The 2 Steves at CAC

We are gearing up for our second author visit of the year, with not one but two authors coming to CAC on February 16 to 18. The 2 Steves, as British authors Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore are known together, will be presenting to the elementary and middle school. The 2 Steves write high-interest, low readability books in a choose-your-own adventure format that is very popular among our upper elementary school students. I have the good fortune to host them in China, at my previous school, and the visit was a huge success with students, teachers and parents. They are dynamic and fun, and we're in for a great time!

Want to lunch with the authors? Students, keep logging your minutes for the Million Minutes of Reading challenge because the top 12 readers in the MM will be invited to lunch with them. Log your minutes with integrity!

Visit their website, http://the2steves.net 

During the authors visit, Diwan Bookstore will be here selling copies of their books for signing, from 3:15 to 3:45 each day. These books were available at the December book fair, so if anyone already purchased a book, bring it to be autographed!

I made a mistake at the book fair and didn't purchase print copies of the books for the library. We will be getting a full set soon. Luckily, we have 28 ebook titles on Overdrive, and we have spent these last two weeks demonstrating to grade 3 to 5 students how to access them. 

Overdrive is the web service that holds our ebook collection. To access our ebooks, patrons will need their CAC single-sign-on username and password. Each patron can check out 3 books at a time, and read them (or listen to them in the case of audiobooks) on up to 3 devices. 

Here's how I've been teaching the grades 3 to 5 to access our Overdrive titles. 

1. Log in to the library catalog, http://library.cacegypt.org

2. Choose your division's library.

3. Log in to the library catalog with your CAC single-sign-on or the Quick Login. 

4. Scroll down the home page to the Overdrive icon and click. 

5. Enter your CAC single-sign-on again when prompted. 

6. Browse the collection from the main page or search for specific authors. 

To see the 2 Steves books, enter Steve Barlow or Steve Skidmore in the search field. 

Since the 2 Steves books are so popular, you may need to place a hold on the titles you are interested in. As soon as you finish a book, please return it. Overdrive will return books on the expiration date on its own, but since so many of us have holds on the books, please return them "manually." Come see us at the library if you don't know how. 

Here are instructions on using Overdrive from the Overdrive company.   Please note that because of regional restrictions, we cannot purchase books to be read on a Kindle. 

We Want Mr. Bagert Back!

Our preK teacher told me this morning that one of her preK students told her he wanted to "see Mr. Bagert again." That's probably true of all the CAC students who saw Mr. Bagert in action.

We had three dynamic days of presentations by Brod Bagert, during which he met with all the ES grade levels and 6th and 7th grade. He is an energetic performer and he kept us all wildly entertained during each of his assemblies.

As a teacher-librarian, I appreciated the humor in his presentations, his focus on writing from a child's perspective, and especially his tips on adding expression to your voice when performing: first make your face reflect the emotion you want to express, move your body to reflect that emotion, and then speak. When you do, your voice will express the feelings you want, without you having to think about how to do it. Your face does it for you!

But of all his advice, the best was certainly to "first, do your worst!" When sitting down to write, one should try to write as badly as possible. This means not paying attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation at first. Rewriting is very important because it is in rewriting again and again that we can make a piece better. He told us that he might rewrite a poem 50 times, each time looking for ways to make it a better poem. One of the fourth graders sitting near me, nodded his head, saying, "That makes sense." It makes great sense to me too, and I know we teachers will be reminding students of this important message for the rest of the year.

Here are some pictures from the presentations. They are taken from my very old phone, so they might not be very good photos, but they capture moments that were precious and filled with fun.

Poets, authors and character dress ups

November is turning out to be pretty busy in the library. Not only are we reading for the Million Minutes Challenge and researching for non-fiction and social studies units in almost all of the grade levels, but we also have several big dates coming up.

November 11 - Poetry Open Mic at the Parent Picnic

Students in grades 2 to 5 are invited to sign up to read a poem aloud at the Parent Picnic this week. There is a sign up sheet in the library and I'm asking all students to show me the poem they're going to read and read it to me. This is to give them a little rehearsal before they "go on stage." On the Parent Picnic, we will have a microphone set up and students who have signed up can come up to perform their poems. Poems can be chosen out of our many poetry books or be self-written.

November 17 - Character Dress Up Day & Library Assembly

All students, teachers and parents are invited to dress up as a favorite character from the classics, to celebrate reading and CAC's 70th anniversary. Click here to visit my Character Dress Up Pinterest board. Store bought costumes are okay, but it really is more fun to create your own. 

We will be parading at the library assembly on November 17, but please be reminded that the focus of the assembly is not the character costumes. Rather, it is a celebration of literacy at our school and therefore we have other items to perform in addition to a short parade. Ms. Sarah Gauch, author of Voyage to the Pharos, will perform a few pages of her new book, The Tomb Robber and King Tut. Ms. Gauch visited CAC two years ago when her first children's book came out and we are delighted to have her join us again. In addition to read aloud at the assembly, she will be working with the grade 3 Egypt Culture classes that day. 

November 29 to December 3 - PTO Annual Book Fair

Although not strictly a library event, we are happy to support the PTO Annual Book Fair. This year, the PTO have invited four different vendors, so we are sure to have a good variety of books. Please consider volunteering with the PTO to help students navigate the vendors. We will not have a schedule of class visits for another week or so, so do sign up to come help any student and then come with your own children at a separate time. 

December 1 to 3 - Author Visit by poet Brod Bagert

Poet Brod Bagert will visit CAC the first week of December. He will be working with ES and MS students, and will be autographing copies of his books which will be on sale at the book fair. Visit Mr. Bagert's website here:  www.brodbagert.com.