Library Work Day and New Books!

Librarian and Lovely Volunteer Moms at Library Work Day
(check out the New Books display!)


Thanks to Noemi Mora and Ahyesha Daniels, and all the parents who showed up to help.

An empty shelving cart! Woo-hoo!

Library Work Day

With the help of our terrific parent coordinator Noemi, we are planning a Library Work Day for this coming Friday, January 28th (a half-day).  We will be serving coffee and a light breakfast, followed by a morning of helping out in the library.  There are numerous jobs, from shelving to cleaning to working with technology.  Please r.s.v.p. to mckinleylibrary@gmail.com if you can come.  Thank you!!

Nonfiction Reading Campaign!

Kids--especially boys--are drawn to nonfiction.  And there seem to be a lot more engaging nonfiction reads than ever before.  I'm not referring to books that satisfy a research need (though those have their place), but texts on topics that capture the genuine interests of children.  The Day-Glo Brothers, for example, is the story of how two brothers began experimenting with ultraviolet light to create fluorescent paints, a feature of our visual landscape that we now take for granted.  Sparrows sparks children's wonder about the natural world around them, right here in New York City.  We will soon launch a schoolwide reading program, aimed at students from grades 3-5 and their families, to encourage the whole community to take advantage of the rich nonfiction reading materials we have available.  The goal is to help students recognize that reading is a "life skill" that surrounds every area of life and is the key to future success.  Thanks to a generous grant from Macy's, we will be receiving a generous gift of nonfiction titles for our library collection!  Stay tuned for details.

More ebooks for young readers: BookFlix

We are also exploring the BookFlix online library.  (Appropriately, for the weather, we saw Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day along with Snowy Weather Days, an informational ebook about snow).  BookFlix, from Scholastic, pairs together classic video storybooks with nonfiction ebook on the same theme.   Like One More Story, the books have a read-along feature, which allows the beginning reader to follow along with the text as the book is read aloud. While this is a subscription product, it is free through the New York York Public Library with your library card barcode number.  To get there: go to the New York Public Library ebooks page.

Electronic Books (ebooks)

We have been looking at electronic books in grades 1/2.  (Don't worry, printed books continue to be alive and well in our library!) Kids in Alexis' class were introduced to the library at One More Story, a digital library of classic and contemporary children's books.  You can look at a sample book there.  Our library has a subscription for this database.  If you are interested in gaining home access to all the books, please email Cheryl at mckinleylibrary@gmail.com to receive a username and password.  We have 50 home accounts; if there is enough interest, we may be able to increase that number.