eBooks!!!!!

Two weeks ago I wrote about the new Destiny Quest app. You can read about it here Since writing that post I have figured out the ins and outs of reading eBooks on your mobile devices. Quest works with another app called Follett Shelf. Together you can check out eBooks on your iPad or tablet. Pretty cool. While you can't use the Quest App on a Nook or Kindle you CAN use the Follett Shelf on them. 

So here is the deal...

1. If you plan on checking out eBooks on your device, you must have created a username and password in the library. You cannot check out if you do not log in.  If you need to create a username and password please stop by the library and we will help you!
2. Download the Apps! Destiny Quest is much easier to use but you should also download Follett Shelf. Both can be found in the App store or Android market
3. Once you have them on your device you will be asked to provide the URL for St. Philip's Library. For Destiny Quest it is www.stphiliptheapostle.follettdestiny.com for Follett Shelf it is https://wbb08619.follettshelf.com
4. Just like Destiny Quest is linked in a tab at the top of this blog so is Follett Shelf. If you just want to read eBooks I suggest using Follett Shelf as a starting point. 
5. The best part about Destiny Quest/Follett Shelf is that you do not have to come to the library to check out an eBook. You can do it right from your device! The loan period is for 5 days. If you haven't finished the book after the 5 days, just check it out again. If you have finished the book, please check it back in for others to enjoy. 

Once you start exploring you might realize that we don't actually have THAT many eBooks. But fear not fellow falcons because I just placed a huge order for eBooks! Once everything has been processed they will be placed in our system and ready for immediate check out!

If you have any book suggestions don't be afraid to let me know!

Rounding Out the Lineup!

I am very excited to announce our brand new database subscriptions from the well known ProQuest Databases. Touted as "indispensable research solutions that connect people and information" I was first introduced to it in high school. Since then I have been a loyal ProQuest user throughout my various careers as student and then educator. Last year I discovered that ProQuest offered services for the elementary library! After some investigation I realized these services were the perfect tools for our students as well as an excellent way to round out my goal of providing a place for our students to access accurate and safe information.

 You may be asking yourself what is included in our new subscription. But first let me tell you that due to some glitch or error I can't provide you with access to these just yet. I'm really disappointed because I want you to explore first hand. Until I hear back from ProQuest I can only paint a little picture of these powerful tools.

Here it is, strait from ProQuest

Makes learning fun and intuitive for young students
"The database includes carefully selected, 100% full-text articles and images from more than 1,900 domestic and international newspapers, magazines, and government documents, along with 9,000+ educational weblinks via the integrated Discoverer WebFind content set."  


Concise, reliable, and up-to-date country reports delivering the world... to you
"CultureGrams helps researchers discover the world with concise cultural and statistical snapshots of every country recognized by the United Nations -- from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Local experts document the unique, intimate details of each country's customs, traditions and daily life."

The ultimate elementary reference resource
"Students of all ages use eLibrary Elementary's powerful, yet engaging and easy-to-use search interface to find the answers they need from more than 140 magazines, newspapers, books, transcripts, maps, images, educator-approved websites from Homework Central®, plus audio/video titles, all selected as appropriate for elementary school studies."

I feel like I'm writing a brochure for ProQuest!

But in all seriousness, I am very excited that the St. Philip's Library is able to offer these resources to our students. In the coming weeks I will be posting much more about these databases and how best to utilize them. Also look for a post or update about how to access them from home or school.    



 

Twitter

Just thought I would write a quick little post announcing the use of Twitter in the library. I actually set up a twitter account at the beginning of the school year after I came back from my conference in Minneapolis. I was inspired by technology use in school libraries. But, then I wasn't sure where I wanted to go from there. Of all the ways to use technology in our daily lives I've never been one to pick up my phone and tweet my life away. I just haven't latched onto personal tweets. Yet, over the past year I have found myself to be a follower on twitter. I sign up to follow mommy blogs, cloth diaper sites, historical costumers and photographers (I have a lot of hobbies). What I have come to realized is that I enjoy twitter as a place to learn about updates from my favorite people who offer tips and trick for all my hobbies and interests.

Recently I thought using twitter in this way was the way to go with The Falcon's Fables. If my goal for this blog is to keep the St. Philips community informed of various reference tools as well as report on classes and events, Twitter seems like a logical step in the process. Not meant to replace blog posts where I can get more in depth, I want Twitter to offer small nuggets of information that I think would be useful to our parents and students alike. I have started following various children's authors on twitter as well as other school librarians. I think it will be nice to occasionally have the library classes compose tweets of their own. I know they will be excited to share a book they have read or lesson learned.

I hope you all follow @FalconsFables on Twitter. 

1st Database!

Our first database subscription is up and running! To access it you must go to the Database tab at the top of this blog. For now, this is where the access point will be for all database subscriptions. There are two links on the database home page. The 1st is World Book Online, which is our subscription to World Book Encyclopedia. The second link is our brand new database. Pebble Go is geared toward K-3 and is actually two database subscriptions. The first is Animals and the second is Earth and Space Sciences. Both can be accessed thru the same link.

Just like World Book Online, Pebble Go requires a username and password. It is pretty easy for all Falcon's to remember but if you forget, I put them on the database home page.

NOW! Go off and explore!!!!!

I Am a Librarian

I'm a Librarian on Prezi

Dust Off the Books

I can't believe another school year is here and I am starting my third year as the St. Philip Librarian. I am so grateful to share my passion for reading with the St. Philip community. We have some exciting things planned for the school year. First and foremost, we have decided that since library for grades K-5 is a class where they learn library skills, research tools and book appreciation the students will now receive a behavior and effort grade. I feel this will greatly benefit the classroom environment.

The look of the library has changed a bit. Sections have been moved around to better suit the needs of our smallest library patrons. Last year I moved the reading area and this year the Easy Readers have been moved to the shelves located in the reading area. Reference has been moved close to the computers, while Fictions books are located in the middle of the library in the taller shelves.

Lastly, the library will be receiving three laptop computers. We are getting these so the children can utilize our online systems to do research and work on homework without taking over the library computers. I am very excited to include these in class time. The children will be able to check out a laptop at lunchtime if they wish to work on assignments or do research.

OH! We also got a new American Girl doll. Meet Josephina

Pie and Burger Day!

I thoroughly enjoy showing off the excellent resources our library has. I think I also have a secret passion for research in general. I am always encountering reasons to look up things. Whether it is the definition of a word, the life of a famous person, or obscure facts that strike my fancy I am always utilizing our library and the internet. Since today is Pie and Burger Day I started wondering where the Hamburger came from. It seems so very "All American" but is it really? Did the hamburger come from America or is it really a product of Hamburg, Germany as many rumors suggest?

First I turned to the encyclopedia. I figured this would be a great jumping off point. I pulled out the World Book Encyclopedia Volume H. A quick scan of the H encyclopedia revealed......nothing. But, as a smart researcher I realized that does not mean the encyclopedia doesn't contain information. I decided to pull out the Index, the last volume in the encyclopedia. It revealed that there is some information on Hamburgers under the food section in the article titled Interesting Facts About Food (F:329). Here is what I found. "Hamburger was orginally called Hamburg steak. It was named after Hamburg, Germany.

A-HA!!!! Well that answers my question but I am not satisfied. I want to know more. Like is Hamburg Steak the same as a hamburger or did the hamburger evolve from Hamburg Steak? If so, what exactly is Hamburg Steak. How did a "german" food become so All American?

I did a quick library catalog search to see if we had any other books on the subject. I didn't think we would have "The History of the Hamburger" but I like to cover all my bases. Next I figured while I was on Destiny Quest it would be easy to click the internet button and use Quest as an internet search and not just a library catalog search. I also know that I more likely to find child friendly websites. If need be I can always do a google search later. The Destiny search returned many websites. Some on farming and others on Hamburg, Germany. Best of all there was one titled History of Hamburgers: Topic American Cooking. http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HamburgerHistory.htm

Here is what I learned:

• The idea of eating ground meat is not new. There is evidence that the Ancient Egyptians ate ground meat patties. Throughout history there has been mention of various cultures eating similar foods. 
• Hamburg Steak is a traditional German food that doesn't really resemble today's hamburger. It was brought to America in the 1850's by German sailors and immigrants as a food that would last through long sea voyages.  It was a form of salted and spiced meat that had to be chopped due to its tough consistency. Sometimes, it was served between two pieces of bread to immigrants arriving in American ports. 
• Ground meat did not originally have the same consistency it does today. Before the invention of meat choppers and grinders ground meat was really just roughly chopped and chunky.  
• Many people claim to have invented the hamburger as we know it today. 
• Some say it was Charlie Nagreen of Seymour, Wisconsin who invented the first modern hamburger. The story goes that he was selling meatballs at the Outagamie County Fair when he realized they were too hard to eat while walking around the fair. To make them easier to eat he flattened them and put them between two pieces of bread. 
• In a similar story the brothers Frank and Charles Menches from Akron, Ohio are said to have invented the first modern hamburger while traveling the county fair circuit. While in Hamburg, New York they invented the modern hamburger, naming it after the city. 
• Others say Oscar Weber Bilby was the true inventor of the modern hamburger because he put the ground meat between buns, not bread.  

    Well there you have it. The modern hamburger could be considered to be a product of Hamburg, Germany if only in the sense that Hamburg Steak is chopped of meat. While, that chopped up salty steak is definitely the inspiration for the ground meat, it does not taste the same.  The modern hamburger came about as an easy way to eat less salty ground meat. Whether it is served between bread or bun it is a yummy delight that Americans and the world enjoy on a daily basis.

Eat up all you Falcon's, its Pie and Burger Day!!!! Anyone care to research the history of the French Fry? 

Inspiration!

I am always inspired by the many events going on during the school day. This week the Jr. High Science Fair had me thinking about how useful our library is to the students when they have less literary assignments. I decided to pretend I was entering a science fair and see what I came up with.

The first stop is to choose an experiment. I already know the library is chalk full of experiment books. Here are a few...

               

Hmmmmm, I am hungry I think I will explore the book Try it With Food from Scholastic Books. There are many different types of experiments in this book but the one that catches my eye is Gelatin Optics (pun intended). "Get 'jiggly' with it in this experiment and make some colorful gelatin 'glasses.' Try them on to demonstrate the principles of magnification and refraction." 


It is a simple experiment that asks you to make various sizes of gelatin glasses using an assortment of small containers such as measuring cups, spoons and saucers. Once the gelatin has hardened you take it out of its molds and use the gelatin as lenses to look at objects, pictures, and the pages of books. I soon discover that the size of the lens affects the magnification. Who knew JELLO could be used as a magnifying lens. Pretty cool. But I still don't understand how it works. The book explains a bit, defining words like concave, convex and refract. But I want to dig deeper.

Call Number
535
STI

Does our library offer books to help me better understand these terms? It sure does!!!!!! Using our computer catalogue I searcher these key words: lenses, light, magnification, and refract. I found this book.

Manipulating Light: Reflection, Refraction and Absorption by Darlene R. Stille.  is part of the Exploring Science series. This series takes a quick look at everything from contemporary issues, such as the greenhouse effect and genetics, to core curriculum themes, such as atoms, molecules and plant cells.


OK, but did I, a decidedly unscientific person, learn anything?!


Well, YES!!!! I learned that the gelatin, in the shape of a curved surface, acts as a magnifying glass. A magnifying glass makes objects look larger than they are. This is because of refraction. A ray of light enters the curved surface and bends as it goes, spreading out, or refracting, on its way to your eye. If the light ray does not bend we would not see clear images. Instead everything would be blurry. Our eyes work the same way. They too, have lenses that refract light. This is why a magnifying glass helps make the image bigger. 


PHEW!!!!!!!!! All this scientific thinking has me H U N G R Y. I think I will do a quick search using Destiny Quest Online to see what sort of yummy goodness I can make using gelatin! 


Here is what I found!
Jello Cookies Recipe found at 
http://www.food.com/recipe/jello-cookies-13745 

I am off to bake!

Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

The 2nd grade class is starting to learn the difference between fiction and non-fiction books. Most of the students already know that non-fiction books are "real" and fiction books are "make believe". The question is how can they tell which type it is just by looking at the book? You have all heard the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover". It couldn't be more true than when you are trying to decipher a fiction book from a non-fiction book. Can you tell which of the following books are fiction and which are non-fiction?

You might be surprised at the books that are actually fiction and the ones that are truly non-fiction. When you are in a library the easiest way to tell is to look at the call number. A call number is the label on the spine of the book that provides you with the location or "address" of the book. It tells you where the book lives on the library's shelves. But, because library books are organized by type of book,  the call number also tells you what kind of book it is. Not all libraries are the same but most of them use the Dewey Decimal System to label non-fiction books and some sort of locator symbol to label fiction books. Here is how the St. Philip's library works.

Fiction has one of the three locator symbols: FIC, E or YA

Non-fiction has one of the following: Number, REF or B

And they all stand for something

FIC: fiction
E: easy reader
YA: young adult
Number: example 509.893
REF: reference
B: biography

So what are the books I posted above?

Call number: 598 STE (non-fiction because of the Dewey number)

"In a simple yet informative language, award-winning children's science writer Melissa Stewart introduces readers to some of the ways human action or inaction can affect bird populations. More than just a book about birds, A Place For Birds will open readers' minds to a wide range of environmental issues."

Call number: 598 ARN (non-fiction because of the Dewey number)

"Birds:Nature's Magnificent Flying Machines looks at how feathers, body structure, and wings vary from bird to bird. Readers will learn the mechanics of bird flight from takeoff to landing and discover how wing types meet the survival needs of each species."        

Call number: E PEN (fiction because of the E for easy reader)

Ming-Li a Chinese girl is devastated to hear her country's leader had call sparrows the enemy of the farmers and soon announce a great "sparrow war" to banish them from China. While her village gathered to rid itself of sparrows Ming-Li vows to save the sparrow's, one by one,  no matter the consequences.

This tale is based on the true story of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung's war on sparrows in 1958. Yet Ming-Li is a made up character as are her actions making the book a work of fiction. In reality the sparrow population in China was decimated in three days leading to a growth in the locust population that ended up contributing to a famine that killed between thirty to forty million Chinese over the next three years.

                          

Research Projects

As your child gets older you will notice they are required to do more and more research projects. This can be daunting for both parents and children unless you are a member of the rare few who take to research like a pig to mud. I confess I belong to this piggy little group. I become giddy with excitement when I have research to do. It is my own special quest and I can't wait to fight my way through the world of information and come out triumphant. I fancy myself a warrior of knowledge; a blend of the Greek goddesses Athena and Sophia. I have the wisdom to know when to accept the information as fact and when to say "NO, you are not good information". I attack quickly only accepting gifts of knowledge than will take me further on my journey and in no way hinder my progress. I know how to find knowledge!!!!!

You are probably saying, "Ok, Falcon! Lets not get carried away in the world of imagination and plant ourselves firmly back on the ground. How can I wade through all the information available to me to find the answers I need?"

Lucky for you SP is doing a wonderful job of supplying the tools to help you in your quest for knowledge. Over the next few weeks I will periodically blog about ways to research. We will talk libraries, the internet and even online journals and resources that take you away from the World Wide Web.

Today I want to present you with a gift. Something that SP is providing for you that you can access from home. It's quick, it's easy and the best starting out point for your quest! Drum roll please..................

WORLD BOOK ONLINE!!!!!! An encyclopedia is a wonderful tool or should I say weapon, against all the false and misleading information threatening to hinder your quest. It provides you with basic information on any topic you can dream up. While the information is not in depth, it certainly gets those wheels spinning, allowing your brain to plot and plan the next steps in your quest. It helps you answer the question, "where to now?"

You don't need to head to the library or risk getting attacked by bad information from the internet. Just go to www.worldbookonline.com and enter philipschool as your username and falcon as your password. AND have fun!!!!!!

Helping Your Children Use the Library

You may have already noticed library books coming home. By now I have seen all K through 5 classes and given them an opportunity to take home their first library book of the school year. The past week and a half has been spent going over library rules and book care. While each student is responsible for their checked out book it is important that their parents help them remember the rules. I thought today would be a good day to introduce library expectations as a reminder to students and parents that the library is a special place and each book valuable in the knowledge it contains. Respect our books, respect our space and the library will be invaluable for years to come. 

Here's how!

• Be aware of your child's library day. Their book will be due one week from the day they visited. Post a sign on your refrigerator reminding everyone when library books are due. 
• Library books should not be read at the dinner table or during snack time. Food and books do not mix.
• Find a special place in your home for your child's library book. Perhaps a bookshelf that prevents younger siblings from getting to the book. Too many times books are returned in terrible shape and the younger sibling is blamed. 
• Unfortunately if a book is returned damaged or broken we will have to charge you to replace the book. Make sure you stress responsibility to your children. It might even be a good idea to have them pay for the book whether it comes from their allowance or they have to do extra chore to pay it off. 
• Read Read Read! Ask your children if they brought home a library book and then read it together!

Choosing a book that interests you.

Often we find it difficult to read books because they are assignments and not subjects that interest us. While these books are important to read they can be daunting. Don't let them scare you from reading. Just as each of you is an individual unlike any other so are books. While they may have similar themes or ideas they are different from each other. The challenge is to find the book that is right for you!

Start by asking yourself what you are interested in. Do you like reading about people who overcome a difficulty? Would you rather read a true story? Do you like animals and if so what kind? Maybe you like to think about the future and would like to read a science fiction novel. The possibilities are endless 

Once you have an idea of what subject you would like to read go to the library and search for books in that subject. Find the books on the shelf and open to a random page. Start reading that page. Every time you don't understand a word or can't read it hold up a finger. If you get to five fingers by the end of that page the book may be a little difficult for you to read. This is called the five finger test. It really helps to know if the book is too hard for you. You don't want to start reading a book and then get discouraged because you don't understand what it says.

Take the time to find a book that interests you and don't be afraid to look to something you don't know anything about. You just might discover a new interest.