To celebrate World Read Aloud Day, we partnered with Lit World and author, Kate Messner, to participate in a range of activities to promote global reading awareness. Thanks to Kate Messner, we were able to sign up to Skype with two authors, Jennifer Thermes and Constance Lombardo for grades 3-5. The Skype calls lasted about 20-30 minutes with Jennifer Thermes, calling from Connecticut and Constance Lombardo calling from North Carolina. Jennifer Thermes, is the author of a map-illustrator, and author-illustrator of children books including Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail and Charles Darwin’s Around-the-World Adventure. Constance Lombardo, is the author-illustrator of the Mr. Puffball series, a series similar to Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Origami Yoda. The authors read excerpts from their stories, even drew illustrations in real time, answered questions, offered advice on writing and drawing and were just so gracious and kind. Our students heard interesting stories ranging from those etched deep in history (Appalachian Trail, old farmhouse, legends) to comical and whimsical. It was a first for P.S.110 and definitely sparked some interest!
Author: ypesahovitz
I am the school library media specialist for P.S.110 NYCDOE.
Alyssa S. Capuccili, renowned author of the Biscuit series, visits P.S.110!
Alyssa Satin Capucilli, renowned author of numerous children books, including the timeless classic series, Biscuit, visited our Kindergarten and 1st graders and what a unforgettable visit it was! Alyssa read several of her books, hosted a Q&A session, showed the students an authentic book layout, and signed her books. It was a real treat for our students when Alyssa showed them an enormous paper with countless squares each representing a page in a book and then, explaining how the pages are folded a certain way and binded to finish off the publishing process. Kudos to Alyssa for making the visit so memorable for our students that we even had to place another book order! Some students from Mrs. Rogosin’s Kindergarten class wrote letters to the author incorporating their opinions unit. Thank you truly, Alyssa S. Capuccilli!
Elizabeth Upton helps kick off the first author visit for 2018-19!
Elizabeth Upton, helped us jumpstart the author reading series for the 2018-2019 school year by visiting our Kindergarten and 1st grade students. She read her sweet and great read aloud, Maxi the Little Taxi, and through this story, our students became better acquitted with the literary concepts of onomatopoeia and rhyming. After Elizabeth read her story, students were asked to help create an onomatopoetic song using certain phrases and words from the story, and were offered accompanying coloring pages from Elizabeth. The lovely visit ended with Elizabeth being kind enough to sign copies of her picture book for our students and teachers. Thank you Elizabeth Upton!
Steve Metzger Author Visit
On January 23rd, renowned children’s author, Steve Metzger, visited our first and second graders. Steve has written more than 70 children’s books, including: Pluto Visits Earth! (ABC Best Books for Children), Detective Blue (Colorado Children’s Book Award Nominee), and The Way I Act (aligned with Common Core State Standards and approved for classroom use by the California Dept. of Education). He read and discussed several of his books, answered questions, offered advice on becoming an author, and signed copies of his books. Our students received great insight into what goes into writing a story from a prolific author like Steve!
2nd Grade Biography Publishing Party!
Our second graders have been hard at work on their biography projects tasked with researching various historical figures and their efforts have really paid off! Utilizing a combination of print and digital sources, the students were asked to compile information on their chosen famous individual such as, Jacques Costeau, Frida, Helen Keller, etc. Students were instructed on various note-taking strategies, using primary sources, and exercising other proper research strategies. Their final products in the form of varied infographics have come to be so wonderfully artistic, very detailed, informative, and interesting. It has been an amazing collaboration between the classroom, art and the library!
NYCDOE Innovation! Makerspace Grant
The library is very pleased to announce that we were awarded the highly competitive and coveted Innovation! Makerspace Grant from the NYCDOE and the Library Services Department valued at $3,500! In partnership with DEMCO, the NYCDOE Library Department compiled a metal cart brimming with Makerspace products ranging from DASH robots to Meeperbots to K’nex to Briks and much, much more! Our students have become experts in such a short span of time of the various products and their creativity is apparent.
They’re here…2018-19 Annual Book Order!
Every year, our school places our annual book order with Follett and they have finally arrived, bringing much happiness and smiles to our students faces! Students became involved with the selection of books ordered by voicing their opinions, and offering suggestions and recommendations.
2018-19 NYCDOE 365Reads Grant!
The library is pleased to announce that we were awarded 78 Bound-to-Stay-Bound books, valued at over $700. NYC Reads 365 is a citywide program aimed at encouraging kids to read for fun by helping them find interesting high quality books for independent reading. The centerpiece of NYC Reads 365 is a collection of reading lists for each grade level, curated by expert school librarians. BTSB are books in hardcover form, and pre-bound to withstand constant usage and mishandling. Basically, they are books that are meant to be read over and over again by our young readers. Happy Reading!
2018-2019 Literacy Grant/ CNB Bank
We are pleased to announce that P.S.110 was awarded a grant for $1,000 from City National Bank! City National’s Reading is The Way Up® grant program lets K-12 teachers in certain states, fund classroom projects that aim to foster creativity and critical thinking in students. The funding was used to add to the library’s graphic novel collection, chapter books, non-fiction and picture books sections. We thank you City National Bank! Pictures coming soon….
Pre-K Mixing Science, Library & Music
Borrowing the idea from the amazing school librarian, Andy Plemmons, from the Barrow Media Center in Georgia, Pre-K learned about “fractals” and how it helps to know the words to songs to better understand a song’s meaning and purpose. We started by listening to the song, Let It Go, from the movie, Frozen, and paid particular attention the word, Fractals, in the song. Elsa sings, My power flurries through the air into the ground, My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around, And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast, I’m never going back, the past is in the past… We read the non-fiction book, Mysterious Patterns Finding Fractals in Nature, by Sarah C. Campbell, and discovered that fractals are unique and repetitive patterns in nature. After pointing out fractals in the book, we, then, spent some more time pointing out fractals we saw all around us like patterns on socks, shirts, skirts, the library tables, and in nature. Students were given the opportunity to draw “fractals” they had come up with using plain white paper, crayons, pencils, and colored pencils.
P.S.110 The Florence Nightingale School Library 