NEW WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE TITLES –
The William Allen White (WAW) award is unique because only Kansas kids in the 3rd-8th grades can vote for the winner.  The Earhart 3rd & 4th graders have just finished voting for their favorite WAW title for this past year, and here are the newest WAW titles for 2008-2009 for 3rd-5th grades:
Free Baseball by Sue Corbett
Phineas L. Macguire…Erupts!  by Frances Dowell
Julia’s Kitchen by Brenda Ferber
The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes
Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins
Wings by William Loizeaux
Drita, My Homegirl by Jenny Lombard
Punished!  by David Lubar
Larger-Than-Life Lara by Dandi Mackall
Archer’s Quest by Linda Park
Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

These books can be read at any time, and can be read alone or aloud to students.  Next year’s 3rd & 4th graders will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite title from the above list at Earhart in March 2009, and next year’s 5th graders will have the chance to vote at the Challenger/Discovery library at about the same time.

SPRING BOOK FAIR WINNERS –
First of all, I wanted to say a HUGE THANK YOU to all of our wonderful parent volunteers who worked in our Fair, and to all of our fabulous students and parents who attended and supported our Fair.  This was one of our best Book Fair yet! When the March newsletter deadline arrived, we didn’t know all of the winners from our Spring Scholastic Book Fair so I wanted to share those with you. Our Classroom Bingo winner was Mrs. Archer’s 3rd grade class.  Mrs. Archer came in and picked out several books from the Fair to add to the classroom library.

Our Parent Teacher conference voting winners were: 
1st Place – Mrs. Skidmore’s 1st grade class (for the 2nd time in a row!)
2nd Place – Mrs. Stutzman’s 4th grade class
3rd Place – Ms. Nordhus’ 4th grade class

These classes had the best percentage of parents return the classroom voting slips to the Fair on Parent/Teacher conference days.  All three classrooms received their choice of free merchandise from the Fair.

The Loose Change Jar competition was a new idea and boy, was it fierce this year.  We didn’t realize how competitive our older students were to win a Pajama Day at school!  Our grade level winners this year were the 4th graders, who donated $160.78 in loose change.  Overall, $464.46 was collected in those 5 loose change jars to help an after school program for Goddard kids, and they were able to fill two large boxes full of Book Fair merchandise for their program because of everyone that contributed.  They were more than grateful, and were in as much disbelief as I was that so much money was in those little jars and was so unselfishly given to help others.
Congratulations to all!  Our next Book Fair will be held in October 2008.

Happy Holidays & Happy Reading,
Mrs. Thomas
Earhart Librarian

Library Rules:

1st Grade:  Checkout 2 books at a time.  Books are checked out for a week, but can be rechecked as needed.  There are no overdue fines, but students will not be allowed to check out more books without returning their book(s). Overdue notices are sent home every Friday.  If a library book is returned damaged or is lost, a notice will be sent home with a damage cost or replacement cost given.  Students will not be able to check out until the book is found or paid for.

2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, & 4th Grade:  Checkout 3 books at a time.  Books are checked out for a week, but can be rechecked as needed.  There are no overdue fines, but students will not be allowed to check out more books without returning their book(s). Overdue notices are sent home every Friday.  If a library book is returned damaged or is lost, a notice will be sent home with a damage cost or replacement cost given.  Students will not be able to check out until the book is found or paid for.

Every year, 3rd & 4th grade students in Kansas have the opportunity to vote for which book should win the William Allen White (WAW) award.  If they have read at least 2 books on the list, our 3rd & 4th graders will be voting for their favorite in early March.

Click on the following links to view the
Amelia Earhart Elementary School ACCELERATED READER LIST
sorted by

TITLE | READING LEVEL | AUTHOR

(Adobe Reader required to download menus)

This list shows all the computerized AR tests that are available to take at Amelia Earhart Elementary School.

Please feel free to find these books anywhere - public libraries, bookstores, bookshelves at home, etc. As long as a student has read the entire book by the same author, they can take the AR test at Earhart Elementary regardless of where they found the book. Please note that the student must read the entire book. Watching movies or only reading parts of the book do not count and will result in a lower AR test score.

To find out more about the Accelerated Reader program, go to the Advantage Learning website at www.advlearn.com.

Parent / Teacher Resources
Family Education Network- information on how families can be involved with education
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site - children's literature reviews & activities

Just for Kids!
Yahoo Kids- research on everything from A to Z (for kids)
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site - children's literature reviews & activities

Award Winning Books
Caldecott Award - most distinguished picture book award given to the illustrator
Newbery Award - most distinguished chapter book award given to the author
William Allen White Award - favorite book chosen by Kansas students in grades 3-8