Congratulations to Caeley and Tayyaba for having their poems chosen to be a part of this year’s Urban Voices poetry publication! For the past 11 years, the TDSB has produced a collection of student poetry and art known as Urban Voices. Copies of these can be found in the library and serve as good examples for students in your classes.

This year’s published poems can be read below in previous posts.

          Wilkinson students were treated to a visit from award winning Canadian author and storyteller Rukhsana Khan today and yesterday. Rukhsana Khan has published eleven books for children, ten of which are available at Wilkinson’s Library (the one other is sadly out of print). 

In true storytelling fashion, Ms. Khan gave an often hilarious presentation that kept all of the students riveted and in stitches. No one can weave faith with flatulence as seamlessly and humorously as Rukhsana Khan! 

Ms. Khan shared her story of an early interest in writing and her hope to become a published author. Things were not as simple as she had hoped they might be, but after many rejection letters and a great deal of perseverance, a publisher finally agreed to publish one of her books. She is proud of her books and her success and wanted students to take home the message that their goals can be reached and dreams realized through determination, hard work and patience. Rukhsana Khan inspired many young and creative minds during her visit to WIlkinson over the past two days.

To learn more about Rukshana Khan and her books, please visit her website.

38 Wilkinson students joined 3500 other students from across the province today at Harbourfront for the final day of the Festival of Trees. The festival is the celebration party that marks the end of the Forest of Reading program for 2012. Students in grades 4, 5 and 6 enjoyed activities, games, workshops, author signings and, of course, the Silver Birch Award ceremonies. Authors are treated like rock stars at these ceremonies where the winners of each category are revealed in front of raucous and appreciative audiences. Congratulations to this year’s winning authors and illustrators.

Silver Birch Non-Fiction - Don’t Touch that Toad and Other Strange Things Adults Tell You by Catherine Rondina and illustrated by Kevin Sylvester.

Silver Birch Fiction - Undergrounders by David Skuy.

Silver Birch Express - When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti-Jean by Jan Andrews and illustrated by Dušan Petričić.

Yesterday, the Blue Spruce Award was awarded to Rebecca Bender for her book, Giraffe and Bird.

For a complete list of nominated titles, check the Ontario Library Association’s Forest of Reading website.

Last week, Grade 6 girls from Wilkinson, and four other East Toronto schools, participated in in a coding conference. The conference was organized to promote computer programming to girls and to encourage girls to consider career options in the field of programming and coding. To learn more check out Girls Crack the Code webpage.

         

The Blue Spruce and Silver Birch reading programs have come to an end and Wilkinson students have chosen their favourite books. Nearly 300 Blue Spruce readers (K-3 + Dandy Cubs) voted during library time over the past few weeks. Wilkinson’s favourite Blue Spruce book is …

• Small Saul by Ashley Spires.

Silver Birch Readers did their voting during a lunchtime Silver Birch celebration hosted by Mr. Krentz and Ms. Whitfield. Over 50 students talked about this year’s books, had some treats and, of course, got a chance to vote. Wilkinson’s favourite Silver Birch books are …

• Express: When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti Jean by Jan Andrews
• Non-Fiction: Don’t Touch that Toad & other Strange Things Adults Tell You by Catherine Rondina (illustrated by Kevin Sylvester) 
• Fiction: The Glory Wind by Valerie Sherrard.

On May 16th, a group of Silver Birch readers will head down to Harbourfront for the Festival of Trees, a celebration of the Forest of Reading program. Many of the authors and illustrators will be on hand doing workshops, signing autographs and attending the awards ceremonies where this year’s winners will be announced. For more information on the Festival of Trees, check http://bit.ly/forestfestival.

 Thanks to all the brave grade 6 students who came out for the Rooftop Tennis Team tryouts on this cold, damp Sunday morning. Once the students got used to the height, all participants were able to show off their talent. We lost many tennis balls off the roof this morning, but, fortunately, no students! A big thanks to Mr Kasaval and Mr DePasqua for engineering such an elaborate net of thera bands and bungee cords to protect our players. Safety first!

        Creative Commons Licensed image courtesy of spyffe’s photostream on Flickr.