Picture books of the day...

I got to share some picture books today with Ms. Toran's class:

I Will Not Read This Book by Cece Meng (I LOVE THIS BOOK! I'm going to have them re-enact it as reader's theater next week)

Little Chicken's Big Day by Katie Davis

And with some new books that came in, my reading total is up to 7 picture books in two days.  I better step up my game!

It's Picture Book Month!

Picture books are important.  Picture books are powerful.  Picture books are FUN! Join me in reading, sharing and celebrating picture books throughout the month of November.  I will be keeping stats of the number of picture books checked out of the library, and each classroom has a tally chart to document any picture books read in class.  Students who want to keep track of the picture books they read, either at school or at home, can fill out their own calendar tally chart! Families reading books together totally counts!  The classroom with the MOST number of picture books read will win a prize!

I started out Picture Book Month with 3 great read-alouds in the library.  In first grade, we were wrapping up our author study of Brian Lies, so we listened to Bats at the Library and Bats at the Ballgame while creating bats for our final display.

With the Kindergarteners, it was Judy Sierra's Wild About Books that kicked off our picture book challenge!

Let's see how many picture books the Zervas Community can read in 30 days! 

Interested in participating?
Print out the themed calendar here: http://picturebookmonth.com/calendar/
See Ms. Broderick for a tally sheet.

Pick up a picture book and read with me! 

Read, Share, Celebrate!

More information here: http://picturebookmonth.com/

Things you see at library conferences...

 Tall buildings with great reflective qualities.

 Spinning welcome signs.

 Bicycle-powered vehicles.

 Firepits!

 Authors! This is Mike Thaler (The Black Lagoon guy!)

 ...and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!

Giant cat mascots. Ok, this one was kind of scary.

 An Angry Birds pumpkin (and watermelon!) display

 Savvy Librarians :)

 Swatch watch heaven!

 A wall of Legos! (We made it to the Mall of America for a quick visit, and wow. just wow.)

All in all, Minneapolis was a great city! I got to meet library friends from twitter and other blogs, I got to present with my colleague and friend Jennifer Reed (from Mason-Rice) and I left with enough information and brain fuel to inspire me for a long time to come.  I have many book reviews and lesson ideas to add to this blog!

The last gasps of summer reading...

                                                  I hope these aren't library books! :)

                                                       Ms. Toran's tea time...

We can read in the pool, we can read at school!

Mrs. Gacicia's summer reading spot!

Recognize the building in the background??

We can read on land, we can read on sand (and in the air, too!)

 By the pool!

 On the floor!

In the sand!

In a tree!

Oh, the Places We Can Read...

The first submissions for Zervas Reads!  We have international readers here folks... Keep those pictures coming!

C & M in front of the Sleeping Giant in County Kerry, Ireland

Books read: The Throne of Fire and The Giggler Treatment

Flying home from Israel!