Fight HumanTrafficking

The 7th/8thgrade Human Rights elective is selling doughnuts today to benefit Wellspring Living and the Somaly Mam Foundation, two organizations helping rescue girls from human trafficking. Come buy doughnuts or donate in the library.

Things You Don't Want to Hear in the Library

"Some guy threw a burrito."

Middle Learning DEAR

This week middle learning had DEAR time in the Chaddick Center Atrium. Students clustered with their advisory groups and enjoyed a relaxing and completely silent half hour of reading. Here you see Mr. Boswell and his students engrossed in their books.

Six Word Stories in Unbound Book Club

This week the Unbound Book Club wrote six-word stories summarizing books we have read. We read them to each other and tried to guess what books were being referenced. It was a special treat to Skype in with Liam, a book club member who is home recovering from surgery. Here are a couple of our six word stories. Can you name the book they describe? "Death to every third isn't fair." "Quest over mountains. Lots of drama." "Boy battles while waiting for prophecy." If you want to know the answers, come see our display in the library.

A Walk in the Woods

The library was full of camping gear today from the fantastic Appalachian Trail excursion. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and 13 Reasons Why!

Taylor Swift Webcast

Students from 5th-8th graders gathered last Friday to watch a Scholastic webcast from Taylor Swift. She talked about reading and how storytelling is an important part of her songwriting process. See the webcast here. 

Student Reading Blogs

Galloway 9th graders are once again contributing book reviews to the ORBlog (at Galloway ORB=Outside Reading Book). Take at look at their opinions—both positive and negative—about what they have been reading. The link to this blog is always on this webpage under Books & Reading or you can go to the blog and subscribe to e-mail updates. The Galloway 7th graders have started a new book blog as well called 7th Grade Year in Books. There will be a new blog posting on this blog every day of the school year. Thanks Mrs. Fillyaw and Ms. Wilson for getting your kids blogging.

J.K. Rowling Webcast

ML and UL students filled Ms. Starkman's room today to be part of a live webcast with J.K. Rowling. She talked about why the Harry Potter books are so popular (she thinks it's the friendship between Ron, Harry, and Hermione) and she defended those who get sorted into Hufflepuff on the Pottermore website. It was great to have so many 5th-12th graders there, and also to have some teachers and staff as well. If you want to see the webcast, it's online here.

Fifth Grade Book Presentations

Ms. Hilleary's fifth graders are giving presentations about books in the library this week. This student made a mobile about the book Smile by Raina Telgemeier.

Book Clubs Start This Week!

Our Middle Learning book clubs meet this week for the first time. Unbound, for 5th-7th graders, will meet at 3:10 p.m. in the library on Monday, September 24. This book club is tons of fun—see our website here. Untitled, which is the monthly book club for 7th and 8th graders, will meet in Ms. Chapman's room at lunch/recess on Tuesday, September 25. All students are welcome to try out the book clubs and see what they think. There's no obligation to join but we would love to have you.

Happy Hobbit Day

Today is the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. We celebrated, as Hobbits do, with second breakfast in the courtyard. Students ate Hobbit Seed Cake, apples, and tea and listened to some readings from The Hobbit. Thank you to the parents and students who made this happen!

The Princess and the Pea

It's not the recommended way to use our beanbag chairs but it definitely looks comfortable!

Sophomores During their Free Period

Happy sophomores hanging out and enjoying the library during their free period. 

Sophomores enjoying their free period by spending time together reading in the library. 

Music Today

Hello Everyone! Come enjoy the new seating in the library. We love to see everyones smiling faces and taking advantage of the space. Thanks to some upperclassmen, we had live music in the library this morning for everyone to enjoy!

Welcome Back!

It's great to have everyone back in the library and enjoying our new comfortable reading area. We're especially excited to welcome our new 7th grade language arts teacher, Ms. Wilson, and her students who were the first ones in the library last week.

The chairs are here!

The new library chairs arrived today and are already in use even though school is out for the summer. They work well with our new laptop tables. It's looking great in here!

Maize vs. Fleas

The final Medieval Madness debate is underway. It's maize from the Americas vs. fleas and the plague from Europe. Which will the judges select as the most significant concept of the Middle Ages?

Summer Checkout

It's that time of year again—time to return your library books. All student materials are due on Friday, May 18. You will be receiving overdue notices from teachers or via First Class this week. Students with outstanding books or fines will not receive yearbooks, so please get your books, magazines, and Kindles turned in soon. We will once again offer summer checkout starting on Tuesday, May 29. Returning Middle and Upper Learning students can check out up to 25 books to read over the summer. Click here for the summer reading form and more information.

New Portrait in the Library

If you have been in the library this week you have seen the new portrait of Elliott Galloway painted by middle learning art teacher Liz Daws. Thank you, Ms. Daws—it is beautiful and gives the library a whole new look.

Some famous poets visited Ms. Chapman's 8th grade language arts classes today. Here you see Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, William Wordsworth, Shel Silverstein, Edgar Allen Poe, William Carlos Williams, e.e. cummings, and Tupac Shakur. They each gave a presentation about their lives and recited some of their poetry. If you want to see some 8th grade students' scrapbooks about poets, come see them on display in the Galloway Library. Great job, poets!

Sharon Draper & Ridley Pearson

What a day we had today—first we had Sharon Draper talking to fifth graders then we had Ridley Pearson talking to sixth graders. Both of them were engaging speakers and had the kids hanging on every word they said. And both have written excellent books for young people. It was a wonderful day and we thank the Little Shop of Stories for sending them to us. For more photos of these authors, see our author/illustrator photo gallery. 

Two Authors This Week

Galloway Middle Learning is hosting two authors on Thursday, May 3. First we have Sharon Draper speaking to our Mrs. Hilleary's 5th graders about her book Out of My Mind. Then we have Ridley Pearson talking with Ms. Starkman's 6th graders about the latest book in the Kingdom Keepers series. It's going to be an incredible day—and we thank our fabulous local bookstore, The Little Shop of Stories, for sending them our way.

April is National Poetry Month

Celebrate National Poetry Month with a book spine poem. This one was made by a 6th grader in Ms. Starkman's class. Make one in the library or e-mail a photo of your poem to Ms. Kochel. Anyone who makes a poem for us this month will get a prize!

We Survived!

The All Night Read In was a blast. We read a lot of books, played capture the flag at midnight, heard the library ghost story, roasted marshmallows at 3 a.m., and some people even got a little bit of sleep. Lots of photos are here in the photo gallery. Thank you Mr. Dyer, Ms. Starkman, and Noah for being our chaperones. And thanks to the 38 middle learning students who made it so much fun.

The All Night Read In

It's Friday the 13th—time for the All Night Read In. Check back here for photos soon!

Author Mac Barnett

Author Mac Barnett visited Galloway yesterday and entertained all the early learning students with his creative and funny books. He was a huge hit with students and teachers alike. If you would like autographed books by Mac Barnett, you will be able to get them at the upcoming spring book fair May 7-10. Thank you, Little Shop of Stories, for sending him our way!

Where Are You Reading Photo Contest

Our middle learning spring break reading photos are now online at the new Galloway Library Student Center Photo Gallery. We had some amazing, exotic, fun, and creative entries and it was tough to pick our winners. Here is Venture in the dryer—a nice warm place to read. See many more photos in the photo gallery. (The gallery includes all photos submitted electronically—those submitted on paper are not online.)

The All Night Read In

The Galloway Library is hosting the 2nd annual All Night Read In for middle learning students in 6th-8th grades. It is guaranteed to be a fun night of reading, movies, games and more. Registration has already begun. All the information is online at http://gallowaylibrary.weebly.com/all-night-read-in.html and you can sign up in the library.

So Much Going On

We've had so much going on that I thought I'd just post a few photos.

GRAB time today in the courtyard (Galloway Reads A Book)











The Cox Advisory sponsored a coffee house in the library last week. Performers were Maddie, Graham and Kito.












Ms. Chapman's 8th grade language arts classes skyped with author Neal Shusterman about his book Unwind. In this photo he's holding up the handwritten manuscript for his upcoming book in the Antsy series.

And finally, Ms. Hilleary's 5th grade language arts students skyped with author Jordan Sonnenblick about his book Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie.

Happy Book Bling Day!

The beads were flying today in Middle Learning in celebration of Book Bling Day. It's hard to explain but it's fun! Tomorrow we are hosting Poetry Alive and having DEAR time at the end of the day to celebrate Read Across America and to get us ready for spring break. ML students—don't forget to take your picture reading during spring break. Turn your photos in to the library the week after break and you could win a prize!

Last week we had our second library coffee house hosted by Ms. Wine's advisory. Our musicians Jack and Maddie did a great job and the candles and mood lighting helped make it even better. And of course, all the proceeds will be going to buy animals for Heifer. If you are a musician and you want to play some morning or if your advisory wants to host a coffee house, just let us know.

The Drs. Farokhi

Mr. Emmons is making good on his promise to dress as Dr. Farokhi today. Kind of funny and a little bit scary! At least it helped us raise money for refugee children. 

Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

We were so honored to host Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler today. They were here talking about their new book The Future of Us. They were both interesting and entertaining and graciously signed books and talked to students and even watched some 8th graders' videos of book projects. Thank you so much to The Little Shop of Stories for sending them to us. We are hoping to also see some of their Galloway photos on Jay Asher's blog tonight.

RAP Begins

Galloway 11th graders are starting their RAP (Research Author Project) with the American Studies teachers (Mrs. Klein and Dr. Barksdale). Here is one class with their RAP books. For more info, see the project research guide here.

Destiny Quest Mobile App

There's finally an app for searching the Galloway library!

It's available for your Android phone or iPhone/iPod/iPad. Look up books on your device at school or at home. Search as a guest or log in to see your account, place holds, and renew books.

The server address to use once installed is http://library.gallowayschool.org


Free app in iTunes: http://bit.ly/A4aooM

Free app in Android Marketplace: http://bit.ly/wdivSH



Learn more about the Follett Destiny Mobile App: http://bit.ly/wxGd2j