Battle Off!

This Wednesday, February 20th at 12:15 our 3rd-5th Grade OBOB teams will be battling in front of the whole school to see who will move on to Regionals!  All our eight teams have worked so hard in participating in this year's OBOB.  We will be recognizing every team's hard work. 

In the 6th-8th grade division our A.S.S.K Readers team (Annie B., Shelby G., Kylie B., and Sean M.) will be attending County Regionals on March 9th!  The Reading Spell team put up a great fight and had some close battles!  

Thank you to our teams and their commitment to reading. 

Upcoming Author Visit!!!!

We are excited to announce that MRA will be hosting an author visit on Tuesday, March 5th!  Michelle Nelson-Schmidt is the author and illustrator of Cordelia, Jonathan James and the Whatif Monster, Dog and Mouse, Bob is a Unicorn, and more.  



She will be sharing her inspiring story of overcoming obstacles of doubts and rejection in becoming the author and illustrator she is today.  She brings enthusiasm and passion to students to continue the journey.    

I travel to schools all over the United States reading my books, talking about my journey and encouraging them to follow their dreams – through hard work and perseverance.  

I love that I get to show my children and all the children I meet that life is what you make it—and that persistence and hard work will overcome almost any obstacle. 
                               -Michelle Nelson-Schmidt


Please click on the following links to learn more about Michelle and stay tune for more information.  

Michelle Nelson-Schmidt

Library Updates

Our 3rd-5th grade OBOB battles will begin this week!  We are excited to begin the double elimination tournament and would love your support.  We will meet in Mr. Dante's room at 11:50.  The 6th-8th grade battles will begin on Jan. 29th.

                 Infinity Readers battling The Wild Readers

The Trillium continue to explore well-known illustrators and will spend time exploring some Chinese American authors.  We read Lon Po Po by Ed Young, a Chinese folktale, similar to our Little Red Ridding Hood and we will continue to look at other folktales from Asia.  

The Huckleberries learned the importance of unlocking information about space efficiently by using text features such as the use of a table of contents, an index, keywords and glossary.  We are reading biographies of influential personal who helped make discoveries in and about space.  A favorite this week was Margaret and the Moon. 

The Clarkia are becoming more aware of how the Dewey decimal system works in the library to organize different subjects.  They have been on book hunts to discover subjects from the 000-900s!  We met Meriwether Lewis' infamous Newfoundland puppy this week in the story of Seaman's Journal.  

New Arrivals

Most of our new Usborne Books are here!  We were able to add $1000 worth of new books to our library collection.  Please stop by and check them out.  

Trillium have been working on learning some key illustrators in children's literature.  Mo Willems, Dr. Seuss, Lois Ehlert, Chris Van Allsburg and more have been our focus.  We have also read many Caldecott Award books and discussed the different medias to create award winning pictures.

Huckleberries continue to explore the elements in fiction and nonfiction literature.  We are reading fun books that deal with different cuisines throughout the world.  One of our favorite books has been,  "What's For Lunch?  How Schoolchildren Eat Around the World" by Andrea Curtis.

Clarkia continue to explore the text elements of nonfiction and discover that our brain uses different methods of reading when we explore fiction vs. nonfiction texts.  In the weeks to come  we will discover who Melvil Dewey was and how he created a system of organization we still use today in most libraries around the world.      

Thank You!

Thank you for a very successful book fair!  This was our biggest fair in sales yet.   We were able to give our teachers some great books for their classrooms and were able to buy $1200 in books for our library.  Thank you for your support. 

Trillium library classes continue to discover the different parts of books and the information it provides.  They are discovering well-known children's authors such as: Mo Willems, Dr. Seuss, Eric Carle, and more.  They learned how to make a wish list for our book fair using our right-fit rule.

Huckleberries have learned what information you can find on the title page and that a book's summary is often found on the back cover.  We have read some great books from our Usborne Book fair, including the popular Bug Hotel book.  We are excited to have this book added to our library collection.

Clarkia classes continue to discover the elements of fiction and nonfiction books.  They have learned how to use our electronic card catalog and are becoming independent in finding their resources.  We are gearing up for OBOB and listening to book talks about these books.  

Usborne Book Fair Will Be Here Soon!

Right-Fit Books And More

In all library classes this week we have continued to use tools to help us find "right-fit" books.  

The Trillium were introduced to the three parts of a book; the front cover, the spine, and the back cover.  We will be learning about the  important information that are included on these parts.  We read one of my favorite books this week to go along with our garden theme of gourds.  





The Huckleberry classes are reviewing the parts of the book and were introduced to the title page.  They learned that every book has a birthday just like they do.  We are busy locating copyright dates of the different books we check out.  We read a story about a community coming together to make a house a home for a Gigi, a grandmother in the community.  It's a heartwarming story of the power of togetherness.  



The Clarkia classes are identifying the similarities and differences of a nonfiction and fiction story.  We are learning how to use our electronic card catalog, Alexandria to find our right-fit books.  We read a delightful and funny story from the author's viewpoint, Mac Barnett, of how his story became a book.  He told us that it took 21 drafts to get this book to the publisher and how editing was a long process.  We had a good discussion on their own narrative writing process and how much work it is.  We discussed how rewarding it can be in the end when you've given a gift of a story to the world.