Free Cookies from Great American Cookies!

October is National Cookie Month, and to celebrate, Great American Cookies is giving away free cookies!

During the month of October, Great American Cookies is hosting a "Reading is Sweet" book drive. If you drop off a new or gently used book during the month of October, they’ll give you a free regular cookie of your choice! Share the love of reading AND get a free cookie... Now that's SWEET!

Click here for participating locations.

Save Our School Library!

Did you know you can donate money to our school library online? You can even go online and CHOOSE the book you'd like to add to our library! Go to our online book shelf to make your donation and/or see what books have been donated. THANK YOU for your support and remember...100% of these donations go to our library.

Help us reach our goal of $500 by the end of the school year and...put books in the hands of our students!

Book Fair Highlights!

Check out our collage of book fair highlights below! Just click on the collage to see it a little larger.

 

Way to Go OIS!

Boy did we EVER reach our book fair goal! Our goal was 500 books and we sold OVER 1,000 books during the week of the book fair - woohoo!! As a school-wide reward students will have the opportunity to watch the oh-so-out of this world movie..."Mars Needs Moms"...complete with popcorn for EVERY student! Thanks to our FABULOUS teachers, students and parents for making this ONE HUGE SUCCESSFUL EVENT! We love to read - and boy does it show!

Mars Needs Moms...coming SOON to a classroom near YOU!

Book Fair Update!

We're having lots of fun at our Scholastic Book Fair this week - where reading is OUT OF THIS WORLD!! We've had lots of exciting things going on at the book fair...contest winners, Open House, visits from Grandparents, pictures with Astronaut Seymour and the UFO and our "What Planet are YOU From?" costume contest. The fun continues as the week goes on...we still have two GREAT days to shop the book fair, invite grandparents, have your picture made and enter contests. Be on the look out for Space trivia tomorrow and Friday as well as winners announced from our coloring contest. And don't forget...if we reach our goal of selling 500 books, OIS will celebrate with a school-wide movie and popcorn day featuring the movie "Mars Needs Moms"!

Keep bringing that ONE FOR BOOKS money! All donations are accepted. Tomorrow is quarter day and Friday is "Anything Goes" day...so bring it all!! Here are the top FOUR reasons you should participate in One For Books:



1. Your class gets to keep all the money to purchase books from the book fair for YOUR classroom!

2. The library makes a profit from the money you bring in to spend towards new books in the library for YOU to read!

3. Scholastic matches EVERY PENNY you donate and sends fabulous books to children in need.

4. You get to hang a UFO in the OIS lobby for all the world to see that YOU are making a difference!

5. The class collecting the most money will be awarded a field trip to visit with author Mike Thaler who wrote the oh-so-popular "Black Lagoon" series!!

Now THAT is something to get excited about...keep reading, keep donating and keep shopping the book fair...where reading is OUT OF THIS WORLD!!

OIS...where students and teachers LOVE to read!

We Have New Friends in the Library!

So our library recently became the home of approximately 40 new friends. These friends are better known as Beanie Babies or as we refer to them...our Reading Buddies! Students are allowed to select a Reading Buddy once their book is checked out and read to him! These have been a fun addition to our library! Students look forward to choosing a buddy for the day and sharing some reading time and a change of scenery. We always have room for more buddies, so if you would like to donate any Beanie Babies taking up space, feel free to send them our way where they will not only be taken care of, but read to daily!

12 Weeks to Better Readers!

For the next twelve weeks I'll be posting excerpts from Judy Freeman's 12 Tried-And-True Ways to Get Your Kiddos Reading (from ReadKIDDORead). This is an EXCELLENT article in teaching methods to get children not only READING, but EXCITED about reading! In the world of technology...IPads, Nooks, Kindles, Playstations, Wiis, Kinects, IPods, Smart Phones...we must find a way to compete...To make READING as enjoyable and rewarding as all of these "gadgets". We have our work cut out for us. The answer? Incorporate reading into technology...find reading apps, iBooks, etc...but...never underestimate the power of a good old-fashioned book. To get started with a good reading routine with your child, try this baker's dozen of easy, tried-and-true ways to ease reluctant readers into good books.

Remember...One method a week will be posted here at The Need 2 Read. Try it for a week...and see what works for YOUR sweetie!

1. Read Aloud Something EVERY Day

If you have time to watch TV or surf the Internet, you can make time to read with your kids. You only have a limited window of read-aloud years, so rearrange your schedule to carve out reading time every day. There's always time for a story, a chapter, or at least a poem, a joke or a tongue twister. And start early - in utero isn't too soon. What new parents soon discover is that reading aloud is just plain fun.


"Always read with expression," my mother told me when I was a child, learning to read with those good-time kids, Dick and Jane. (And I did, even becoming a librarian when I grew up, where I read aloud with expression on a daily basis.) Lucky for kids today, children's books are far more attractive and engaging these days. Kids pattern themselves on you, their reading role models. Listen for the voices in the stories you read aloud. Do you need to read aloud like actors Meryl streep or Lawrence Olivier? Yes, of course you do. Ham it up and have fun. If you read in a monotone, so will your kids. They need to hear the characters; voices in their heads to have true comprehension of the books they read. And there's nothing they love more than to snuggle in close and listen to you read aloud to them.


As your children start to read independently, share the joy and have them read to you, too. Make your own recordings of stories so your child can follow each book and listen to you over and over. Read aloud on car trips, at the doctor's office, and before bed, of course. What's my favorite read-aloud picture book, a tour de force of great voices? "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales" by the great Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

Author: Judy Freeman
Written For: www.readkiddoread.com

Nosey is Good!

I am a nosey teacher.

I consider being a nosey teacher to be "a good thing". Why you might ask? I learn more. I know more. And the more I learn about my students...the better I can help them at being nosey students. You see, if I know their favorite methods of technology, if I know their favorite things to read, if I know their most admired celebrities...I can create a love of learning that will enable my students to be nosey about reading and in turn nosey about life-long learning. How do I get more of these books? How do I find more books written by this author? How do I get an app for this Kindle? How do I practice my vocabulary words on the Ipad? The more I know, the more I can teach and the more I can teach, the more they will know...

I have asked my students who their favorite celebrities might be...and now we have personalized autographed pictures to display of these exact celebrities encouraging students to read.

I have asked my students what their favorite subjects are...and now I have more books on those subjects.

I have asked my students what they enjoy doing when they get home...and now I have that same technology here so they can read not only books, but information in magazines, on Kindles, on Ipads, on websites and in newspapers.

I have asked my students who their favorite authors and illustrators are...and we have brought many of them to the school to encourage students to continue to read and write and draw...they may be a famous writer or illustrator one day.

I have asked my students when their birthday is...and they are celebrated in the Birthday Book Club with the honor of checking out a new book and donating it to the library.

I have asked my students what they want to learn in technology...and we have downloaded many of these programs and found websites where they can learn more.

I have asked my students how they think other students would be best helped...and we have created school-wide contests and group efforts to make a difference and donate books around the world through Scholastic's One for Books and various other programs.

I have asked my students who their favorite characters are...and we have transformed students into these characters.


I have asked my students how they are involved in the community...and we have invited their local heroes to be a part of our reading program.

My motto is "Reading Rocks". When a student asks, "Why does reading rock?"...I tell them...come inside and let me show you.

I am proud to be a nosey teacher.
I am proud to teach nosey students.
They're always wanting to know what's going on in the library.
They checked out over 16,000 books last year alone in a school of less than 400. They kept a close eye on the library's blog.
They logged into My Capstone Virtual Library online...thousands of times.

Students at Odenville Intermediate School are nosey. They are knowledgeable. They are learning. How nosey are you?

If you are interested in learning how classroom management software can help you become a nosey teacher and manage students on computers more effectively, check out http://www.netop.com/products/education.htm

Get Free Books from Kellogg's!

Kellogg's has partnered with Scholastic to offer free books! Be sure to look on ALL Kellogg's products for a $5 book code! You need two codes to earn a $5 book certificate and there is NO LIMIT to the number of books you can earn! You're even able to pick out the book you want - awesome! And remember...if you're not interested...then bring the codes to your teachers and help your classroom earn free books!!

You can go here to see more information and to enter your codes and start earning books. Yay! Thank you, Kellogg's and Scholastic!

Welcome Back to School OIS!

Welcome back! I am convinced this is going to be the BEST school year ever! I am so excited to announce our first library event, a back-to-school Reading Pep Rally by author, illustrator, musician...Chris Rumble! We are so excited to have Chris visit our school this Friday, August 19th.

Students, teachers, parents...you may purchase books from Chris for $6 each. This includes an autograph and personal note of encouragement. Be sure to send your money Thursday or Friday of this week.

Here's a special note from Mr. Chris Rumble:

Dear Parents,

My name is Chris Rumble. I am so looking forward to my Author Visit with the great kids at Odenville Intermediate on August 19, 2011.

I believe I was put on this planet to encourage the next generation to realize their greatness. Reading is a big part of that equation.

During our event, I will give all that is in me to get the kids fired up about diving into great books in order to feed their minds and broaden their horizons!

You can help by getting your child excited about our event. Letting them know what a GREAT DAY it is going to be and that we are going to have a lot of fun with music and illustrating and audience participation!

Also, let me encourage you to use this event as a reason to experience great books together with your child. Please see my “Seven Great Reasons to Read to Your Child” included in the post-script.

The day of our event, they will be especially motivated to explore the books that I have written and illustrated: The Adventures of Uncle Stinky! (Random House) Kids love these books highly illustrated chapter books.

At $6, my books are relatively inexpensive. If the school is doing a book sale, the books can be purchased there. I autograph every book and include a personal note of encouragement to each child. If the school is not having a book sale, you can obtain the books at my web site at chrisrumble.com.

Thanks for investing in your child by getting them excited about our event!

I can’t wait to see the great kids at your school face-to-face!

We are going to have a BLAST…and inspire your child at the same time!

For the kids,

Chris Rumble

Free Online Books from Barnes and Noble

Barnes and Noble is offering a great selection of books online - there are 10 in all. They include Strega Nona, The Polar Express, Pinkalicious, Green Eggs and Ham (read by Rachel Ray) and several others. You can go here to check out the selection. Be sure to click on the "scale video" button to make them full screen.

Student Book Review: Addy Walker

The following is a book review written by OIS student, Taylor A. Taylor is a big fan of American Girl books. She recently wrote a review on one of her favorite books, Addy Walker. Thank you, Taylor, for spreading the love of reading!! If you're looking for something new to read and you've never read an American Girl book, this might be the series for you!! Check out Taylor's review below:

The past couple of weeks I've been reading American Girl books. My favorite series is about a girl named Addy Walker. Addy had a rough life. She was colored so her whole family was sold as slaves. They worked hard and dreamed of freedom. Her dad and brother were sold and her mother and Esther stayed. Her mother decided she and Addy were going to get to freedom. Esther was too young to go so they left her. To find out the rest of the story, check out "American Girl: Addy Walker" in the library.

Thanks so much, Taylor! Great job!!

Valentine's Day Giveaway!

We're going to keep this one short and sweet...this is a 24 hour Valentine's Day giveaway and the winner will receive 6 books from the Magic Tree House series AND a surprise Valentine treat! All you have to do is leave a comment below telling me what YOU love to read - as easy as that!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love...

Help OIS Get an IPad!

Now through the end of the school year you can send your used CDs and/or DVDs to OIS and help us purchase Kindle Readers and/or an IPad for our school! Both CDs and DVDs must be in a case with the original paper cover AND they must be readable - no damaging scratches. With your help...we can do it! Thank you, thank you, thank you to those of you who have already sent in DVDs and CDs. We appreciate your support!! Spread the word OIS family!!

Free Recordable Book - A Story Before Bed

Record a free book “What are Little Boys and Girls Made Of?” ($9.99 value) by Adam Herrington at A Story Before Bed – it’s free for a limited time. No coupon code is necessary, just login and all you need is a camera and microphone on your computer to make the recording of you reading the story. This 10-page story with illustrations is recommended for ages 1 to 3. Here’s more about this book:

“What Are Little Boys Made Of?” is a popular nursery rhyme dating from the early nineteenth century. It has been fabulously updated with clever illustrations and will delight small children and adults alike.

After you record the story, you can preview it before saving and access it at anytime. You can even access your recorded story from an iPhone, iPod, or iPad with their new free downloadable app. And you can share it on Facebook if you wish. This is a great way to have relatives who don’t live close by to read your kids a bedtime story virtually!

Five Readers Win!

To celebrate the start of a New Year, we're giving away five copies of "The Tarantula in My Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets". This is a fun autobiographical account of acclaimed author-naturalist Jean Craighead George.

Imagine growing up with a skunk in your closet, a bat in your refrigerator, and a tarantula in your purse...living with a variety of animals - including a mischievous crow, a duck with an arrest record, and a Houdini-like boa constrictor - the George family learns just how entertaining life with wild creatures can be. These funny and touching animal stories from a master storyteller will speak to the animal lover in all of us.

Okay friends, all you have to do is leave a comment below (just click on comments and a box will come up where you can type) telling me something - anything - about a beloved animal in your life. It can be a pet, friend's pet, story you read, movie you saw...anything! Anyone can enter...if you're an OIS student, be sure to leave your first and last name in your comment. If not, be sure to leave your first name and an email address so I can contact you if you win. Thanks for reading along and be sure to follow The Need 2 Read so you don't miss out on more upcoming giveaways!! Leave 3 extra comments for following - that's 4 chances to win!

Giveaway will end January 21st and winners will be announced/contacted the following week. Good luck and happy reading!

Odenville Public Library Hosts Reading with Ringling

Instilling a love for reading at an early age, Odenville Public Library has teamed up with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus to provide its young readers...Reading with Ringling! Reading five books from Odenville Public Library can earn children a ticket to The Greatest Show on Earth!!

Participants must read four books that come from the Odenville Public Library and are recorded on the circus book log with a special stamp provided by Ringling. When complete, they will receive a clown nose, bookmark, reading log and of course, a ticket to the circus. Interested readers can contact the Odenville Library at 205-629-5901 between the hours of 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday to sign up for the program. The circus will be coming to the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center Wednesday, January 26, through Sunday, January 30. Sounds fun!!

If you're reading along but not located in the Odenville area, be sure to check your local library to see if they're participating! If not, let them know about Reading with Ringling so they can sign up for next year's program!

Information taken from the St. Clair County News, Thursday, January 6, 2011 edition (Amanda E.H. Pritchard).

Free Online Story Time: Strega Nona

Enjoy Online Storytime by Barnes & Noble with this month’s featured story, “Strega Nona” read by the book’s author and illustrator, Tomie dePaola. Every month they feature a new popular kids story read out loud. You can adjust the volume, pause the story, and create a full-screen window. My son loves it! Enjoy!

New Books Worth Reading!

Check out the selection below of cool new books...these are just a few you may want to look for in your public library or spend some of that Christmas money on...either at your local book store or online at Amazon. Let me know if you read one, I'd love to know what you think!

Stand-Alone Chapter Books

THE RISE AND FALL OF MOUNT MAJESTIC
written by Jennifer Trafton
illustrated by Brett Helquist
Dial Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780803733756
Ages 8-up
352 pages

Ten-year-old Persimmony Smudge leads (much to her chagrin) a very dull life on the Island at the Center of Everything…until the night she overhears a life-changing secret. It seems that Mount Majestic, the rising and falling mountain in the center of the island, is not a mountain at all --- it's the belly of a sleeping giant, moving as the giant breathes. Now Persimmony and her new friend Worvil the Worrier have to convince all the island's other quarreling inhabitants --- including the silly Rumblebumps, the impeccably mannered Leafeaters, and the stubborn young king --- that a giant is sleeping in their midst, and must not be woken.


THE STAR MAKER
Laurence Yep
HarperCollins Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780060253158
Ages 8-12
112 pages

If only Artie had kept his mouth shut.

But his mean cousin Petey was putting him down, so Artie started bragging.

Now he has to come up with enough money to buy firecrackers for all his cousins by the Lunar New Year.

Luckily, there's one person he can count on…Uncle Chester!


THE STORM BEFORE ATLANTA
Karen Schwabach
Random House Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375858666
Ages 8-12
320 pages

At a time when most people have grown weary of the war between the states, two young children are desperate to find their way to the battlefields. Jeremy DeGroot wants nothing more than to join a troop as a drummer boy. For Dulcie, a runaway slave, freedom means she must head directly toward the fighting in the hopes that she'll become "contraband," that is, property of the Union troops. Both Jeremy and Dulcie find a place with the 107th New York Volunteer Regiment and even start to forge a friendship. But all that is threatened when they keep crossing paths with the mysterious Charlie, a young Confederate soldier, who may look like the enemy but feels more like a friend.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Series Books/Sequels

Alcatraz

ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE SHATTERED LENS
Brandon Sanderson
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439925570
Ages 9-12
304 pages

Alcatraz Smedry is on a mission to save the day! In his final adventure in the series by bestselling adult fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz has a lot to prove and, as always, little time in which to do it.

Lunch Lady

LUNCH LADY AND THE BAKE SALE BANDIT
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375867293
Ages 7-10
96 pages

The Breakfast Bunch is excited for the upcoming bake sale --- and the best part is that it's raising money for an awesome field trip. But when all the snacks go missing, it's no laughing matter. Someone is sabotaging the bake sale. But why?

Lunch Lady and the Breakfast Bunch are hot on the trail…one brownie crumb at a time.

Spaceheadz

SPHDZ Book #2!
written by Jon Scieszka
illustrated by Shane Prigmore
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9781416979531
Ages 7-10
240 pages

The campaign is going well. The SPHDZ word is getting out. Thousands of kids have signed up to say they are SPHDZ. But things haven't gotten any easier for Michael K. The SPHDZ are still trying to blend in to our Earth culture, but not very successfully. They're still mixing up Thanksgiving, cartoon plots, holidays and commercials. This makes it especially hard for Michael K. to both hide the SPHDZ from Agent Umber and accomplish the SPHDZ Mission. He's forced to enlist the help of fellow fifth graders Venus and TJ.

When they (Michael K. and the SPHDZ) are given the assignment to write and perform the school play, Umber thinks he's closing in on the aliens...the kindergartners playing the turkeys.

Sequel to A WHOLE NOTHER STORY

ANOTHER WHOLE NOTHER STORY
Dr. Cuthbert Soup
Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
ISBN: 9781599904368
Ages 8-12
304 pages

The plan was simple. Ethan Cheeseman, along with his three smart, polite and relatively odor-free children, would travel back in time to end an ancient family curse and save their mother. Now that the LVR (a super-secret time machine) is in working order, it should be easy peasy. Except they didn’t account for one basic rule of science: Murphy’s Law, where everything that possibly could go wrong, does. So the Cheeseman family finds themselves on another madcap adventure, this time through stormy seas and haunted castles. And though their narrator, Dr. Soup, has a ton of unsolicited advice to offer young readers, he doesn’t have much to say to help the Cheesemans, except this one thing: Good luck!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Picture Books

A BOY NAMED FDR: How Franklin D. Roosevelt Grew Up to Change America
written by Kathleen Krull
illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher
Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9780375857164
Ages 6-10
48 pages

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born into one of the wealthiest families in America, yet this ultimate rich kid grew up to do more for ordinary Americans than any other president. This appealing picture book biography shows how, from childhood on, FDR was compassionate, cheerful, determined, and enormously likable. Though he had private tutors as a young boy and later attended an elite boys' school, he played pranks and had down-to-earth fun just like any boy today.


I’M NOT.
written by Pam Smallcomb
illustrated by Robert Weinstock
Schwartz & Wade/Random House Children’s Books
ISBN: 9780375861154
Ages 4-8
32 pages

Our shy narrator lists all the things that her best friend, Evelyn, is good at --- from jumping on the bed to roller skating really fast. Luckily, Evelyn points out what makes her so special: she's a one-of-a-kind true blue best friend. Robert Weinstock's hilarious illustrations wonderfully complement Pam Smallcomb's simple text, perfect for young children. This sweet depiction of friendship shows --- in a completely fresh, original way --- that everyone is special.


ODETTA: THE QUEEN OF FOLK
written and illustrated by Stephen Alcorn
Scholastic Press
ISBN: 9780439928182
Ages 4-8
40 pages

She was a beautiful girl who plunged head-first into the world with a song to sing. Born in Birmingham, this child soon learned to make a whole heap of noise on her auntie's piano. Then she discovered her own instrument --- a voice full of brass and thunder! And, oh, did she have a song to sing --- spirituals, gospels, work songs. She sang joy. She sang sorrow and struggle. She sang triumph. Her songs told stories of America's history. And, with the help of Baby, her guitar, Odetta blazed a musical trail that served as the roadmap for many folksingers who followed in her footsteps.

List made available from Kidsreads.com

OIS Library Schedule

The OIS Library is open to students weekly: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The library is closed each Thursday in order to complete administrative tasks, technology requests, new book orders/preparation, lesson planning, etc.

Library hours are 8:00-2:00. Be sure to visit us, check out new books and magazines and see the library displays. You never know...there may be a contest or two taking place. We love to see your smiling faces!!

Last year we checked out over 16,000 books!! Can we top it this year??

Keep reading!