Books for Breakfast?

It is a pleasure to work with RTI students in the school library!  Recently we enjoyed some nonfiction about one of Ms. Esme's favorite subjects, food!  Reading and eating are always a delicious combination, so to underscore some main ideas we made pancakes topped with real Vermont maple syrup and learned about the process of tapping trees.  The verdict:  Grade A Amber beats Log Cabin any day and it is worth the trouble of collecting 40 gallons of sap to boil down to make one gallon of real maple syrup!  Learning about where our food comes from and appreciating our connection to nature, even here in the city, is another advantage we can glean from reading. Hungry for more? Come check out our great selection of cookbooks (learn how to make a forest feast, an international meal or a perfect birthday cake!), books about the history of food (did you know carrots played a role in the Trojan War?), and books about the food chemistry and anatomy (cooking is a science, after all).

Ms. Esme visited Marshfield, Vermont and shared photos of the real sap lines

in the sugarbush!

It Takes a Village to Raise a Library! We Need Your Help

Happy New Year, Stone family! Greetings and good wishes from me, your lucky school librarian, Ms. Esmé! After (as Lemony Snicket would put it) a series of unfortunate events, I have returned from my leave hale and hearty and ready to continue the party in the school library! HOORAY!  I missed you very much. I am currently servicing students as an RTI provider until the start of the new marking period, and library classes are expected to resume in February.  A special thanks to Ms. Falkner and my team of Junior Librarians for facilitating circulation and maintaining the space in my absence with grace and aplomb.  Thanks to everyone in the Stone Family for their warmth upon my return.

As we reboot midyear, I offer a reminder that our library programming benefits so much from the help of our community!  To that end, please consider donations of any of the following:

Supplies:
baby wipes (the kind truly for babies, not bleach wipes; we use them for wiping primary student hands after messy crafts)
markers and crayons (please! We always need fresh ones!)
glue sticks (we never have enough)
glue bottles (Elmer's Glue-All preferred over school glue, works better for book repairs)
Kleenex (aaachoo! All snifflers comes through the library!  We use a ton!)
plain white paper plates, paper cups, paper lunch bags (for primary crafts)
Ziplock bags (all sizes, but gallon size and 2-gallon size helps some children with book care)

3x5 index cards (useful for flash cards and learning the Dewey Decimal system)

composition notebooks (useful for upper grade media literacy studies)

Gift certificates:
Michael's Crafts (we go through mountains of googlie eyes, yarn, craft paper and pipe cleaners)
Amazon.com (this allows us to get new series books as soon as they come out!)
Barnes & Noble (we strongly encourage support of our local independent booksellers, but we welcome these gift certificates because B&N has some excellent hardbound classics editions we can't get elsewhere)

New books:
Our wish list of books is available by clicking here.  We will add your gift to our collection with a "donated by" bookplate., making it a great way to commemorate family occasions like birthdays, graduations, good report cards and honoring grandparents.  We also welcome "family favorite" books.

Many people ask if we accept contributions of used children's books, and we do, however, after culling for our collection needs, used books are usually distributed throughout our community in the "shared book" box outside the school library and our lovely "little free library" outside the front entrance of our school.

Volunteers:
After spring break, we will welcome guest parent storytellers for primary grades, speakers on all topics of interest across the grade levels and helpers for cutting primary crafts and tidying shelves.  Please contact Ms. Esme in March if interested.

The best thing of all that you contribute to our library is YOU, reading aloud both fiction and nonfiction to your child every day, visiting the public library to supplement your child's visits here, sharing books and modeling reading in your home across the grade levels, supporting children's choices and tastes in literature and using books as a springboard for conversations that elevate values of tolerance and imagination. These actions do so, so, so very much to support your child's daily adventures here at school and a lifelong love of reading and are a big part of why Stone Bookworms always turn into butterflies.

Again, happy New Year, friends!  All good things ahead.