Week in Review: College apps, All-read lectures, Summer Reading Raffle, Book Club, Ancil Hoffman, and more!

It was the first five-day week of the school year, and here in the Matthews Library we found plenty to fill our days.

On Monday, Ms. Perla spoke with the seniors about the ongoing college applications process. Stay strong seniors; you’ve got this!

Mr. French and Mr. Arns presented to each of the high school classes Monday-Thursday on how to have a compassionate debate. They used the summer all-read The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green as the backdrop for this presentation.

Freshmen learned the Ancil Hoffman Day Capture the Flag rules on Tuesday during lunch. This knowledge must have come in handy because their team won the game on Friday!

On Wednesday we celebrated the Middle School students who participated in our summer reading activities with a raffle. Check out what our students got up to here.

Wednesday was our first High School book club of the year. Find out what we talked about and get some excellent book recommendations here.

Friday was Ancil Hoffman day! Congratulations to the black team for their win. We hope everyone had a wonderful day out in the sunshine!

Week in Review: Read Across Country Day!

What a week! We started with students performing scenes in Mr. Panasiti’s English class and ended with Read Across Country Day.

In 10th grade, students read the play Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, which is about the Rodney King riots. Students worked in groups and acted out scenes from the play in the library.

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On Friday, the whole school celebrated reading with Read Across Country Day. The library was transformed into a reading lounge with tea, comfy seating, a selfie station, and even a celebrity sighting—Waldo! At 2:15, everyone on campus stopped what they were doing to read.

Advisories sent in pictures of their groups reading at that time. Check out the gallery below!

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Week in Review: EVENTS!

The library was hopping this week with classes and events. It almost felt like a return to the before times!

On Monday, the library hosted an Enlightenment Salon with Ms. Kahn’s seventh-grade history class. Students became a variety of Enlightenment figures, including Voltaire, Diderot, Wollstonecraft, and Benjamin Franklin, as well as some lesser-known people from that time, like Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Toussaint Louveture, and Phillis Wheatley. Students discussed such enlightened topics as should their characters support monarchy or democracy? What is the role of women in society? And what does it truly mean to be an enlightened society?

We also had the March edition of book club on Wednesday. Ms. Melinson presented a number of new books that recently joined the library’s collection. Her focus was on beautiful book covers like Drawn Across Borders, Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Butler, and Watch Over Me. Ms. Melinson also talked about new releases from popular authors like Rhythm of War, Cloud Cuckoo Land, The Lincoln Highway, and Again Again.

We ended the week with a lovely springtime concert courtesy of the Middle School Orchestra.

Bonus:

Check out these great shelfies from Read Across Country Day!

Week in Review: Read Across Country Day (& Boys State)

It’s that time of year again – Read Across Country Day, the day where the library is transformed into a reading lounge with comfy pillows, bean bags, and the famous reading fort. Classes signed up to spend the class period in the fort all cozy with a book and hot chocolate. Throughout the day, students were able to curl up with a good book and enjoy tea and classical music or take pictures at the selfie station and vote on what book we should get next for our collection. We happened to find Waldo in the stacks reading – he must have been on a break from visiting the lower school.

Peep through our gallery of class reading selfies from the All-School Read below. Check out the kindergarten reading forts inspired by our fort!

In other news, Spencer presented for Leadership Lunch and spoke about his experience at Boys State California, a civics program put on by the American Legion. Sounding part Hunger Games and part Lord of the Flies (but much less tragic) Boys State takes one rising male senior (there’s also a separate Girls State) from every participating high high school in California and lets them create their own city and state governments in the dorms at Sac State. Spencer explained how the week-long summer program was great fun (many shenanigans ensued) while also a great opportunity to learn leadership skills and meet students from all over California.

Bonus:

Mr. Wells got duct taped to the gym wall. Just your typical Friday afternoon shenanigans.

Week in Review: Bookstagram

This week started out with Mr. Crabb’s 7th grade History class in the library finding books and doing research for their March Madness projects. Students had to read a historical fiction book and then write a review and comparison about actual historical events. Brackets go up on Monday and the books go head to head. Check back next week for the winner!

On Tuesday Ms. Eustace’s Book Elective class was in to pick out books for their #TBR (to be read) shelfie book stacks for Instagram. Students picked out books they’d like to read and came back on Thursday to arrange their stacks and decorate them with props and filters. Check out the gallery of their behind the scenes photos below. Be sure to view their finished pictures on our Instagram!

Bonus:
Dr. Whited brought her Schnoodle for a visit!

Week in Review: Shelfie edition

We started off this week with one of our popular (and relaxing) activities – Cookies, Coloring, and Conversation. Students spent lunch coloring in a variety of coloring books from Lisa Frank to Amazing Cities to Sherlock Holmes while enjoying cookies and talking with their friends.

On Wednesday we had our monthly Leadership Lunch, with Esme and Yanele presenting. They spoke about Breakthrough, giving background for those unfamiliar with the program, explaining its importance, and how it’s a rewarding experience for those who volunteer.

On Friday the Candy Fairy delivered candy to the classes who sent in selfies during the All School Read last week. Check out our selfie gallery below!

Shelfie Winners Lunch: Round 1

It’s Thanksgiving week, and what better way to kick it off than with a feast? For Teen Read week we had a #shelfie contest, and one of the prizes was lunch with three friends (prepared by the librarian). Sarina R. was the happy recipient on behalf of Middle School, and her winning entry can be seen here. Her three lunchmates were Vaishnavi D., Meg C., and Kayla S. They enjoyed homemade Macaroni & Cheese, salad, white bean bruschetta, and brownies! Yum!

And now for our third place winners…(part two!)

It’s the last day of Teen Read Week, and a perfect day to announce our final winners of the shelfie contest (read more about it here).

Our Third Place: Part Two winners are…

Allison and her puzzle shelfies!

The second annual puzzle competition was a success!! We had a total of 2 participants, double the number of last year and everyone had a good time.

And Meg & Vaishnavi with their musical shelfie!

Congratulations, ladies! You both win a treat on a random Tuesday!

And that wraps up our sixtieth annual shelfie contest! We had a lot of really cool entries, and we want to show ’em off in this slideshow! We had some extra prizes, so these folks will be winning treats on a random Tuesday as well!

And the third place shelfie winners are… (part one)

Since we had so many great entries for our shelfie contest for Teen Read Week (read more about it here), we decided to break up our third place winners into two parts. Stay tuned tomorrow for our Part 2 Third Place winners!

And the winners are…

For Middle School: Erin W. and her Dragon Rider selfie!

Firedrake the dragon flying all around on a cloudless day enjoying the sun sparkling against his beautiful golden wings. He tries to go so fast that he pretends he is a rocket and blasts off through the trees to the endless aquamarine sky above.

Here’s another entry Erin sent along of The River:

Brian, or in this case the book, is swimming in the long winding river. The water feels cool and refreshing because it is a very hot day. There is nothing else to do but swim like a fish, and enjoy. There are lots of bugs on shore so to escape the pests, Brian goes to the middle of the river where the water is dark and very cold. There he sees something moving. What could it be? He gets closer, and closer, then touches it or at least tries to. They are fish. Because he is lonely, he tells the fish how much he likes to swim. They agree.

For High School: Arvind K. and his Elephant Run shelfie!

Bbbbbrrrrrrrroooooooooouuuuuuuuu! (That’s an elephant sound)

Here’s another couple of entries Arvind sent along with his winning entry:

And the second place shelfie winners are….

Day two of our shelfie contest reveal (click here for details)! We are happy to announce our second prize winners for Middle and High School.

For High School: Zomonster B!

With a lei and a hibiscus hairpiece (of course), Just Like the Movies hits the beach for some summer beach reading. The beach was a treasure trove for beach combers — so many shells! And there was even a sailboat out and about. Not to mention a whale and a lot of fish, including a particularly sparkly and shimmery pink one.

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For Middle School: Sarina R.! She asks, what happens when the dog and cat books of the library decide they’ve finally had enough of each other? Well, we’re about to find out!

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Fantastic job, ladies! Please come to the library today to choose your prize.