Winners! Winners! Chicken Dinner!

We finally have winners for our Battle of the Books!  The Cookie Monsters took home the prizes this year.   It was the perfect end to the battle.  The People were up by 10 at the end of the first round.  By the second round The Cookie Monsters had caught up and it was a tie.  We went into the third and fourth round in a tie.  This meant it was a mighty good thing I had come prepared for a tie!  I asked THREE questions of each team before The Cookie Monsters were victorious!  It was awesome listening to the whole school cheer for our winners as well as for everyone who participated this year.  It was awesome handing FIVE kindles out to the winning team.  And it was awesome realizing that I can't wait to start all over again.  So now I have a few ends to wrap up: cake for everyone who participated, lunch with the second place team, ordering books for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place teams, and a survey to find out how I can improve for next year.  And then I will start planning next year.  SO DANG EXCITED! 

Congratulations Cookie Monsters to a job well done!

And congratulations to EVERYONE who participated and thank you so much for making this such an awesome event!

Organizing by genre?

I saw a post on this yesterday at Mean Old Library Teacher about organizing fiction by genre.  Imagine that!  Bucking the system.  But I am really considering it.  But I just don't know how to make that leap.  Let's do a list, shall we?

• How do you figure out what genre it belongs in?
• What do you do with books that belong in different genres?
• Would this really make that big of difference in my small collection?
• How do I begin this project? 
• What steps are there to take?
• How will I be able to accomplish this next year, with less time in the library?
• Again, is it really worth it?
• What genres do you use?
• When I order new books I have them labeled for me, will they label by genre?  Or do I have to make the labels myself?

I LOVE the idea so much because this is how kids find books.  This is how it's set up in the real world and am I not trying to prepare them for the real world?  And it would help when kids ask me where the mysteries are...on any genre.  Talk about it and let me know...should I attempt this?  YIKES!

Battle update

So we have been battling for two weeks here on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.  And can I just say how very impresseed I have been with the battles!  Most of the kids took this so seriously (I even have a team that is reading books that didn't get read between battles so they can advance!).  The hardest part of this has been scheduling the battles.  I want to keep the enthusiasm rolling so I want to get the battles done in as short amount of time as possible.  So I am trying to run all 13 battles before Easter with minimal classroom disruption. 

Most of the battles have been really close (like within one or two points) though there were two blowouts...oops!  The questions seem to be pretty good (some are tough though) and now we're headed into easier questions.  The only other problem I have is students remembering to show up when they battle.  Because I have a time crunch there are a couple of times I thought I was just going to have to tell a team they forfitted because they weren't in the library on time.  Along with the scheduling issues is where to battle.  I really wanted to do it in the auditorium so advisory classes could come and watch.  But it's being used for music concerts and district music festival this week.  So we've held the battles in the library, which means only one or two classes can watch (often my class because they need some supervision). 

But with those minor snaffu's I am THRILLED with how it's going and even more important: the kids are having a blast!  This really has been amazing and I am SO glad that I took this project upon myself--I only hope it is this great next year.

PS I know I promised a review of The Forrest of Hands and Feet and at this point, I may just do a joint review along with the second book in the series.  I am currently reading Guys Read: Funny Business and it has been a nice change of pace.  I have a giant stack of books at home to be read but that is going to have to wait until our house becomes healthy and happy again!

Need...Help...Please

I need boy book suggestions.  It is the only way I can figure out how to get out of this rut of vampire/zombie/love/girlie books.  My brain has had enough of them.  Give me boy books.  Fighting.  Hunting.  Talking about boy things!  I don't care what, just help a girl out here!

WAAAAA! A Month!

I don't even know where that month has gone!  I haven't been doing anything special.  Today I did accomplish getting my new bulletin board up.  It's for Battle of the Books.  I'll post a picture when I remember to bring my phone with me. 

So Battle of the Books is upon us.  The end of 3rd quarter is March 25, which means the next week we will start battling!  I am so incredibly excited about this.  I am working on getting questions together for the battles and that is overwhelming.  I think I have about 2000 questions to chose from!  So I will be thrilled once I have a system down for that.  Did I mention I got some new prizes?  How do Kindles for the winning team sound??? I am BEYOND thrilled to offer that!!!  I hope the kids love them. 

My book reading has come to a standstill.  Although I did read The Forest of Hands and Teeth last week and it was the creepiest book I have ever read.  I will post a review next week.  Until then!

Book Club

The middle school book club will be meeting March 4 (Friday) during both lunches to discuss A Wrinkle in Time.  After that I am thinking that Chains and The Hunger Games will round out the book club year.  I feel aweful that it took so long to get the club going.  But this year I was overwhelmed with Battle of the Books reading, and I lost my readers who sort of ran the club itself which was a nice break for me.  So I have lived and learned and hope to get back on track next year. 

Today I am working on getting new books ready to be checked out, cleaning up some loose ends, and having a rather quiet day in here.  It's been pretty nice.  I hope you're having a great day!

Sorry for the disappearence!

I'm around--we have had a ton of new books come into the library so I've been playing with those.  It is the beginning of the semester and I have library aids, so I've been working with them.  AND I FINISHED READING THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS BOOKS!!!  I am so excited to be done with that :)  So I can read some new books!  I am so glad I read all of these books--there were a few that I would never have picked up and I would have missed out on some great reading.  The biggest surpise: Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice.  I learned so much from this book about segregation and desegregation, the South during this period, how women were treated, and to be honest: laws in general.  It really was a pleasure to learn while reading this book.

Book club met after we read Roar by Emma Clayton and now we're going to read A Wrinkle In Time.  FYI, I have never read it and I'm pretty excited to. 

It's been a busy week but hopefully I'll be back later with more news. 

Where do you get yours?

Where do you get your books?  Do you want to read your books electronically?  Or from the library?  Do you go to the public library?  Do you listen to books on tape?  I'm curious as to how you all read!

I myself am undiscerning about where my books come from.  A lot come from people who pass it on to me to read.  A ton come from the public library (especially if I'm previewing it for my library).  Many are suggestions from the hubby.  And yes, I have a Kindle and am super stoked to read on that instead of stealing my hubby's.  Be sad FMMS library because that means I won't be able to pass the okay books on to you :( But let me know! 

it's rad

The best part of my day:  kids who WANT to come to the library and read.  One of them hasn't said more than 5 words to me.  He just stood at the counter reading a magazine.  Then sat down to start reading The Hunger Games.  I love my job. 

Ack!

I forgot/didn't have time to fill you all in on Matched!  It has been rediculously busy here in the library.  I've had 13 of 14 reading class in the library in the past 4 days getting people excited about Battle of the Books.  And I have to tell you all, the response has been AWESOME!  So great in fact that I am digging into my bookfair money and buying MORE copies of our battle books!  I am so excited to have such a great response (I think around 60 students have signed up). Almost 80 kids have signed up.  This is unbelievable!!! I was hoping to have 20 kids, so this is really just so great to me.  Thank you all for particpating!  But on the flip side...now I'm scared to death my end of the deal is going to flop and all you kids have put in all sorts of efforts and it's going to lame-o.  But just know, I'm trying the best I can and I am just so excited to see how this goes!  Remember the last day to sign up is January 14th.  Next week I will put everyone into teams and the battle will begin!

As for Matched!  OMG!  I was reading this (at my husbands recommendation--thanks hubby) and I looked at him and told him "If The Hunger Games and The Giver had a book baby, this would be it!"  It is just so good.  It's about a society (distopian society that is).  Pretty much all the choices have been taken away.  The government decides when you'll get married and to who.  They send you special food based on your body, everyone wears the same thing depending on where they live, and everyone follows all of the rules. 

The book starts out with main character, Cassia, getting ready to go to a banquet.  This banquet is going to tell her who she is matched (pretty much engaged) to.  She's incredibly nervous because she will most likely be assigned to someone in another city, whom she has never met.  When it's her turn her match is revealed to be her best friend, Xander.  After the banquet she watches the microchip given to her with information about her match--and a picture appears briefly of someone who isn't her match.  As time progresses, she starts to think more and more about the mistake of someone else appearing...and starts to grow closer and closer to someone who is not her match. 

Seriously...this book is awesome.  And a warning: it's part of a trilogy.  And this is the first one...the next one comes out in the fall.  BOOOOOO!  But it gives me something to look forward to.  I'm hoping to get this one for the library soon.

I wrote this post yesterday. Remember when I told you I hate writing?  I was rereading what I had written and my review just doesn't do this book justice.  So I think I'm going to do a video review of it.  So I'm putting my nerdiness out there...but I think it will get everyone WAY more excited about it. 

Back to it!

And it's not even Friday!  I hope everyone had a really great holiday--we did at Chateau Calhoun.  Santa came, birthday parties were thrown, and lots of food was eaten!

I even read two books over the break.  The first one was Evermore by Alyson Noel.  I could see my Twilight lovers loving this.  It's about a girl whose family has been killed in a car wreck and she survives.  She lives with her aunt who isn't quite sure of how to deal with Evermore.  Ever has two friends at school.  She is bullied mercilessly by the other kids.  She deals with it by turning her i-pod up and pulling her hood further on.  Until Damen comes.  Damen--unbelievably good looking and smooth (think tulips being pulled from behind ears).  Damen who likes Ever (maybe?! yes.  no.  maybe.  Ever simply can't decide).  Ever grows fonder (i.e. falls hard) only to find out a secret about Damen that rocks her world.  Oh and did I mention Ever conversing with her dead sisters ghost?  Or the girl (or is it woman) that wants Ever dead...bad?

Some swearing and some lovin'.  A good read for you older girls.
P.S.  I read this on Mr. Calhoun's kindle.  I want to read everything on kindles.  Did you know you can knit and read at the same time?!?! How great is that?

Tomorrow:  Matched and can I just say O.M.G.!?!?!