Manatee Summer Reading Chats at the Public Library

This summer I hosted two meet-ups (Manatee Reading Chats) for Club Boulevard families at the Main branch of the Durham County Library. These meet-ups gave families an opportunity to connect with each other and check out all the wonderful free resources offered by the public library. It was fun to see Principal Phillips and a few Club teachers too! Mrs. Gibbs, Ms. Goff, Mrs. Jayne, and Mrs. Siegel all made an appearance at one of our events.

At our first meet-up, I read Artist Ted out loud which had many connections to our humanities curriculum. Afterwards the kids teamed up to go on a scavenger hunt to explore the different areas of the children's department.

In our second meet-up I displayed dozens of my favorite read aloud books (all available for check out) and then asked families to recommend one of their favorites to the group. We read Duck Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal together and enjoyed debating which animal we saw in the illustrations. Students left with outstanding recommendations from their peers and we had fun laughing all evening!

Thanks to Anna Cromwell at the Durham Public Library for allowing us to meet and chat this summer!

Book Swap for Summer Reading

It's summer and I know our students are enjoying the books they selected the last week of school at our Book Swap for Summer Reading! At the Swap I also showed students how to use the MyOn website where they can access hundreds of digital books for free. Between the free resources from the Book Swap, MyOn website, and the Durham Public Library, my manatee readers should have plenty to read this summer. Happy Reading! :)

Poetry Café

Our inaugural Poetry Café was a big hit this morning in the Media Center! April is National Poetry Month and I encouraged families to celebrate it by reading poems together at bedtime (or anytime!). When read aloud, poetry is a fun and meaningful way to improve fluency and expose kids to figurative language and other literary conventions. Families attending the Poetry Café were asked to bring 1 poem to share with the group. Several talented Club students shared an original poem. In addition, there were sibling readings, family readings, and even one poem in Spanish! Shel Silverstein was the most popular poet shared but we also listened to poetry by Octavio Paz, Louis Armstrong, Eve Merriam, Jack Prelutsky, and many others.Below are two short clips of readings shared--one in English and one in Spanish!



As families arrived they grabbed breakfast and sat down to read poetry from our Media Center collection. This informal time also gave families a chance to interact with one another and make some new friends!

I kicked off the readings by sharing a poem titled, "Calling All Readers!" from the book Bookspeak: Poems about Books! by Laura Salas.


Next I asked for volunteers to recite the poems they brought to share with the group. This enthusiastic 3rd grader was the first to volunteer and recited an original poem about a polar bear. :)

It was neat to see families do a reading together. Some students were nervous but our kind audience made it a little easier to have the courage to share. 

I was so impressed with the poise and confidence displayed by this 2nd grader! 

At the end of the Poetry Café I invited students to choose a new poetry book to take home and read with their families. There was much excitement at the book table!

Thank you to all the families who came to our first Poetry Café. I hope you will continue to share poetry with your children at home and enjoy reading together! 

K/1 Meteorologists!

I had so much fun working with Mrs. Overby's K/1 class (and Ms. Lassiter, their student teacher) to create weather reports! This project was one of the culminating pieces to their weather unit in Science. Each group was assigned a season and had to write a weather report that reflected a typical day of weather during that season. The kids worked together to create a background and write the report. We had fun pretending to be the meteorologists we see on TV! :) Enjoy our live weather reports below! 

Battle of the Books

Congratulations to our 4th and 5th grade Battle of the Books team for placing 3rd in the district finals last week! This dedicated group of students began reading the 18 chapter books on the NC state list last summer. They met weekly in the Media Center for team meetings to discuss the books, strategize, and practice battling. Team members had to exhibit good sportsmanship and collaborate with each other to answer questions about the books. Battle of the Books is a wonderful way for readers to connect with their peers through quality literature and broaden their typical reading scope.

These students should be commended for their hard work, dedication, sportsmanship, and book knowledge! Well done, manatees!

Glad to be back!

Thank you all for your warm welcome as I returned from maternity leave on March 1st. Mrs. Derby did a wonderful job in my absence!

I would like to introduce you to the newest little reader in our family, Jack Henry :)