoot that we jumped into talking about other books we are currently reading or have read and loved.  Titles include; Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass, Sisters 8 by Lauren Baratz-Logsted,  Dear Jo by Christina Kilbourne (all the kids that had read this one...loved it!), Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Long Haul, Fault in our Stars (some loved it, while others thought it was way too sad) and Spirit Animals. 

Our next book club book is A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park.  You have 7 weeks to read up.  All students in Gr. 5-7 are welcome.  Your only ticket in the door is that you have read the book.  See you in March. 

Mrs. Noesgaard's K's know what they like!

Today we looked at two books Me Hungry by Jeremy Tankard and Art's Supplies by Chris Tougas. 
After reading each book, the students shared their favourite parts of the story.  We wrote everyone's ideas down on our chart. 

Our kindergarten students were excellent detectives, picking out great details in each book.

 

 

 

After a lively discussion on what they liked about each book...and boy did they like each book... we took an opinion poll. 

 

Our first poll/survey asked :Did you like Me Hungry?  14 students voted yes

                                             Did you like Art's Supplies? 16 students voted yes

 

From our first poll we were able to determine that the majority of the class liked both books :)

 

Our second poll/survey asked:  Did you like Me Hungry best?  8 students said yes

                                                   Did you like Art's Supplies best?  12 students said yes

 

Students learned about liking a book vs choosing the best book of the two



 

We talked about how strong and powerful it is to have an opinion and that there are no wrong answers in an opinion poll.  We talked about how an opinion is even stronger when supported by evidence, in this case their reasons for liking the book.  Students were excited to vote and offer their opinion.  As expected many students rushed to take out both books.  They also were keen to offer their opinion on many other books in our library.  

 

Thank you Mrs. Noesgaard's kindergarten class for your wonderful opinions and enthusiastic discussion.  You made my day!

 

P.S.

Mrs. Martineau was introduced to Pinterest this past weekend. My 13 and 15 year-old daughters love this site and thought I might like it too.  Although I had signed up for it more than a year ago, I had never taken the time to learn how to optimize its usage. Actually, I had never taken the time to use it in any way.  Thankfully my girls can teach me a lot about cool tools. 

We began by setting up boards and adding pins.  It was fun and a great way to spend time with my daughters.  I started with looking up ideas for snacks for our upcoming book club and this led to looking up fun, curriculum based ideas to do with books and young students.  The above lesson is one I found on pinterest courtesy of
 teachingace.com.  Thank you teachingace it was a great lesson!
Thank you Paige and Delaney for showing me this cool tool. I love to learn new things. <3

 

 



 

Randerson Staff Learn more about Lexia

PLC (professional learning community) this week:


Randerson staff took part in a Lexia webcast.  Lexia Core 5 reading is a student driven, independent reading program that is being introduced to numerous schools in our district.

Week at a Glance

Randerson was busy this week with guests, concerts and workshops. 

Parents of our grade 1 students took part in a workshop on helping their child with their home reading program.  More than a dozen parents attended as we focused on Strong Reader Tools (copyright Terri Mack - Strong Nations), IPICK strategies used in our Daily 5 and the power of prediction, connections and questioning when learning to read. 

A highlight of the week was a concert by Dover's Senior concert band.  Band teacher Mr. Iriving and his students performed many of the latest pop hits and showcased instruments within the band. A fun time was had by all.  Thanks Dover!



Several school trustees visited Randerson as part of their tour of schools in our district. Mr. Mazzei led the group, highlighting Randerson's students, parents, staff and strong sense of community.  Thank you for visiting our school.



School Trustees visit Randerson Picture by Dale Burgos



       

Happy New Year 2015!

What a great week we have had at Randerson library.  Books, books and more books came back from students after a heavy dose of holiday reading :)   We shared book talks, shelfies and great books 'we' got for Christmas.  From K-7 there were non-stop discussions on books, connections, enjoyment and recommendations. There were students sharing books with friends, others recommending series, others speaking of their trips to the public library over the break.  Remember if you want to see a book in our library that we don't have, stop by and write it on the "recommended books" list.  I will be putting an order in next week. :)  Yeah to the power of FREE READING!!!

Some of the top reviewed books included;
Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Long Haul
Smile & Sisters
Cherub (the series is hugely popular with our Gr. 7 boys)

Author Terri Mack visists Randerson

Author Terri Mack joined us at Randerson today to share her new book Mouse Celebrates Winter Solstice.  I joined Mrs. MacDonald and her Gr. 2/3 class to learn why Terri wrote this book and the meaning behind it.  We learned about winter and summer solstice, about the 13 lunar moons each year and why Indigenous Peoples call North America Turtle Island.  Students showed keen interest in Terri’s lesson and loved looking at the detailed pictures drawn by artist Bill Henin.  We really liked how Bill included the constellations exactly how the stars will align in the northern hemisphere on December 21^st, the winter solstice.  We are going to look closely to try to find the crab that Bill hides in all of Terri’s books.

Author Terri Mack @ Randerson

Did you know the Bill is the first and only artist whose work has travelled to space?  Canadian Astronaut Dr. Robert Thirsk took Bill’s art up to the International Space Station.  Wow we thought that was pretty cool!  Thanks Terri Mack for coming to Randerson.

 

 Comments from the students included:

“I am very impressed with this book.” Aana

“The detail is so good it made me want to look closely at each page.” Natasha

“I like the story telling.”  Dylan

“I like how the sky and moon have First Nations art.” Sam

“I like how the snowflakes move with the wind.” Anu

“I like how she talks about everyone coming together.” Hirsh

Shelfies & Book Talks

We used the Pic Collage app for our shelfies

Mr. Nixon's Gr. 5/6, Mr. Rosenau's Gr. 4/5 and Ms. Burnham's Gr. 4 classes shared their shelfies this week, prompting a run on certain books in our library. Top books reviewed include Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne,  A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass and Diary of a Wimpy Kid The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney. Students book-talked their favourite books and discussed why their classmates might enjoy them. They shared their shelfies using the Pic Collage app on the iPad.

 What are shelfies?  Shelfies are a picture of

• three great books you have read recently
• stacked up like a book shelf
• in alphabetical and/or dewey order
• a picture of a book you want to read

Students led discussions on favourite authors like Wendy Mass and Kenneth Oppel, favourite series like Warriors and DOWK, and favourite genres ~ comedy, adventure, drama. Other students introduced their classmates to the mysteries of The Hardy Boys,  Inkheart and Conspiracy 365.  Various non-fiction books were also shared including 365 Things to Make and Do by Usborne and The Audubon Field Guides.