Lower School Library News

Hello Lower School Families,

November has been full of exciting events! For one, Ms. Seltzer (the Middle and Upper School librarian) and I kicked off a school-wide Monthly Reading Challenge. Lower School students have already submitted over 40 entries.

Earlier this month, I took a walking field trip to Hummingbird Books with my 5th grade library volunteers! Before the outing, we tallied the most popular genres from a student reading survey. I set aside about $100 from my library budget, and each student picked out three books that they thought their peers would enjoy.

In library class, Pre-K has been celebrating Dinovember with nonfiction books, Kindergarten has been learning about Mexican food and folktales, Grade 1 listened to the biography of Lorena Ramírez, an Indigenous Rarámuri athlete from Mexico, Grade 2 has continued their Global Read Aloud Author Study of Minh Lê, Grade 3 has been learning about nonfiction text features and the Dewey Decimal System, Grade 4 has been learning about biographies (their genre of the month), and Grade 5 is learning how dictionaries are structured and creating their own dictionary of Generation Alpha slang.

Happy Indigenous Heritage Month and Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate!

Ms. Rosellini

Here are the winners of the Wild Robot Illustration Contest Raffle!

If you are looking to do a family outing during the Thanksgiving break, I recommend taking a walk at Walden Pond. There is currently a Story Walk set up featuring the book The First Blade of Sweetgrass that goes until the end of November. In a Story Walk, a book's pages are taken out and mounted on poles at different points along a path. Find out more here.

In addition to our extensive print book collection, Brimmer students also have access to Sora! Sora allows students to access e-books, audiobooks and magazines via the Sora website or app. The collection is primarily in English, but other world languages are also represented. Students in the Lower School have access to the Juvenile collection.

The first time students log in, they will be prompted to find their school. After clicking on Brimmer & May School, they will be asked to enter their school email address. Student emails are usually the first letter of their first name followed by their last name @brimmer.org. For example, my name is Alissa Rosellini so my email address is arosellini@brimmer.org.

If you have any questions, please send me an email.

I just started reading Uprooted: A Memoir About What Happens When Your Family Moves Back by Ruth Chan. This graphic novel follows the author as she moves with her family from Toronto, Canada back to Hong Kong. Ruth does speak Cantonese, but not fluently, and misses her friends back home. One thing that caught my attention right away is that the author writes English words in black, Cantonese words in gray, and words that she couldn't understand in Chinese characters. I found this to be such a creative way to help the reader get into the mind of the protagonist. For grades 4 and up.

Looking for some great books? Read at least 5 of the MCBA (Massachusetts Children's Book Awards) titles by March 2025 so you can vote for your favorite!

Email: arosellini@brimmer.org
Library website: https://www.brimmer.org/lower-school-library
Phone: 617-264-1430