Author Timothy Young Visited HES

On March 26, 2015 I was thrilled to have author and illustrator Timothy Young visit us at Hollywood Elementary School. He has authored and illustrated five books, including one of my all time favorites The Angry Little Puffin. 

Students in Kindergarten through Third Grade, and Fifth Grade were able to come to the Media Center to listen to Timothy Young. He talked to the students about his various jobs that he had before becoming an author. My favorite was hearing about his work on Pee-Wee's Playhouse! I loved that show! The students also got to hear Timothy Young read his books aloud. I personally find this so interesting to hear an author read his/her own work. It gives you an idea on how he/she intended the book to sound. Our morning and afternoon Pre-K students got to hear Timothy Young read his books when he visited their classroom. He even drew the Puffin for them!

As Mr. Young talked about his books, the students and I learned about a third job that he had while making I'm Looking For a Monster. This book is a pop-up book, so Timothy Young was also a paper engineer. This was his first book that was published. His other books are: They're Coming (which had to be read in a scary voice), Shadows on My Wall (which has instructions on how to make shadow puppets), I HATE Picture Books (which has a lot of childhood favorites in it), and The Angry Little Puffin (which is my favorite). Below you can watch the book trailers for The Angry Little Puffin and I HATE Picture Books.

Timothy Young is also an illustrator, so he showed the students a new method to draw. He sometimes uses this to jump start his thinking. Timothy Young started off by scribbling on a white board and then with a different color found the picture hiding in the scribbles. Soon he let the students do the scribbling, and boy did they try to stump him with a lot of scribbles! Many of the students were inspired to try this technique when they got back to class. In fact, when I went into Mrs. Schoch's class the next day I saw a few of these pictures up in her room.


As I said above, The Angry Little Puffin is one of my new favorite books! I had the pleasure of reading an advance readers copy of this book and I just fell in love with it! Puffins are my favorite bird, so I was thrilled beyond belief when Timothy Young emailed me and said that HES would be receiving a statue of The Angry Little Puffin for our library! I might have even done a little happy dance! Here is a picture of Timothy Young, myself, and the statue.


It was a great day for everyone! Thank you to the HES PTA for paying for his visit! If you missed out on purchasing one of Timothy Young's books during our pre-order sale, we will be sending home a form after Spring Break.

Happy Reading!!

Miss Hazuda (@HESMediaCenter)

March "Book" Madness

My Cute Graphics

Whenever I think of March, I always think of March madness. This year Mrs. Bulvin and I wanted to do something different so we did a March "book" madness. We chose many different picture books to start us off. It was a mixture of Caldecott award winners and some really great more recently published picture books. Below are the groupings that we started with.

The Adventures of Beekle versus Scaredy Squirrel at the Beach

Nana in the City versus Me...Jane

Hooray for Hat versus This is Not My Hat

Sleep Like a Tiger versus Kitten's First Full Moon

Perfect Square versus Not a Stick

Red Sings from Treetops versus Green

First the Egg versus Bats at the Library

Chester versus Chloe and the Lion

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole versus A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever

Flora and the Flamingo versus Shark vs Train

Extra Yarn versus Some Smug Slug

Have I Got a Book For You versus The Book With No Pictures

One Cool Friend versus Penguin on Vacation 

Dog Loves Books versus A Ball for Daisy

Gone Wild versus Carnivores

Frankie Stein versus My Teacher is a Monster

Students were given the opportunity during class time and checkout time to read the pairs of books and vote. It's very interesting to see their reactions to the different books. And see the difference in the primary students likes versus the intermediate students likes. Some of our races were close and we narrowed the field down last week to the "Sweet Sixteen" matches.

The Adventures of Beekle versus Me...Jane

This is Not My Hat versus Kitten's First Full Moon

Not a Stick versus Green

Bats at the Library versus Chester

Sam and Dave Dig a Hole versus Shark vs. Train

Some Smug Slug versus The Book With No Pictures

Penguin on Vacation versus A Ball for Daisy

Carnivores versus Frankie Stein

Check back later this week to see our "Elite Eight". 

Happy Reading!!

Miss Hazuda (@HESMediaCenter)

SNOW DAY!!

Happy Snow Day! I hope everyone is enjoying their snow day! I know that I enjoyed sleeping in, but I'm not enjoying the shoveling! Once you have had some fun time out playing in the snow, there are lots of great things to do as you warm back up.

My first choice would be curling up with a great book. You can see some of my favorite snow books right below. All of these are available as a Kindle download if you have access to app.




One of my favorite things to do when I was growing up was to make snowflakes. Here is a link to some printable snowflake templates. Now if you don't want to have to pick up all of the little pieces of paper, you could always make a snowflake online. I spent a lot of time here after I found this site. I'm just amazed at the gallery! Or if you are a Pinterest fan check out the It's All About the Snow page for a ton of activities!

Let me know what you guys are doing on your snow day in the comments!

Happy Reading!!

Miss Hazuda (@HESMediaCenter)

I LOVE My Media Center Because...

At the beginning of February Mrs. Bulvin and I put out a sentence starter "I LOVE my Media Center because" and we wanted to see what the students would say. We got a lot of great responses! Mrs. Bulvin put them together to make a bulletin board out in the hallway that you can see below.

Here are some of my favorite responses!

I love my Media Center because...

*it is fun because we get to read books.

*it has a lot of good books.

*it is awesome!

*I love to read books! 

*the teachers are nice!

*we can get free books.

*we do fun stuff on the iPad.

*they have all the books that I need.

*our teachers are amazing!

*there are so many wonderful books on almost every 

topic, we do fun activities, and do research projects!

*we always do fun things

*of all of the books you have and all of the 

activities you give me. Thank you.

My most favorite one this year is "you have all the books that I like and none of the books that I don't like!"

Happy Valentine's Day!

Miss Hazuda (@HESMediaCenter)

Valentine's Day

I know I published this last year, but I wanted to update the blog. I'm going to be posting regularly from now on. Be on the look out for new posts!


Valentine’s Day is more than just a day to celebrate love. It’s a celebration of who we are as people. As humans we thrive because of our relationships with other people. We work together in groups to solve problems. We have teams to accomplish goals. We have friends to spend time with. We learn from others of all ages. 

The people around us make a difference to us every day.

Which is why February 14th is a great day to write letters and cards to friends and family members we appreciate. 

Valentine’s Day has a long history and there are many different traditions celebrated around the world. The United Kingdom began the tradition of sending flowers, chocolates and cards. In the area of Slovenia (in Europe near Austria and Hungary) February 14th is a celebration of spring. Men and women go out into the fields to being their work. In some countries in Central America February 14th is a traditional day to do acts of kindness for friends. 

To celebrate this week of kindness and the people we love here are a few things you can do:

Monday: Read about the traditions of Valentine's Day on Pebble Go.   
              If you need the user name and password, please email Mrs. Bulvin 
              or myself.  Please make sure you mention who your student is,
              because this log in is only for HES students. Once in the database,
              go in to Social Studies, and then Holidays. 

Tuesday: Do like puzzles? Do this interactive word search from National 
              Geographic Kids. (even though it says the puzzle is gone, it's still there)

Wednesday: Do a Random Act of Kindness for someone. Here are some ideas
                    for people of all ages. 

Thursday: Make a card for a friend or relative. Follow these directions at 
                Instructables for a simple card or for a more challenging card.

Friday: Watch a Valentine-themed video from PBS Kids.  

Happy Reading!!

Miss Hazuda (@HESMediaCenter)