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A resource from the Youth Services Department of Lake Villa District Library | January 2015
Illinois Student Choice Awards
How to Vote
Awards season is upon us. Our version of the red-carpet events
begins mid-February with voting for the Monarch, Bluestem, and
Caudill Awards. The three nominee lists this year offered a wide
array of reading enjoyment for everyone—sci-fi and historical
fiction, folktales and poetry, science and biographies. How could
you go wrong?
Choose your award. Remember
that third graders may vote for
the Monarch, the Bluestem, or
both. And remember that fourth
and fi,h graders may vote for the
Bluestem, the Caudill, or both.
We hope you’ve been enjoying many of the titles, but if you
haven’t had the chance yet, it’s not too late to participate! Your
students don’t have to read all 20 nominees to vote:
•
For the Monarch Award (K—3rd grade), five of the nominated
titles
•
For the Bluestem Award (3rd—5th grade), four of the
nominated titles
•
For the Caudill Award (4th—8th grade), three of the
nominated titles
There’s still time to share read-alouds with your class! We can
prepare a Classroom Connection bag for you with available
nominated titles for the award you are interested in. Don’t miss
out on this great opportunity for your students to participate in a
student-only voting process as well as the chance to discuss the
qualities of books and what makes them great. Contact Rachel
Reinwald at [email protected] for further details.
Come see our Battle of the Books teams in their final
competition on Saturday, March 7th from 1-2 p.m. at Lake Villa
District library!
Make sure your students have fulfilled the criteria for vong.
Keep an eye out for ballots to be
delivered to you via email early in
February. Return your completed
tally sheet to Rachel Reinwald
through email. We’ll do the rest!
Award winners will be announced
in March. We would love to come
to your class to announce the winners. Happy vong!
Rachel Reinwald
School Liaison
847.245.5113
[email protected]
Kerry Reed
Head of Youth Services
847.356.7711
Animal Adaptations
Many students often start learning about animal adaptations in
the spring semester. Between online resources and activities and
LVDL’s resources, I wish we could teach this unit all year. So
much fun. We’ve just received some outstanding new nonfiction
on animal adaptations and biomes that have detailed and fun
photographs and well-organized and high-interest information.
You can always try turning your students into fat polar bears to
try out an adaptation. (And there are so many other activities like
this!)
C
lassroom Connections are
available for animal
adaptations. You can get a
general bag on it, name
specific habitats, or even specific
animals. Here are some ideas:
Before a layer of insulaon, and a,er. h4p://discoverandlearn.blogspot.com/2010/01/
animals-in-winter.html
Students can create what
they’d look like with different
animal teeth and why they’d
need those particular teeth
(using construction paper).
Or they can do a total body
makeover and create their own
species to protect themselves
from the environment.
(www.buildyourwildself.com)
Dessert
Bactrian Camel
Gila Monster
Roadrunner
Jackrabbit
Meerkat
Red Kangaroo
Scorpion
Dingo
Chameleon
Fennec Fox
Ocean
Shark
Sea Horse
Swordfish
Octopus
Jellyfish
Sea Turtle
Dolphin
Squid
Clownfish
Pufferfish
Forest
White-tailed Deer
Owl
Bobcat
Gray Wolf
Fox
Bear
Porcupine
Squirrel
Rabbit
Raccoon
Wetland
Flamingo
Heron
Frog
Alligator
Beaver
Crayfish
Dragonfly
Otter
Sandhill Crane
Florida Panther
1001 E. Grand Ave. | Lake Villa, IL 60046 | 847.356.7711 | www.lvdl.org