April 22nd is Earth Day. Check out Earthday.ca or Ecokids for great ideas on how to protect our planet. We also have some great books in the library. Come and see Mrs. Araujo if you want to check one out and stay tuned for more details about Earth Day events at our school.
Literacy Fair and Student-led Conferences
This week South Slope will host a literacy fair and student-led conferences. Visit the gym for the book swap, book walk and take a tour of the amazing literacy displays. Mr. Douglas has lots of fun planned in the Music Room with recorder stations. The Library is open for the Scholastic Book Fair.
The computer lab will also be open for you to explore online resources. If you have an email address, I invite you to leave a comment on this blog about the Literacy Fair and/or your visit to your child’s classroom. Here are some sentence starters you could try:
I noticed… I liked… My favourite part was….
This reminded me of… This was the same as/different than…
I wonder… I think… I learned…
We hope you have fun!
150 Nights of Reading Feb 23rd
It’s hard to believe, but we will reach 150 nights of reading on Wednesday, February 23rd! Reading Club forms may be handed into the library anytime after that date. 200 nights forms will also be available on Wednesday. Keep on reading!
World Book Online
Dear Parents:
Good news! Our library now subscribes to World Book Online. World Book Online is a valuable reference site for schools and libraries. The World Book resources for Burnaby schools include:
• World Book Kids—the premier general reference Web site developed especially for younger users.
• World Book Student—includes all articles from the 22-volume World Book Encyclopedia, plus thousands of additional articles and more than 20,000 pictures, maps, videos, and sounds..
• World Book Advanced—tailored for the needs of older students, it includes encyclopedic content, e-books, multimedia, a vast collection of primary source documents, and a wealth of research tools that allow students to customize and save their work.
• World Book Discover—designed for English language learners, this site includes reference articles, text-to-speech capabilities, research and translation tools, and multimedia.
• Enciclopedia Estudiantil Hallazgos—the optimal beginner’s Spanish language reference site.
Our World Book subscription allows us to give you and your family access to this valuable reference source at your home computers 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. We are providing this service to you at no charge!
We hope your children will use World Book Online often to help with their homework, special projects, and at-home learning.
To access the World Book Online, follow these simple steps:
1. Go to our school’s web site: http://southslope.sd41.bc.ca/
2. Hover over the Library tab on the left hand side and the link to World Book Online will appear.
3. Click on World Book Online to get to the World Book log in page. You can find our school’s username and password in the January Newsletter or come and see Mrs. Araujo in the library.
A Parents’ Guide to Facebook
From: Curriculum Connections—School Library Journal
January 4, 2011. By Alicia Eames
A Parents’ Guide to Facebook, by Anne Collier and Larry Magid, the Co-Directors of ConnectSafely.org, is a 34-page resource available online as a printable PDF file. It begins with an introduction to Facebook’s features and uses, addressing topics such as “How do we parent Facebook users?” and “Digital footprints & good reputations,” along with sensible suggestions. For example, “…the No. 1 safety tip is ‘Talk with your child.'”
While Facebook is designed for users aged 13 and older, there’s nothing to stop younger children from side-stepping that guideline with a few simple, albeit dishonest, clicks of the mouse. The authors note, “A July 2010 survey found that 37% of U.S. 10-to-12-year olds were on Facebook, which means that every one of these children had to lie about their age to get on the service.”
Check out the link on the library home page under “Parents” to this PDF document.