Children's Choice Book Award Winners

I know I am a bit behind in posting about this, but better late than never, right?

The 2012 Children's Choice Book Award Winners have been announced!  Over 900,000 votes were cast and the winners are....

Kindergarten through Second Grade Book of the Year

Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester L. Laminack, illustrated by Henry Cole (Peachtree)

Third to Fourth Grade Book of the Year

Bad Kitty Meets the Baby by by Nick Bruel (Roaring Brook/Macmillan)

Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Teen Book of the Year

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare (Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster)

Author of the Year

Jeff Kinney for Diary of a Wimpy Kid 6: Cabin Fever

Illustrator of the Year

Brian Selznick for Wonderstruck

Awesomeness.  My patrons will be very happy to know that Mr. Kinney won author of the year.  I never see the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books on the shelf because they are always checked out.  I think next year I will do a better job of promoting voting as well as displaying something about the winners.  I feel an idea for a book promotion display coming!  Stay tuned to see what develops.

In the meantime, I am just trying to survive inventory and the last few days of school.  I hope to be back to blogging on a regular basis very soon.  I've missed Bloggy Land!

How are you getting through the last few weeks and days?  Any big plans for the summer or big ideas for next year?  I'd love to hear about them!

*I'm an affiliate for things I've bought or used personally.  If you click through any referral links (if included), at no cost to you, I will earn a commission if you make a purchase.  Thank you for your support in this way.

Top 50 WHAT?!

I usually don't post twice in one day, but Oh. My. Goodness!  I just found out that The Book Bug was named as a Top 50 School Library Blog by TeacherCertificationDegrees.  I contacted them a few months back to suggest a few blogs I follow that I thought would be great to add to the list.  I never dreamed that The Book Bug would be added.  I seriously cannot tell you how amazed and honored I am, especially when looking at the school library blogs on the list.  Totally blown away.

Check out the list here, and then check out the blogs listed.  There are some really fantastic teacher librarians listed who have some really fantastic blogs.  I highly recommend following and reading all of them.

The National Library Bindery

I learned about the National Library Bindery Company of Georgia last year and I am so glad I did.  I have been able to add a ton more books to our Media Center at less than the half the average cost of a library bound book.

For $7.25 per book, the National Library Bindery Co of Ga Inc will turn your paperback books into hardback, library bound books.  Awesome deal, especially if you use Scholasitc Dollars to get books from the Book Fair.  I have been able to add about 200 books to our Media Center this year by using the National Library Bindery.

And you can go ahead and put spine labels and barcode labels on your books before you send them to the Bindery so that they will be permanently laminated to the books.  The Bindery takes off the cover, adheres the cover to a cardboard cover, laminates the cover, and then library binds the cover back to the book.  Love the final product!

It takes about a month to get the books back, but it is worth the wait. The kids are always super excited when we get a shipment of Bindery books in. One student even asked me how I was getting so many new books.  It's nice to know that someone, other than myself, notices how many new books we have gotten this year.

Curious about what they look like?  Here are a few pictures of the books I've sent to the National Library Bindery this year.

Unfortunately, the National Library Bindery Co of Ga Inc does not have a website, but you can find their mailing address and phone number here.

Do you use the National Library Bindery Company or something similar for your paperbacks?

We Give Books.org ROCKS!!!

Yes, I am back!  I've been M.I.A. with a nasty stomach bug, but I think I am almost feeling back to normal.  I really started feeling good at the end of last week when these arrived:

That's 289 FREE books that we received from Penguin Publishing through We Give Books.  I was so happy I started singing and didn't care who heard.

We received 6-7 copies each of 25 different chapter books including

and 7 other titles, plus

6-7 copies each of 17 different picture books including

and 5 other titles.

So, how did we get these free books?  Just by reading books on wegivebooks.org!  In February, We Give Books sponsored a capaign called Read for Your School.  When someone choose our school to read for, we got a book donated to us through Penguin Publishing after they read a book online through We Give Books. Really, really awesome!

Here's my plan for the books.  I am going to use many of the books for prizes during our last AR party of the year.  We are going to do a Bug Bingo game and winners get to pick a book for a prize.  After the party, whatever is left will go to homerooms for teachers to give to deserving students. 

So, so, so happy about receiving these amazing books. Thank you We Give Books and Penguin Publishing!

Update: As of January 1, 2016, the We Give Books website is no longer active.  =(

Research Lessons

In the last month or so, I have taugth several research lessons to both upper and lower grades.  Thought I'd share them with you.

Last week I taught a simple lesson on reference books to first grade.  I covered atlas, dictionary, glossary and encyopedia.  I made a PowerPoint for this lesson.

You can download it here or by clicking on the picture above.

I have also been teaching a research lesson to third, fourth, and fifth grades.  In the lesson I cover what books to use in the Media Center for research (reference books and non-fiction books) as well as online reference sources to use including kid-friendly search engines, the online catalog, reference sites and fact sites.  I also cover how to decide if a website is good to use or not by evaluating it, and why it is important to evaluate a website.  I addressed animal research for third grade and biographies of civil war heroes for fourth grade.

You can download the third grade research PowerPoint here.  

You can download the fourth and fifth grades research PowerPoint here.

Note:  Several of the slides included in these PowerPoints included pictures from my Media Center.  Please feel free to insert pictures of your own Media Center if you end up using these lessons.

Here is a handout that I also gave out to the third, fourth, and fifth grade classes

 that included information and websites covered in the research lessons. 

Hope you can use some of these.  =)

Helping Patrons Help Themselves

One of the goals I have as a Media Specialist is to teach my patrons how to locate the materials they need and want without assistance.  Of course, I am always willing to help, but if they can find it on their own, they won't have to wait for me to be free to assist them.

I am (hopefully) accomplishing this goal by interweaving my Genre of the Month lessons with lessons about call numbers, sections in the Media Center and using Destiny, our online catalog.

This month I taught a lesson about fantasy fiction to my second, third, fourth, and fifth grade classes and reviewed the different sections of the Media Center as well as how to locate a book using Destiny.  I made a PowerPoint to discuss these items and at the end of the lesson, I had students do an activity where they had to look at the call number of a book and tell what section of the Media Center they would go to find the book.  I emphasized the importance of using the provided search slips next to the computers to write down the title and call number of the book so that they wouldn't have to run back and forth from the computer to the shelves if they forgot what they were looking for.  I think it has worked because I am finding search slips all over the Media Center.  Apparently I needed to remind them to throw their search slips away once they locate a book, not leave them on the shelves.  LOL  At least they are using the slips.

If you're interested in the activity sheet, you can get a copy here. Please note that this file is NOT editable.

You can also snag a copy of the search slips I use here.  Please note that this file is NOT editable.

Hope you can use these.  =)

Book Binge

I've always felt kind of tortured being surrounded by books all day and not having time to read any of them unless it was to read to a PreK, Kindergarten or first grade class.  But this week being testing week has affored me the opportunity to read during testing breaks and when I am through small group testing while I wait for the rest of the school to finish testing before I open the Media Center for check out.  I also have been reading at night since I don't have lessons to get ready because next week's are already finished!  It has been like a dream!  My husband just shakes his head.  He doesn't understand how I can read so many books in such a short period of time.  It might have something to do with how many words per minute I read...that's 802 for those of you who are curious.  By the way, you can find out how many words per minute you read by going here. Thanks to Fran Bullington on Informania for posting about this neat site. But really, I don't think I really read THAT many books this week, but here's the list of the books.  Read it and you can decide for yourself.

I started this marathon of reading with

So B. It, by Sarah Weeks.  It was so good I cried. 

Then I moved on to

True (...sort of) by Katherine Hannigan.  It was pretty good, too.

Then my husband suggested that I read

The Always War by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I enjoyed it so I thought I'd read the other Haddix books that were in the Meia Center as well.

So next I read

Dexter the Tough, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Escape from Memory, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

The Girl with 500 Middle Names, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

The House on the Gulf, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Say What?, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

and I have begun reading the Shadow Children series.  I have read

Among the Hidden, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Impostors, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Among the Betrayed, by Margaret Peterson Haddix and

Among the Barons, by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Only 3 more books in the series and I will have finished them all!

So that's a total of 12 books in about a week.  Not bad. 
And I think my craving for books has been satified, for now. 
I've added a good reads widget to the left side of my blog
in case you want to keep up with my next book binge.  LOL

If you went on a book binge, what books would you read?

*I'm an affiliate for things I've bought or used personally.  If you click through any referral links (if included), at no cost to you, I will earn a commission if you make a purchase.  Thank you for your support in this way.