It's Earth Day!!!

Here is a great poem from the lovely Amanda Gorman to celebrate Earth Day!

I love being at Spring Harbor because of its focus on environmental studies and embedding environmental issues into all areas of our curriculum.  We all should be concerned about the health of our planet and work to keep her healthy so she can provide us a place to live!

As we celebrate Earth Day today, I wanted to share a few events and resources you might want to check out.  

There is a virtual Earth Day scavenger hunt you can participate in.  More info is here and there is a free option and a paid option. 

Earth Day Live is another big event happening.  You can check out that live event here, it starts at 11am our time, but will also be available to view after it is over too. 

Through the link above you can also check out other events that happened in the days leading up to Earth Day including the Global Youth Summit.

Be active and do something to help support our Earth and it's health.  You can find lots of actions, small and large, that you can do to help the Earth here. 

If you like listening to podcasts, here is a list of some environmentally focused ones to check out.

I hope you all have a great Earth Day!

Mrs. Schmitz as a kid... and her favorite books

Here I am in first or second grade... I don't know which because I wore the same shirt for both years' school pictures...

At this age I loved reading the Sweet Pickles books.  My family had the whole set and I just loved reading them myself and reading them to my younger brother and sister too.  These books aren't published anymore and I recently asked my parents if they still had them. My dad did some digging and found them!  I'm looking forward to reading them with my 4 year old niece someday soon!  Although we have to be at my parents house because my dad won't give them up 😁.

This is me in 3rd grade... I know that because of the totally awesome perm I got (sarcasm there..) and because in this family photo I had to have my right arm behind my brother (I cropped my siblings out, but you can see his really cool brown felt suit coat) because it was in a cast.  This was the 2nd broken arm I had in 3rd grade... it was a rough year... I also had stitches in my head from falling in an infamous game of hide and seek when I tripped while running to base. 

At this age, my favorite book was A Wrinkle in Time. My Aunt Judy and Uncle Mike who live in New Zealand had come to visit and got me that book for Christmas.  I read it over and over and treasured it because it was a gift from my aunt and uncle who I didn't get to see much of, but always loved spending time with them and so the book was extra special because of that.  Plus it is such an amazing story that really held my attention and imagination!

This is me in 6th grade when we went to Science Camp for a week in Santa Cruz, CA.  I grew up in California.  

At this time in my life I was really into the Lloyd Alexander's fantasy series The Chronicles of Prydain. I read these books over and over and always went to it's section in the library.

This is me in high school... (yes I played basketball). 

My English teacher in high school, who I had as a freshman and junior, was my favorite teacher and is why I became an English teacher myself (before I became a librarian).  She introduced me to Willa Cather and the book My Antonia and it is one of my all time favorite books to this day.  I taught it to my high school students, who didn't always love it like I did... but I stick by it!

These books gave me all the feels!

Here is a booktok of some the books in our library that gave me all the feels!  

Some made cry, some had me on the edge of my seat, some made me just really think, and some had me in awe!  I highly recommend all of these books!

Booktok and favorite books!

Thanks so much for sharing on this form to help celebrate National Library Month!  You all rock!  Please keep sharing!

Here is a book video a student shared... originally I was rick rolled but then I got the student to send me a real video 😁.  

Here are some of your classmates favorite books:

One of 6th grader Jasmine Daniels' favorite books is The Witches by Roald Dahl.

"The Nightingale, most definitely. It's by Kristin Hannah, and it's hard to explain. This book is super important to me." - an 8th grader

"The Comeback by E.L Shen. A sixth grader, Maxine Chen, dreams of becoming a famous figure skater. She practices before and after school. Her bravery may inspire you to fight for your dreams." - 6th grader Alaina Broman
 

New books and favorite books!

We just got in a shipment of books and I thought I'd do a TikTok Booktok unboxing video!  

(I should have figured TikTok was blocked... so I spent longer than it should have taken, and figured out how to put a TikTok on YouTube!  So hopefully you can now enjoy my attempts at TikToks 😄)

As you can see... I still have not mastered TikTok... please share your BookToks and/orc, if you are TikTok proficient, help Mrs. Schmitz out by sending me some tips on how to make better videos 📱.  

Today in closing out the second full week of School Library Month, I wanted to share some more of your favorite books!  If you want to share a book, something about the library (any library), a booktok video, your favorite poem, etc. please fill out this form! 

"My favorite book would be Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I would recommend this book because the characters and story to be very captivating." - from an 8th grader

"Sisters by Raina Telgemeier" - from 6th grader Kamille Murdock

"I really enjoyed Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt because it gives a unique insight to what it's like to have a learning disorder like dyslexia and to feel like you are doing everything right but not getting anywhere." - from an 8th grader

Favorite Tech tool! TabCloud

6th graders who have seen my screen on Zoom have witnessed that I have wayyyy too many tabs open!  Plus, I have multiple windows with lots of tabs.  There are reasons for this... I'm doing research on something, creating a newsletter with a bunch of things to share, cataloging and processing books on another, etc... I know that my computer might not run as efficiently when I have all of these open.  I know I need to close them out to make my "workspace" cleaner, but then I'll lose all of my tabs and information I need!!! What am I supposed to do?!?!  

I discovered TabCloud years ago when this started to be a problem for me 😂.  TabCloud is a life saver for those of you like me, who like to collect information on tabs and don't want to lose them, but don't always need them open all of the time.  

You can use TabCloud and have a TabCloud window for each class if you want. So when you open that window in TabCloud you have all the tabs you need for that clas open.  It is especially useful if you are working on a project and have lots of tabs open for it.  

If it sounds like something you need give it a try!

Here is a video that does a great job showing you how to use TabCloud:

April is also Arab American Heritage Month!

I told you, April is full of a lot of celebrations!  Here is some information about Arab American Heritage Month from PBS. Here is an article about Arab Americans who have made a difference.

And to learn more visit this site with information and links about Arab Americans, The Arab World, Arabic Language and Literature, Arab Art and Literature, Arab Food, Arab Music and Dance, Arab Contributions, and Arab American Identity. 

April is also National Poetry Month!

April is a month full of celebrations!  Not only do we celebrate School Library Month, but we also celebrate National Poetry Month in April (and a few more things I'll share later). This year marks the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Month and you can celebrate it in so many ways!

One way you can participate is by sharing your favorite poem on this form and I'll include it in a future blog post!

One of my all time favorite poems is by American poet E.E. Cummings "I carry your heart with me" (printed below).  I love the use of spacing and punctuation as it adds so much meaning to the words in the poem.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

 

Today is: Drop Everything And Read (D.E.A.R.) Day

D.E.A.R... which you might have also heard as SSR (silent sustained reading) is something I always loved when I was in school.  I remember it fondly and  I have seen it used less and less in schools unfortunately.  The idea is that everyone in the whole school is reading at one time... teachers, staff, and students.  It is a time that gives everyone a break to just sit and read and enjoy that time. You might see this idea appear in you ELA/Humanities classrooms as a time to silently read.  

The term D.E.A.R. actually comes from the book Romana Quimby Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  It is celebrated each April 12th in celebration of Beverly Cleary's birthday.  You may have heard that Ms.Cleary passed away a few weeks ago, on March 25th, at the age of 104. So this D.E.A.R. day is especially significant due to her passing.  If you are not familiar with the Romana Quimby books you might know some of her other books. She was a very popular author when I was young, and her books are still published, meaning that they are fairly timeless in their themes. 

More information about D.E.A.R. day can be found here.

I think you all should celebrate this day by dropping everything and reading for at least 30 minutes today!

Some of your favorite books!

 

Thanks so much to those of you sharing on this form!  Keep things coming!

Here are some of your classmates favorite books:

"I love the book Aru Shah and the Song of Death. I love the whole Aru Shah series but The Song of Death is probably my favorite. I like this book, because it is about Hindu mythology and there is a lot of stuff I can relate too. I recommend it for people that love Rick Riordan books." - Swathi Kumar (6th grade)

"One of my favorite books, or series I should say, is the Defy series. A little while ago my mom took me to a bookstore and I got a book, I didn't notice it was the second in a series until about halfway through. So things were a bit spoiled for me but it is such a great book and series I highly recommend it. The first book is called Defy, the second is called Ignite, and the third is called Endure, they are written by Sara B. Larson. I hope you enjoy the book if you read it!" - from an 8th grader

"Keeper Of The Lost Cities by, Shannon Messenger. I love this series so far! (I'm on the 6th book) These books are for people who love Harry Potter because they are completely fantasy. Some of the characters names are Sophie, Fitz, etc. (I don't want to give away too much). But summing it up, this is an amazing series that I would recommend to read! :)" - Heera Karwal (7th grade)

I will share more of your favorites during the month... so if you don't see your recommendation on this blog entry, it will be shared in an upcoming post. Thank you so much for your contributions and recoomendations!