In this series, we’ll pick some of our favorite things about Minnesota and share some related book suggestions. (We’re open to your suggestions! Comment below or email us and tell us some of your favorite MN things!)
Let’s continue to choose to enjoy the chilly temperatures recent weather has thrust upon us and take a look at another popular Minnesota pastime: ice fishing!
Don’t miss this exciting event taking place at the Upsala Public Library tomorrow, Wednesday, Dec. 5th!
Attend this FREE event which takes place from 6:30 – 8:30 and is a discussion with four Minnesota authors regarding the “impact of literature in their lives, their connection as fellow Minnesotans, and the lens through which we read.” Find more information on Great River’s event page.
The four authors coming to Upsala are: Andrew DeYoung, David Housewright, Andrea Swensson, and Kao Kalia Yang.
This program actually is holding events across the state of Minnesota, so check out the event calendar to see if there is one near you!
In June, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) announced their Best Apps for Teaching and Learning 2018. The apps encourage qualities such as creativity and collaboration and encourage discovery and curiosity.
The app Hopscotch lets you enjoy the process of building games while learning the fundamentals of coding!
“Coding” may sound a bit dry and daunting to some newcomers, but those are the last things that come to mind while using Hopscotch. The app lets you have as much fun making games as playing them, and with its colorful, friendly interface and stacks of help and tutorials, kids (and grown-ups!) can build all kinds of apps—while learning the fundamentals of programming.”
Platform: iOS
Grades:Upper Elementary – Middle School
Cost: Free, has in-app purchases
Their website allows you to see and play games created by other users, which is pretty cool. They also have an Educator page which includes free lesson plans.
Fractus Learning has this article about the app that includes some specific ways to incorporate it into your teaching, and also links to further activities for educators to use. This article from Teacher Cast gives several tips for teaching with the Hopscotch app.
Watch this very quick trailer to see some of the fun games you can play and create with the app:
In this series, we’ll pick some of our favorite things about Minnesota and share some related book suggestions. (We’re open to your suggestions! Comment below or email us and tell us some of your favorite MN things!)
Since winter is upon us, we might as well enjoy it, right? So get your snowshoes ready to rock because we’re going out into the wilderness! Here are some books to explore or recommend to others interested in snowshoeing:
“A well-traveled New York sophisticate, Florence Page Jaques fell in love with northern Minnesota during her first trips to the region, and recounted those early travels in Canoe Country and Snowshoe Country. She writes of the excitement of traveling by foot, canoe, snowshoe, and dogsled.”
“The locus of Jim dale Huot-Vickery’s life is a remote cabin in the northern wilderness of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters region. More often than not, it is winter here, a fierce, beautiful season that dominates all living things with its relentless cold grip. This is the inspiration for Winter Sign, the profound story of fifteen years of surviving the seven-month-long odyssey of winter in the far north.”
This book isn’t all about snowshoeing, but the alpacas enjoying various winter activities is pretty adorable!
“These funny alpacas love it when it snows. They slide and ski and snowshoe, having a wonderful time.”
Everyone loves a book fair, and this is a special holiday warehouse sale that we wanted to make sure to share with our members! Some great discounts are definitely possible here, so check it out!
Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites St. Cloud
75 S. 37th Avenue
St. Cloud, MN 56301
December 3rd, 4th & 5th
11:00am – 7:00pm Monday
10:00am – 7:00pm Tuesday & Wednesday
“To thank our customers for being literacy leaders, I want to extend this personal invitation to shop our Buy One Get One Free Holiday Warehouse Sale coming to St. Cloud. This is an exclusive event open to teachers, librarians/media specialists, school personnel and administrators, as well as volunteers, so make sure to spread the word to your staff, students, volunteers and communities.”
We invite you to find a sale nearest you and get a coupon! http://registration.scholasticbookfairs.com/events/
