COLLECTING

It's not too early to start thinking about summer reading. Studies show consistently that the more reading one does, the better reader one becomes. In the spirit of keeping kids reading over the summer, I have put together an end-of-year book giveaway program. Students in all grades get to choose and keep a book for their own private library.

If you have any gently used books that your  children have outgrown, I would be happy to put them  in the end-of-year book giveaway. Please make sure, however, that the books are in decent shape.

You can drop them off at the school library, or even the front office. I will also be happy to write up an estimate of the value of your donation on school letterhead for tax purposes if that would be helpful.

Thanks so much, in advance!

2014 DCF Winner

And the winner is...

WONDER

BY

P.J. PALACIO

I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.  

This is how the book, Wonder, by P.J. Palacio opens, and these are the words that August Pullman uses to describe his face. Born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school all August wants is to be treated as an ordinary kid, but his new 5th grade classmates at Beecher Prep, can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.

This book is an extraordinary read. One student at Oak Grove said it was the "...best book he EVER read". Chosen as the Vermont Reads book by the Vermont Humanities Council, I'll bet many other are agreeing with our student.

Try it for yourself!

Red Clover Winner!

For the past 10 weeks students in grades K-3 (and a small selection of 4th graders) have been reading books on this year's Vermont children's' choice list, aka The Red Clover books. Each year there are 10 new picture books to read and discuss and then the students get to vote on their favorite story.

The hands-down winner at Oak Grove this year was the World's Greatest Lion by Ralph Helfer. It is based on the true story of a lion cub that was rescued in Zambia after a close brush with death, and came to live on Ralph Helfer's Africa USA dance. There he was trained and ended up being featured in several Hollywood movies.

Turns out that our Oak Grove students are right in step with everyone else, because Vermont kids from all around the state voted The World's Greatest Lion as this year's Red Clover Winner.

Give this heart-tugging story a read and then another one. There's lots to look at and lots to wonder about. I'm sure Zamba's movies can be found on netflix or other movie sources and more information about Zamba and Ralph Helfer can be found online. This is a story that sticks with you.

Student Stories

     Students in my last 6 week skills block chose to write narratives. Some had their own ideas and others used a very cool writing tool called STORYMATIC. This is a box of situation and character cards. Students pulled two or three cards from each of the two categories and had to come up with a story that made use of all the cards.
     These stories can be accessed by clicking on the students names on the right side of this page. Work from other sessions is also posted on their pages, with the newest being on top.. Feel free to read that as well.
     Students in the last session were: Carter, Emma, Erick, Jonah, Margaret, Nick, Wyatt, Zola.
     Enjoy!

NEW DCF list

The new DCF list for 2014/2015 has been posted on the Dorothy Canfield Fisher page. To view the list and to get a complete set of annotations click on https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B55N8oQex0aJQXh5dTR2YlRKNDQ/edit

We have ALL these books in the library. So if you want to get a head start on next year, come on in!