Good-bye Book Fair, see you in the Spring! Everything’s packed up and ready to be shipped back. Thank you to everyone for visiting the Book Fair and making a purchase! Every purchase helps South Hall Middle earn money for more books for our library!

And in case you were curious, the winners of the Gumball Guessing Game were Fatima Ndiaye in 6th grade and Raul Sanchez in 7th grade. The total number of gumballs in the jar was 808!!! Most people guessed from 200 to 500, which was WAY too low!!! Keep this in mind for the Spring when we will have another guessing game!

Have you stopped by the Book Fair yet? It’s in full swing! Stop by and pick up your very own copy of the new Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days book!

Here are some pictures and video from this week’s Fair:

See you at the Book Fair!

Are you excited? The Book Fair is coming! Yeah! The Book Fair will be open next week, November 2nd through 6th during regular school hours. Everyone will visit the Fair with their Language Arts class.

BUT, if you just can’t wait. . . .we’re having a special one-night-only event this Thursday, October 29th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. This is right before the PTO meeting begins. So plan on coming early to the PTO meeting and you can visit the Book Fair! Snatch up the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book Dog Days before anyone else has a chance!

Stop by and see our decorated library, in honor of the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book Dog Days, our media center will be covered in dogs and dog houses! We also have a cool bulletin board out in the hallway where you can guess which pet goes with which teacher. Stop by and check it out!

See you in the library (for the Book Fair!)!

What a wonderful morning in the media center today! We had magical educator Chad Crews at South Hall for 1st and 2nd periods and he was spectacular! Several of you went away with an order form for his new book Magic of Mystery and Horror and the CD of spooky music he used during the show. You can buy both for only $20! If you enjoyed the show, I encourage you to order the book or CD (our school gets to keep some of the profit from sales!). Here are some pictures from this morning: Enjoy!

Have a wonderful weekend!

It’s been a while since I have posted a book review and I thought today would be a great day! I read this book a couple of years ago and enjoyed this fast-paced thriller so much that I’m going to share it with you!

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney

Mitty Blake, a rich kid who attends a fancy private school in New York, is always playing catch-up with schoolwork. Luckily he has friends who help him out. But a big Biology research paper is due soon and no one can help Mitty but himself. He starts looking through several old medical books to get a topic idea for his paper. What does he find in one of the old books? An old scab (really gross!)!!! The scab kind of crumbles and disintegrates into the air, but Mitty doesn’t think anything else about it. . . .until he starts researching the virus Variola major. Mitty starts to believe he may have become infected with the disease from the old scab. And the chase starts. . . . Mitty runs away to save all the people in his life from contradicting the virus. A lot of twists and turns happen and this book definitely gets interesting. . . .

Does Mitty in fact have the virus? Did he infect his family and friends with the virus? What can he do to save the people of New York City?  Stop by the library and check this book out to find out. . . .

This is a great book for all the guys out there!!! I’m talking to you guys!!!

Stop by the library and check out Code Orange today! See you in the library!

Who is Chad Crews you say? Why just the coolest magician around! And I’m not talking silly magic tricks – he does cool tricks, like making tables float and he will do it right in our own media center! He will be here this Friday to do his magic show, Authors of Mystery and Horror for 1st and 2nd periods in 8th grade. I’m so sorry if you have Language Arts for 3rd or 4th periods, I could only book Chad for 1st and 2nd. Please check out his website and watch the promotional video he has created for this show (it’s on the home page). It’s spooky and scary and awesome! I can’t wait!!

Library Shows via kwout

I hope everyone has a wonderful Fall Break this weekend! Enjoy it and perhaps a good book as well!

I was checking out Scholastic’s new book blog, Ink Splot 26 the other day and found the cutest post that I thought was was kind of funny and I wanted to share. The Blogger asked students to change only one letter in the title of a book to make a totally new book. They also had to write a funny new summary of the book. What was the first one on the list? My personal favorite, The Hunger Games! Check it out below. It made me chuckle! You can also visit their Blog directly to see more “new” book titles!

Ink Splot 26 BLOG for Kids on THE STACKS | Scholastic.com via kwout

See you in the library! (After the Fall Break!) 

It’s been quite a while since I last posted on this Blog. Did anyone miss me?

The reason I haven’t posted in some time is that we are in full swing with research! Both 6th and 7th grades have begun their research unit in Language Arts and that involves a lot of my time. I have spoken to all the 6th grade Language Arts classes about research (& Informational Texts) and I’m finishing up the 7th grade classes this week.

I wanted to have a quick post of something cool I learned to do! We purchased some new digital video cameras in the media center and I practiced using them by taping Mrs. Galvin’s 7th grade Language Arts class playing expository writing musical chairs! I am still unsure as to how to post a video straight onto this Blog, so for now the videos are housed over at YouTube. I have linked them below. Check them out!!!

See you in the library (unless I’m busy teaching research skills!).

We were very honored to have author Robyn Hood Black back again at South Hall to speak with the 6th graders about writing a story and publishing a book. Her book Wolves is in the media center if you would like to come see it.

I encourage you to check out her website. It contains lots of cool links about Wolves!

WOLVES – Robyn Hood Black via kwout

Here’s a few pics from her visit:

See you in the library! 

I also have to add a quick post on here today about a new series we have at South Hall that has been flying off the shelves. The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer. We have multiple copies of all three books in the series in our media center: Eighth Grade Bites, Ninth Grade Slays, and Tenth Grade Bleeds. I found the coolest YouTube book trailer about the first book in the series and I wanted to share! So if you haven’t read it yet or haven’t even heard of it, this book trailer will definitely get you interested!

See you in the library! 

P.S. I found out on Heather Brewer’s website that there’s two more books in the series coming out next year: Eleventh Grade Burns and Twelfth Grade Kills!