Dawn Ann's Birthday

Today is Dawn Ann's birthday!  Dawn Ann's good nature and enthusiasm for her job are an asset to Wasatch, and they also reflect so positively on our entire library program.  Happy birthday to her!

Author Visits

Pam Munoz Ryan

The UELMA Conference is coming up on March 7, 2013.  I noticed that two of the visiting authors will be Gary Soto and Pam Munoz Ryan. 

It seems like I have recently seen more well-known national authors visiting Utah than in years past.  They've visited public libraries, bookstores, and conferences.  Have you noticed this, too?  Maybe it's the state of the economy, and the publishing companies are encouraging the authors to travel more and make themselves more available in order to increase sales.  Or maybe it's just that children's literature is becoming more and more mainstream, and there is a demand for these authors.  For whatever reason, it's great fun to be able to listen to notable children's authors.

Gary Soto

What are some of your experiences being able to hear from authors---whether at a conference, bookstore, etc?  Were there some authors that were especially memorable?

Latest Winners!

The Grand Prize Winner for the period of November 27th to December 18th is Janice!  She has won a $50.00 iTunes gift card to purchase educational apps for her iPad!

Additional winners of smaller prizes are:

Joseph 
Jill
Karen
Pamela
Marianne

Thank you all for your comments to our library blog.  It is often the highlight of my day to read all of your wonderful comments.  

Holiday Traditions

I've enjoyed reading about some of your holiday memories.  In the posting about holiday treats, I could see that some of your treats were also traditions!  In the posts about holiday books and movies, it was evident that some of those were also family traditions.  

So....in addition to treats, books, and movies, what are some of your other holiday traditions that make this time of year so much fun?

Polar Express

In the blog post called Holiday Books, Marianne mentioned how much she loves the audio recording of The Polar Express by William Hurt.  But she also mentioned that it is hard to find.  

YouTube is such an awesome resource!  It has a recording of The Polar Express.  Since it is just an audio recording that someone uploaded, the actual pages from the book are not part of the YouTube selection.  You can hear the complete audio----but the video remains on the cover of the book for the duration of the video.  So if you want to use this with students, you could have the audio part playing and you could be supplementing the experience by actually showing the pages of the book yourself.

Thank You

The DMC staff wants to thank everyone for the lovely poinsettias that you gave us last night at our Library Social.  The poinsettias are beautiful, and we appreciate your thoughtfulness.  

Thank you!

Holiday Treats

Cooking is not my favorite things to do.  :)  However, I do like to make sugar cookies at Christmas time.  It's fun to roll the dough, use fun cookie cutters, and it's especially fun to take time to frost the cookies with colorful icing and a variety of sprinkles.

Is there something special that you make at this time of year that's part of your family tradition?

Jill's Birthday

Today is Jill's birthday!  I love Jill's enthusiasm for all things library-related.  Happy happy birthday to her!

Theresa's Birthday

Today is Theresa's birthday!  Theresa works so hard to keep current on library topics. Happy birthday to her!

Karen's Birthday

Today is Karen's happy birthday!  Karen is one of the kindest, most considerate, and thoughtful people that I know.  She is also a wonderful librarian!

Holiday Books

What are some of your favorite holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) books that you like to share with students?

What are some of your favorite holiday books that are just for you?

It's a Wonderful Life

It's great fun to watch holiday movies with family and friends this time of year.  What are some of your favorites?

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Holiday Wishes

In the movie and book, A Christmas Story, Ralphie dreams of getting a "Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time."





When I was about 8-years-old, I desperately wanted a tennis racket for Christmas.  My parents thought that I was too young and would never really use a tennis racket.  I was so sad because  I didn't think any gift-giving person in my family would respond to my tennis obsession---and so I made sure that Santa knew how much I wanted it.  To my delight, I DID receive a tennis racket for Christmas.  I would hit tennis balls against the side of our house for hours with that much-wanted racket.  As I got older, I played tennis every chance I got.  To this day, I love to play tennis and I obsessively watch tennis on television.


What is one of your happy memories of a gift given or received?

Giving

This past weekend the Atwood family went out to buy our Christmas tree.  (We always buy a tree that looks similar to the Charlie Brown Christmas tree).  We spent some time looking for the perfect tree and finally found it.   As we were waiting to pay for our tree, we began chatting with a family that was purchasing their tree ahead of us.  We joked with them and laughed.  The mom even made a wise crack about our tree and how it was kind of "funny looking."  We watched as this family with many children loaded their tree onto their suburban and left.  Then we loaded our tree onto our car and tied it down.  I handed Chelsea $60 and told her to pay for our tree.  She asked the person who owned the Christmas tree lot how much we owed for our tree.  He smiled and said that we didn't owe him anything.  He told us that the family before us had paid for our Christmas tree!  He had a big smile on his face and tears in his eyes.  I burst into tears and threw my arms around the poor Christmas tree lot owner.  He was a little bit stunned.  Then my girls gave the poor guy a hug too.  We left the Christmas tree lot with tears in our eyes after truly experiencing the "gift of giving!"

We are now trying to decide a fun way to share our experience by doing a "random act of kindness" for someone else.  Do you have any ideas of ways the Atwoods can "pay it forward" and help someone this Christmas season?

November Winners!

For the weeks of November 13th to November 27th, our Grand Prize Blog Winners are:
Dawn Ann 
Mary H.
They have each won a $50.00 gift card to iTunes that they can use to put educational apps on their iPads.  



Additional winners are:

Margo
Jill
Tamara
Marilyn
Janice

Watch for your prizes to arrive through district mail.

Thanks to all of you for your contributions to our Connect Collaborate Share Blog!

iPad Fun

What fun things have you done with your new iPads now that you've had them for a week? 

I've used my iPad to check my email while at the doctor's office, taken a picture of the snow at my house, played a few games, looked up a movie schedule for my daughter, read a library article, and loaded two fun spelling apps.

Feast

Feast is such a great word----a large, elaborately prepared meal.

In One is a Feast for Mouse by Judy Cox, the little mouse finds the leftovers of the Thanksgiving feast: one pea, one cranberry, one tiny bit of mashed potato, one tiny morsel of turkey----and he must figure out how to get his feast back to his mouse house.  (Jean Brown talked about this fun book in one of her comments).

What is your favorite part of your family's Thanksgiving feast? Who usually prepares this favorite part?  My favorite is the delicious dressing/stuffing that my mother prepares each year.  No one else in my family cares much for turkey dressing, but I love it!

Thanksgiving Books

When I was a librarian, it was always easy to find plenty of great Halloween books to read to students.  But I sometimes had a hard time finding fun Thanksgiving books.

What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving books that you read with your classes?

Newbery and Caldecott 2013

The Newbery and Caldecott winners are always announced at the Midwinter ALA Conference in January.  Are there any books that you've read this year that you think might be contenders?

I read that the book, Green, by Laura Vacarro Seeger is being touted as a possible Caldecott winner.  Have you seen this lovely book?   

Donene's Birthday

Today is Donene's happy birthday!  Donene is such a creative librarian who always goes the extra mile.  She even dresses up like Harry Potter!

Janet's Birthday

Today is Janet Petersen's birthday!  She has had a difficult year with her knee and back surgeries.  We are certainly glad to have her back with us!  The students at Mountain View are glad, too!

Public Libraries

I am so excited that Farmington, Utah just opened a brand new public library! 

Our little community has needed a new library for such a long time.

I occasionally get to attend meetings at the Salt Lake Public Library.  I love this stunningly beautiful library!  I stopped and took this photo on my phone just a few weeks ago while I was attending a literacy meeting. 

How do you feel about our public libraries?   If you use one of our public libraries, which one is it and what services do you use?  

Happy Halloween!

The DMC wishes you a spooktacular Halloween!

Congratulations to Our Winners!

Congratulations to our 6 big winners!  For the past two weeks, we put the name of everyone who commented on the blog into a hat.  If a librarian commented 7 times, his/her name went into the hat 7 times, and so forth.

Our Grand Prize Winner was Phyllis Hall!  She won a $25.00 gift certificate to Applebees.  


Additional winners were:

Mary A.
Janice
Julie B.
Susette
Sarah

Watch for your prizes to arrive through district mail.

Thanks to all of you for your contributions to our Connect Collaborate Share Blog!

Media Center Catalog

 How are your teachers responding to the new method to locate and schedule materials from the District Media Center?

Are they catching on?  Does it seem to be working out for them?  Have they been able to find the videos and DVDs that they need?

As you've trained them on this new method, has the response been positive?

Decorating Your Library

Do you decorate your library for Halloween?  

If so what do you do?  Something big?  Something small?

Do you have some good Halloween decorating ideas that do not take too much time, effort, or money?

Halloween Fun

Do you dress up for Halloween in your library?

Do You Think This Is a Compliment???

What kinds of topics/subjects/resources do your students and faculty use your search-engine-like-brain for?