Hello City View Skyhawk Readers!

2020 has been quite the year hasn't it?  I've been able to pop in to some of your classrooms during ELA time. It's been great to see some of your older siblings helping our new K&1 students out with logging into CTLS.  I miss seeing y'all in person!

By the way, I'm Mrs. Kent, the media specialist.  Mrs. Griffin, whom you see in PE during specials with Coach Batchelor and Coach Dean, also works part-time in the library.  We're here to help you find a good book, answer burning questions and show you how to research almost any topic you can think of.  We also like to make stuff and have fun while learning.   Some of our activities may be arts & crafts, while others will involve building, technology and coding.

Read. Explore. Create. These three words pretty much sum up my vision for our library.

Where's your dog?

Some of our 4th and 5th graders may remember my dog, Boomer. We were a nationally registered pet therapy team who visited CHOA - Egleston and CHOA - Scottish Rite, plus served as a reading dog team at the Cobb County and Smyrna Public Libraries.  Boomer became gravely ill in January. He recovered, but the thrombocytopenia returned with a vengeance.   He passed away in late March.  It was a sad summer.  I dearly miss my boy!

I'm happy to report that Sadie, the Labradoodle who joined us in January as a temporary foster, became an official member of the family on March 1st. Lil Missy (my pet name for Sadie) is a sweet girl who has been working very hard to learn commands and contain her excitement when meeting new people. She passed her initial evaluation to become a therapy dog and we begin field testing in September.  We hope to complete therapy dog credentialing by year end. 

So this is why you normally see me with a dog. I love dogs, but I also enjoy serving as a pet therapy volunteer.  

​Hope to see you soon!

Are you tracking your minutes read in Beanstack?  If not, you should be!  Summer reading participants will be treated to a popsicle party once we return to to school and the public library sends me the official list of participants.  (If you are unable to get into Beanstack, be sure to log your minutes on the English or Spanish paper log or in your notebook.)

Your goal is to read 20 minutes per day for a total of 20 hours this summer.

So click the Summer Reading 2020 link above to begin/continue your summer reading adventure!

Official information on the Summer Reading Program will be distributed sometime this week.  Once I have all of the details, I will post them here.

The Cobb County Public Library and Smyrna Public Libraries will remain closed until further notice.  Summer Reading Activities are scheduled to be done virtually.  
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You can practice finding Summer Reading Activities by heading over to the CCPL Facebook page and listening to storytime every day at 11:00 a.m.  If you miss it, you can always watch the video later.  Good to know:  Virtual Storytime with Katherine is bilingual (English/Spanish).

Be sure to leave a comment on this blog sharing which story you listened to.

Today's mission continues yesterday's Birding in Your Own Backyard adventure.
Your Mission:
1. Log into Cobb Digital Library/Mackin Via 
2. Click on eBooks on the left hand tab.
3. Search for "cool birds" and this is what you should see:
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Cool birds & bugs: great things to do in the great outdoors is the book we'll be using for today's mission.
​4. Click on the Open Now (blue) button.
5. Look through the book and find an activity that interests you. 
6. Leave a comment indicating which activity you chose and why you chose that particular activity.
Extension activity:  Write a journal entry describing how you could do this activity in your own backyard or neighborhood. Where would you place the finished product? Who would help you? Where could you get supplies?

Yes, today's Travel Tuesday will involve you using your own two feet to travel outside to your own backyard, neighborhood or local park to took at birds.

Birding is a fancy term for birdwatching. You probably already recognize several birds like a cardinal, owl and blue jay. Today, we're going to learn more about common backyard birds.  

Here's a link to the 10 most common birds in the ATL.
How about playing a game of Bird Bingo?
Check out Merlin, an app for identifying birds!
Play the Bird Song Hero game!

Now, get outside and see how many birds you can find in 15 minutes!
Leave a comment sharing how many birds you saw and at least one bird you recognized.