Grade 3

This week in the library, we celebrated Dr. Suess’ birthday by sharing my favorite Suess story, The Lorax.

Though it was written 40 years ago, The Lorax is a gentle reminder of the fragility of the earth and our responsibility as stewards of the planet. As the Once-ler builds his empire of thneeds, not only the fate of the truffula trees is put in jeopardy, but also of the creatures that depend on the fruit of the truffulas, and clean air and water. With its vibrant illustrations and sincerity of voice, the The Lorax is one those books to read and keep forever!

We concluded with a trivia game based on The Lorax, as well as bookbrowsing and checkout. Happy Reading!

This week in the library, students learned about the country of Romania. We welcomed former BCD teacher, and a director of Art Omi, Sasha Sicurella. Sasha recently returned from a trip to this fascinating country with the non-profit organization, I Am International. This foundation works with students around the using art as a medium to bring people and ideas together. Sasha showed us some cultural objects from Romania, and then we watched a video she made of her current work in Romania using photography, illustrated portraits and other mediums. Thank You, Sasha, for joining us this week in the library.

Today in the library, we marked the birthday of famed folklorist and fairy-tale collector, Wilhelm Grimm (of the Brothers Grimm fame). We learned about the life of the Grimm brothers, Jakob and Wilhelm, who were by training, linguists. The Grimm brothers embarked on a huge folkloric endeavor, collecting hundreds of folk and fairy tales by interviewing people in their homes during the beginning of the 19th century. Later the tales were published and many are still widely read today including version of Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel and Rumplestiltskin. We also discussed how oral tales are distinct from written ones in that each storyteller makes the story his own. This yields different variants of the same tale. We looked at over 10 different versions of Cinderella right here in the library and we read together the Egyptian Cinderella and the Irish Cinderella tales, comparing and contrasting them with what we know to be our Americanized (Disney?) version.

We concluded with book browsing and checkout. Happy Reading.