It's Book Fair time!  I have never seen a book fair before, Mrs. Johnson says it's awesome.  I have been running on my new wheel watching students come and go all day buying lot's of great books.  Mrs. Johnson bought me a new cage this week!  It has a big yellow wheel that I love, lots of cool tunnels to crawl through and a huge tube to climb.  I haven't been brave enough to climb the tube yet, but hey, I'm only 4 months old!  I sure hope everyone is having a good week and had a good conference.  Summer

Here's my new cage!  If you look close, you can see me running on my super fast wheel!

World Read Aloud 2014

The Creek Mock Newbery Club celebrated World Read Aloud Day with a Skype author visit.   Natalie Lloyd was gracious enough to spend 30 minutes with us this morning.  She read Chapter 1 of her new book (A Snicker of Magic), recommended several books, and took LOTS of questions from club members.

Read Alouds are powerful experiences.  In this brief read aloud our club realized that the characters have southern accents. This was a revelation for all but two of the kids - what an important element of the story to understand!  Natalie uses onomatopoeia to great effect and hearing the sounds added to our enjoyment of the story.

Natalie told us about some of her favorite books when she was in middle school and also recommended a new book by Rebecca Behrens, When Audrey Met Alice.   I've added it to my To Be Read Pile.  The club will convene again next week to discuss A Snicker of Magic using the Newbery Criteria as our guide - more coming soon from this band of readers!  Thanks again to Natalie for visiting with us.

Life in the library

Hi there!  I'm Summer the Prairie Creek library pet.  I am a Chinese Dwarf hamster born November 20th 2013, so that makes me 3 months old.  As you may have noticed when you visit me in the library, I am on the small side, but I'm still going to grow to a little.  I really enjoy visits from all of our awesome 5th & 6th graders, but please don't touch or tap on my cage, it scares me!  Mrs. Johnson is always happy to help you find me in my cage so you can say "hello".  My way of saying "hello" is by wiggling my adorable nose and whiskers at you.  Today, I was watching Mrs. Cheesman cover some new books that you guys will love!  Please check my blog out regularly, I will keep you up to date on all the cool happenings in the library.