21C Libraries for Parents: Digital Intelligence

Last week, we had our first official 21st Century Libraries for Parents session. Led by our new IT Director, Santha Kumar, we discussed ways in which to develop digital intelligence in our children at home.

According to the DQ Institute, digital intelligence is "is the sum of technical, mental and social competencies essential to digital life." Here at CAC, we are starting to discuss this term and develop ways in which to ensure that our students can improve their digital skills. Advisory classes in the middle school are currently focused on digital intelligence skills. Guidance lessons in the elementary school also have touched about this. (The ES counselor has published summaries of those lessons in the grade level blogs, if you are an interested CAC ES parent.)

Our meeting last week was well attended and very productive. As the parent of two Internet-loving teenagers, I had a particular interest in the session. Just knowing that I am not the only parent with concerns about the quality of information and media my children consume is a relief, and I valued the opportunity to discuss those concerns with other parents.

We will repeat the session this Wednesday, November 1, from 8 to 9 am in the MHS Library. This repeat session is by request from the ES room mothers who were decorating classrooms last Wednesday and couldn't attend. It is an issue worth discussing again and again.

The 21st Century Libraries for Parents series is programming that we design to serve the needs and interests of our parent community at CAC. Stay tuned for details on our next session. 

DEAR Assembly - thanks for joining us!

We had a quiet but purposeful start to our day this morning as we all Dropped Everything and Read at our first DEAR assembly of the 2017-2018 school year.

I'm reminded of the video clip that is going around on Facebook right now. It's an Navy officer recommending graduates of the University of Texas that they start the day by making their bed. He says that making your bed first thing in the morning, gives you a small dose of achievement right at the beginning of the day, and that by having one task done, you set yourself up for a productive rest of the day. (The video continues to cover most of the commencement address. See it here on Youtube.)

That's what starting the day reading with the ES school feels like. It's going to be a productive day because we had that great shared start.

Do you wish you were more of a reader? Here is a handy infographic by Jennifer LaGarde. It was designed for teachers, but can apply to all adults.   Click on it to zoom in.

Want to get social about reading with me? Join me on Goodreads. I'm fitziane. I've been a member since 2005 and I really enjoy keeping track of my books. I also love setting myself reading challenges. This year, for the fifth year in a row, I want to read 365 books. I'm a little behind but will catch up soon!

Mark your Calendars for End of Year Library Dates

Here are a few dates to pay attention to as we race towards the end of the school year.

Drop Everything and Read Assembly - May 2

Image credit: CAC ES photographers, Sherifa and Ragia

Our very first date has nothing to do with the end of the school year and everything to do with having time to build our CAC reading culture. Join us on May 2, at our usual assembly time for another DEAR assembly. Students should remember to bring a book to read on their arrival at school. Teachers and the library will also have baskets of books available. Parents, you are welcome to join us in reading.

Used Book Sale - May 10 and 11

Stop by our annual used book sale and purchase lots of inexpensive titles. These titles have been weeded from the CAC libraries and classrooms. We welcome donations of books, DVDs, puzzles, magazines in good condition.

21st Century Libraries for Parents - Overdrive - May 29

The CAC Libraries have a large and varied ebook and audiobook collection on the Overdrive Media Console. Join us on May 29, 2 to 3 pm in the MHS Library, as we show you (or review with you) how to access the Overdrive collection. Please be sure to download the Overdrive app on to your mobile device before the session as downloading it on the guest wifi network will take a long time.

Also, please check to make sure that you can log in to the library catalog using your CAC single sign on as you'll need that to access the Overdrive collection.

Check out dates

Image credit: Britannica Image Quest

Last day of checkout - Monday, May 22

All materials due back - Monday, May 29

Summer check out starts - Saturday, June 3

Flat Lily Visits CAC ES

You may have heard of Flat Stanley, the main character in the book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. It was published in 1964 and has been a second grade favorite ever since. Many second grade classes take on Flat Stanley projects and send a paper visitor off to the world. Receiving updates from the Flat Stanley from around the world, the second graders learn about geography and world cultures.

We were happy to  host a Flat Stanley of our own, sent by Ms. Fallon's class in Massachussetts. The paper doll's name is Flat Lily and she is a girl. Luckily for all of us, she arrived just in time for the Egypt Festival.

Flat Lily arrived the afternoon before our Egypt Festival. Just in time for all the cultural activities and performances!

Egypt Festival is a day long celebration of Egypt and is ably organized by our Arabic teachers. We have performances and activities that take advantage of the richness of our host country's culture, and the whole elementary school (ES) participates. 

We started the day with an assembly where different grade levels presented numbers they prepared in their Arabic and Egypt Culture classes. There were dances, songs and skits all related to Egypt past and present. 

Our favorite was grade 2's number, when they listed facts about Egypt in Arabic and English. 

(Did you notice the background tapestry in the theater? It was created by one of the Egypt Culture assistants and is absolutely stunning.)

On the day of Egypt Festival, we all dress up in traditional Egyptian dress. Egypt is a big country and there are many different styles of dress, but they are mostly a variation of a tunic, called "galabeya." Galabeyas are worn by both men and women. The men's galabeyas are usually more somber, with pinstripes and solid colors. The women's galabeyas are often decorated with bright and colorful embroidery. Here is a grade 2 class sitting in the Egyptian tent which houses CAC's Arabic language collection in the library. Most of them are wearing a galabeya, but see the boy in the green shirt? That's an Egyptian soccer player uniform. Egyptians love soccer so he chose to dress up in that instead of the more traditional galabeya.

On Egypt Festival, the whole school joins in the celebration, so the library had a big collection of books on Egypt on display.

And of course the library had several copies of the original Flat Stanley book, plus several of the new series including The Great Egyptian Robbery, by Sara Pennypacker. 

Another part of Egypt Festival was listening to the hassabala martial band. Here Sharif poses with Flat Lily, and you can't see the band very well, but you sure could hear it on the day! It is lively music and we all loved being greeted by the band in the morning and being serenaded during our recess times. 

Baladi bread is Egypt's flat bread. It is baked in a clay oven. CAC has its very own oven in the back of the ES building, and a band of bakers was hired for the day to make baladi bread for everyone. It is delicious straight from the oven!

It was very hot last weekend so we never got to the pyramids, but that's okay because Flat Lily got to pose with King Tut at the pyramid making station of Egypt Festival. 

Every grade had a special activity for the day. The second graders made pencil cases and decorated them in the shape of Nubian houses. The Nubians live in the south of Egypt. Their homes are dome shaped to help keep the heat down. They are often colorfully decorated with tiles on the outside. 

During library time on Tuesday, the second graders listened to a story called Pepi and the Secret Names, by Fiona French. This book tells the story of Pepi and his artist father who is in charge of painting the inside of the pharaoh's tomb. Pepi tricks the animals of the desert to pose for his father by calling them by their secret names. We loved this book because readers are challenged to figure out the secret names by deciphering hieroglyphs. (Ancient Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs. Each hieroglyph represented a different idea.)

The day ended with color and music as we all went back to the theater to enjoy a tanoura dance show. Tanoura dancing came to Eygpt from Turkey. Dancers spin around and around, and their colorful skirts lift up and swirl around them. It's a beautiful dance!

As a farewell gift, the second graders created galabeyas for Flat Lily to take home with her. She will be mailed back to the US today to make sure she gets there in time for the end of the Massachussets school year. Mar salaama, Flat Lily. Go with peace.

Flying Paper Airplanes at the ES Library

Earth Day at CAC will be celebrated this year with a "Race to Save Planet Earth." This will include a fund-raising race around the CAC track and a recycled paper airplane competition.

In the recycled paper airplane competition, the paper airplane that travels the farthest will win. All paper airplanes must have the contestant's name and must bear an environmental message.

At the ES library, we've set out paper and paper airplane folding books. According to Ken Blackburn and Jeff Lammers, authors of the Kids Paper Airplane Book (Workman Publishing, 1996), the best paper airplanes to use when in a competition are 2 models they call the Slice and the Count. These are actually rather basic airplanes, but very efficient ones.

Here a short video on how to fold "the Slice," or the classic dart paper airplane. (Click on the linked text for instructions.)

And here's how to fold "the Count," which is also called the Nakamura Lock. 

Here are our paper airplane books. Once the airplane competition is over, they will be available for general checkout. Remember that you can place a hold on a library book once you log in to the library catalog with your CAC single-sign-on, so you should be able to place holds on these books if you want to continue your journey with paper airplanes.

	Kids' Paper Airplane Book, by Ken Blackburn Call number: E 745.59 BLA Provides information on the principles of aerodynamics, suggestions for designing airplanes, and instructions for folding paper planes and playing games with them. Includes a poster and sixteen model planes.
	The Kids' Guide to Paper Airplanes, by Christopher L. Harbo Call number: E 745.59 HAR Provides instructions and diagrams for making a variety of traditional paper airplanes.
	Super Simple Paper Airplanes, by Nick Robinson Call number: E 745.59 ROB Presents full-color illustrated instructions for creating a number of simple paper airplanes, and offers advice on paper sizes and types, basics of folding, principles of flight, classic and modern designs, and airborne origami.
	How to Make Origami Airplanes that Fly, by Gary Hsu Call number: E 736.98 HSU Presents illustrated, step-by-step instructions for folding twelve different aircraft from a square sheet of paper, and includes hints on how to achieve good flight performance.

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.