Wednesday 19 December 2012

St. Monica Book Fair welcomes Clifford, The Big Red Dog

We have just finished our December 2012 book fair!  And our special fair mascot was Clifford the Big Red Dog.  He often greeted us in the morning, or joined us for a bit of lunch. The kids loved getting and giving Clifford hugs!

Clifford was a great guest, making sure to welcome everyone to the book fair and encouraging us to reach our goal of selling 225 books.  Here's Clifford with one of the book fair flyers displaying the exciting selection of Scholastic books available at the fair.

 
 
As we got closer to our goal Clifford encouraged us to keep reading because he knows "that every reader is a Star!!" 
 
Our big final push at meeting our goal was on the evening our of St. Monica Fine Arts Gala.  Parents and their children were here for a lovely evening of music and song. Our students shone brightly this evening and we all enjoyed the beautiful performance! 
 
Afterwards, the book fair was open for an hour and we sold many books to our Gala guests.  At the end of the evening we were only a book or two short of our goal!  Yippee!  A special thanks to all our Grade 9 (and one Grade 8) book fair assistants who volunteered at the book fair that evening and all week.
 
 
 
The next morning, and the final day of our book fair, we continued to encourage everyone at the school to reach our goal.  And no surprise, considering the wonderful students and staff we have at our school, it only took until 8:20 in the morning for us to reach our goal of selling 225 books!  We did it!!!  And not only that, for the second year in a row we blew away our book fair goal and exceeded the number by quite a bit.  Our final number was 262 books sold!! 
 
St. Monica School - you should be proud of yourself!!!  Not only are we great readers, but we are amazing STARS!!!
 
Thanks to everyone who supported the St. Monica School December Book Fair!!!  And thanks to Clifford for being our fair mascot this December!
 
 
Be sure to remember: "Every reader is a Star!!!"



Sunday 9 December 2012

Betty White - School Librarian

Do you remember back, way back to when you were in school?  Do you recall that favourite teacher, friend, coach, librarian?  Really, librarian?!  Yes! Some of us actually remember our school librarian! She (and now a days often a he) always recommended their latest amazing books and stories that would transport us away to another world.  They forgave us when our books were overdue, and helped us to find the right resources for that project or assignment that was worth a ton!

But what about the librarians themselves? Did they have their favourite patrons? Those they liked and those they didn't?  The kids they loved to pass along those book and story recommendation to. The students who challenged then to come up with new adventures,  hot fictional series or funky information sources.  Those tricky to find or extremely cool websites?  The librarian that treated you like she had been waiting for you to come along her whole life so she could share her reading suggestions, wisdom, experience, caring, concern and enthusiasm with. Just imagine it!

That librarian could have been Betty White.  Check out the Youtube clip of Betty White, the awesome and memorable librarian!  Enjoy!  :-)

 

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Celebrate boys' boyness - and work with it!



"Celebrate boys' boyness - and work with it"

This is a great article printed in the Globe & Mail, back in November by Margaret Wente.

Click here for a direct link to the article.



We love our boys, don't we?!!!  Let's find better ways to work with them and support them, as teachers, librarians, administrators and parents.