What's YOUR Favorite Childhood Book?

Let me share a story with you. It is called "What's Your Favorite Childhood Book?" That is the question that I got to ask our faculty and staff and graduating seniors recently. Why? In further celebration of "Get Caught Reading" month, I wanted to inspire our young readers to new ideas for books to check out for themselves by allowing them yet one more way to connect with the people they look up to and admire around SCS. With the responses that were received, I created a hallway display with names and pictures of the individual respondents and of the title and author of their particular favorites.

The fun part was watching the reactions of those who participated and those who stopped to look at the display. As individuals were asked, so many began to smile as they remembered back to a particular story that brought them much joy as a child. Discussions were sparked spontaneously in the Teachers Room as faculty members shared about their personal favorites, and the books they enjoyed reading to their children. Students would look at the display to see which books their staff member parents or teachers liked and come in to ask for those books to read. Reports were regularly coming in from parents who said favorite books became a topic at their dinner table at home. Quite a few times, clusters of individuals -- from custodians to pastors to office staff to teachers to students to parents and visitors -- were found gathered outside of the Library Media Center, with necks craned upward commenting and smiling as they recalled their own favorites, or as they found they had something new in common with another person in the school community. Many times, individuals were spotted thoughtfully looking up at the display as they pondered the question of which book was their own favorite when they were little.

Part of what makes this so special is that so many times, I have seen that the favorites of older staff members are also the favorites of some of our seniors and also of our youngest students. When one looks at the hallway display, and listens to the squeals of delight from those who pass by it is apparent that there is no clear cut distinction that certain generations like some things and other generations like others. The moral of this story: Good literature is timeless, and worth passing on!

6th Grade SCS History Project

What can we learn about SCS History to share with our community and the world? Using a WebQuest, the 6th graders are doing research to discover all that they can in order to share the information with others on the web. http://questgarden.com/102/06/5/100501210852/

In learning about doing internet searches, our 6th graders have discovered that there is very little on the web about our school. It became our mission to do something about that. It has meant doing deeper internet searches, digging through old yearbooks and photos, interviewing people who have been part of our school history, and making a visit to the Smithtown Public Library to learn to use the microfilm readers and get more information on local history.

The two classes are collaborating on the project, and each class has been divided into small groups of 4-6 students, with each group responsible for a different area of the research. When we are finished collecting our data, we will use it to write a more in-depth article for wikipedia to expand the information already there on our school, and to write an article for the history page of our soon to be released new SCS website.

Spring News

Long time, no posts, but plenty of fun happening in the SCS Library Media Center. What's new? Well...

...May was "Get Caught Reading Month" and Children's Book Week. Mrs. Nunez and I (Miss Gleason) got matching "Wild About Reading" t-shirts and wore them twice during May as part of our celebration. The first time we wore them to stir up enthusiasm for our Children's Book Week festivities. K-2nd graders received special bookmarks and 3rd through 6th graders were given the option to enter a puzzle contest where they had to complete a library word search and an author crossword puzzle. The crossword required students to use the SuffolkWeb or Amazon to find author last names to match the book titles that were given. There were about 15 winners who were announced over the PA system in morning announcements, and received credit for a trivia question win and earned a candy prize as well.

The second time we wore our t-shirts to tip students off about our "Get Caught Reading" contest week. I went to elementary classes unannounced at various times during the week to "catch" students doing reading for fun. All those caught were awarded with Silly Bandz. Quite a few readers were caught and given little animal and holiday shaped rubber bands to wear on their wrists. Even a few teachers and secondary students got caught reading, and received bandz for their effort.