Everyone's a winner at Wilky!

4 students won themselves a new book this week. Ayshah, Zoe, Yameen and Shahla all came to tell me about books they have read recently. Congratulations to you all.
Watch out for other contests happening throughout the year!

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane: A book review by Ms. Sterioff

Edward Tulane was a china rabbit who lived with a very wealthy family. He was rather shallow and not a nice individual to be around. One day he got separated from his family and went on a journey. The journey took him from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman. Then he went from the top of a garbage heap to a hoboes' camp. Along the way, he learned how to love, to lose, and to love again. I truly recommend this book which teaches us a life lesson.
Ms. Sterioff

Storyteller Cheryl Thornton

Last week, Cheryl came to our school to tell stories with our kindergarten and grade one classes. As Cheryl began her first story, many of the grade ones suddenly realized that they knew the story from Cheryl's Storyvalue web site. Seeing the excitement on their faces was one of the happiest moments of the year for this teacher librarian. Cheryl keeps up a lively and interesting pace with her telling. Some stories were just to listen to, others needed a little assistance from some little tellers and the grand finale was a beautiful telling of Stone Soup with all the students participating.
Today, Cheryl came back to visit with the grade 2 and 3 students.
The stories today were all around the theme "celebration and heritage". Once again the students were highly involved in the telling and many students had the opportunity to try out their own storytelling skills on their classmates.
We all enjoyed Cheryl's stories very much and can't wait to retell some of these wonderful stories!

A quick contest anyone?

Here is a chance to win a quick prize this week.
The first 5 students to come and tell me about a favourite recent book they have read, will win a new book. Simple eh?

Some questions that may help you with this:

Who is/are the main characters in this book?

What is the main idea of the book?

What does the book remind you of? (another book, an event in your life etc)

I like to hear what you are reading so be the first to visit!

Still reading!

A perfect Gentle Knight by Kit Pearson

This book is the tale of a young family struggling to hold themselves together following the death of their mother. Their father has retreated into his work and the children become absorbed in role playing the knights of the round table.
Kit Pearson develops the delicate relationships between the children with compassion as each individual goes through changes as they meet new friends and become less involved in the game. The oldest brother, Sebastian is unable to cope with the changes and retreats further into the role of a Knight. His sister Corrie, the main character in this story, goes through many trials and tribulations as she struggles to cope with supporting her brother.
This book is definitely not an easy read but in my opinion is a very worthwhile one.
The book will be available in our library soon...I wonder who will be the first student to read it?

StoryTelling at Wilkinson

This year, we will be holding a Telling Bee at Wilkinson. A Telling Bee is a celebration of storytelling involving everyone in the school community. You can find out more at http://www.tellery.com/Telling_Bee.html All of the students and staff will be talking to their families to discover stories which have special significance to them.

To start our year of storytelling, we have invited 3 storytellers to visit with the students. This week, the grade 4, 5 and 6 students enjoyed a visit from storyteller Anna Kerz.

Anna is a member of Storytelling Toronto which is a non-profit organization. You can look at the work they do to promote and celebrate storytelling at http://www.storytellingtoronto.org/

Anna shared a variety of multi-cultural stories with us, including family stories from her own childhood experiences.

We all thoroughly enjoyed Anna's visit and came away ready to find out some of our own family stories. Everyone was starting to think about their own past, trips they have made, countries they have visited or emigrated from. It was wonderful to see so much enthusiasm coming from the audience after hearing one of Anna's stories.

Do you have a story you would like to tell?

Forest of Reading 2009

The titles for this year's contest have been announced. There is an amazing selection available this year and I can't wait to get started reading!
The books will be available in school in December but in the meantime, if you would like to preview the titles, visit the Forest of reading site at http://www.accessola.com/forest2009/