Another "rotation" in the Library

Wow! It's hard to believe another rotation of 36 classes has come through the library over the past six days. We have morning circulation up and running with help from our fifth grade student volunteers who has so generously given their time to shelve books, help students find books, check in books, check out books, place books on the cart and deliver books and materials to teachers. I don't know what I would do without them!

...On to what we have learned in media specials the past "rotation."

Fifth graders have listened to another selection from Guys Write for Guys Read, compiled by Jon Scieszka. We enjoyed Jack Prelutsky's, A Day at the Zoo. Afterwards we just learned how to insert a map to use as an interactive map for our Lewis and Clark expedition. We will be adding to the map as we learn more about Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea, the Corps of Discovery and Seaman. (More in later posts. This is a major process.)

Fourth graders have listened to an extract from Roald Dahl and all but one class has finished the VERY condensed version of Danny, the Champion of the World, in the Roald Dahl Treasury. Tuesday, September 13 would have been Roald Dahl's 95th birthday if he was still with us today. We celebrated with a trivia question for a Peach Award (based on the book James and the Giant Peach. It was published in the states 50 years ago this year. We will be focusing on going to his website and reading about his childhood and testing our knowledge about many of the books he has written.

Third graders have focused on using the online search stations and searching independently for their books on the shelves. We are becoming more and more independent in the media center as well as looking for good fit books. There is more to this rather than looking up titles or subjects. We have learned how to look for reading levels, nonfiction and fiction titles as well as genres. To begin our lesson we read, Bob the Alien learns the Dewey Decimal Classification System.

Second graders have learned about meteors, which are not falling stars, but rocks/iron particles that are in space and can come very close to earth. We read Meteor, by Patricia Polacco and learned a true meteor landed on her farm in Michigan where it serves as her grandmother's headstone. There will be a meteor shower in October 8th and December 13th. You might want to watch for these as a family and begin a tradition.

Students in the first grade learned about dragons. They are mythological creatures. We also read about Komodo dragons (nonfiction) that live on the island of Komodo. They are called dragons because of their appearance, "fire colored tongue" and fierceness. We also discussed pets such as bearded dragons. Afterwards we enjoyed a funny chapter book titled, A friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkney. Dragon wants a friend so badly, and snake takes advantage of Dragon by playing a trick on him. We laughed until we had tears in our eyes.

Kindergarten students continue to check out from the "E" neighborhood. We have read more books by Eric Carle and have learned many finger plays. I am so amazed at how fast and how much they learn. They are very well behaved which is a reflection on their parents. Thank you for all you do to teach your children about responsibility, respect, and good listening skills. It really makes my job so easy and we have so much fun! This is a goal of mine so students will grow to love coming to the library, checking out books, reading, and becoming lifetime users and 21st century learners.

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

10 years ago...

I remember this day as I had just accepted a new position at a brand new school in New Jersey. It was on a Tuesday, a beautiful early September day without a cloud in the sky. Several of the student's parents would not make it back to pick them up from school because they worked in one of the World Trade Centers.

Thank goodness my husband was not traveling since he was able to collect our three children from school and bring them home. For the next week you could still see smoke, dust, etc. rising from lower Manhattan.

Let's not forget those that lost their lives in New York, Washington D. C., or Pennsylvania that day.

Harvest Moon 2011

On September 11 and 12 this year we will be able to experience the Harvest Moon. I used to believe it was the first full moon "after" fall. However, after reading several reputable sources, I have learned it is the full moon that happens "closest" to the autumnal equinox.

Enjoy!

Mrs. Wetherell

Check out my voicethread posting

http://voicethread.com/share/2191439/

I have to get MUCH better than this...ha, ha

August 24...Another cycle of learning

Changes are evident in the school library as you can see from the picture. Students who visit the media center have become more independent this year when checking out books. We have stations set up so students can self check out which frees me to help others. It isn't perfect yet, but the students love the freedom in taking charge of their own learning, selecting items, checking out and reading to self. I have noticed when allowing the students more time to self select their good fit books, it results in a "better" book selection (sometimes). They are not rushed and appear to be happier. They are helping others find books and offering recommendations on their own. I really believe we do "foster intellectual development" through the media program implemented at our school.

This past week the fourth and fifth graders learned to utilize the Follett Destiny Catalog to find books using Lexile levels which informs them of books they may have not considered before.

Third grade was introduced to the catagories in the non-fiction section where they learned how books are arranged in the library. This was an eye opener since most of them only explored the same sections of the media center. It's like they discovered a whole new land!

Second graders learned about autobiographies, biographies and collective biographies. We followed up with an autobiography about Patricia Polacco, titled Firetalking. Several selections will be read aloud to the students in the coming weeks along with a visit to her author website.

First graders continued to hear read alouds by Jack Gantos about Rotten Ralph and continued to search for "good fit" books. They may choose one good fit book and one any type book. This can be challenging at times, but we will continue to focus on learning.

Kinders have been introduced to Eric Carle by hearing an old favorite, The Very Busy Spider. I paired it with a nonfiction book about spiders so we could compare the two types of text and purposes for reading. We are just beginning to go to the shelves and select books for check out. Up until now the kinders selected books from tables to learn the routine of book check out. What a great group of students! I look forward to seeing them everyday. They are so much fun.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Enjoy

Hey, libraries are not just for checking out books!

Volume 27, Number 3
May/June 2011
Eight Tech Trends for Librarians (and Teachers too!)

By DAVE SALTMAN


If the Dewey decimal system is the first thing that comes to mind when the subject of school libraries comes up, it’s time to reboot.

The school library—and the job of the librarian—have both morphed into something that most adults these days would hardly recognize. Helping kids find books to read is only part of the job, say those on the profession’s leading edge. Today, a major mission of the librarian, aka media specialist, is to teach students digital literacy by showing them how to use the Internet to efficiently find, organize, and share information with peers. Here are some of the tools librarians are using to make their jobs easier and more relevant to students as they address this expansion of their role.
• Digital Catalogues: Books are going digital and so are librarians. Software like Follett's Destiny is making it easier for students to find and check out books within their school’s collection. And, these software products can include social bookmarking technology—in which notes about a book are shared and responded to online as part of learning activities. All the Mankato (Minn.) Area public schools use such software, says Doug Johnson, the district’s media and technology director. “Combining reading and learning using social media is the most exciting thing that is happening in [school] libraries,” he says.

• Virtual Libraries: Librarians are creating their own virtual libraries—web pages with lots of links to student-friendly online resources. The resources include subject-specific links, suggestions for useful research and organization tools, as well as information about copyright-related issues. Joyce Valenza, award-winning librarian at Springfield Township High School, near Philadelphia, uses free wikispaces.com (right) to maintain the Springfield Township High School Virtual Library.

• Online Research Guides: Valenza also uses a paid software called LibGuides to provide links to databases and subject-specific “pathfinders,” or groups of hyperlinks pertaining to the same subject, like the visual arts, for student research.

• E-Books: Some schools have arrangements with e-book distributors, like Overdrive, for books that are not yet widely available. Librarians are also pointing students to Project Gutenberg or Google Books for free access to older texts that are now in the public domain, such as A Tale of Two Cities.

• Online Alternatives to Books: For readers and non-readers alike, librarians are pointing students toward non-traditional outlets to encourage both reading and the pursuit of further learning. “Kids really are more visual today,” observes Wendy Stephens, noting the popularity of the Dorling-Kindersley books with their rich, 3-D graphics. Stephens, the librarian at Buckhorn High School in New Market, Ala., encourages her students to explore graphic novel databases, including those for Japanese Manga. She’s also directing her students to mobile storytelling applications like 3:15 Stories (right), where students can read and listen to the initial 10 minutes of a mystery novel to whet their appetite, which then “unlocks” a two-minute video revealing the ending. Librarians are also showing kids how to use online timeline tools like Google news timeline, timetoast.com, Dipity, and applets in archives, for example ProQuest's Historical Newspapers.

• Note-taking Tools: A big challenge for kids is keeping long, digitally-sourced projects organized and librarians are helping with this, too. Subscription-based Noodle Tools remains a popular note-taking tool. On her library website, Valenza includes pathfinders leading to organizational tools, such as Evernote, and mind-mapping applications, like Glinkr (below), to sort project thoughts.

• Dashboards: What if your whole academic life could be organized on a single page? Librarians are raving about “dashboards”—a personal gateway to all of a student’s digitized academics, including their digital bookmarks for useful articles and applications. One is NetVibes, used in an award winning library-English department project at Creekview High School in Canton, Ga., in which 10th grade students customized their own gateways using such a dashboard.

• Reboot complete.

Dave Saltman is a writer and teacher in the Los Angeles area, and a contributor to Spotlight on Technology in Education (Harvard Education Press, 2011).

We will need lots more money to catch up to this article! However, 21st century learning takes place everyday at Highcroft.

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Wetherell

Is your book a "good fit?"

This week teachers asked me to teach the "good fit" book lesson. This is taken from The Daily 5 reading philosophy from real life teaching sisters Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. I explain that choosing books are just like choosing shoes. They have to be a good fit! After the lesson students choose books based on the acronym "I PICK". After much discussion students decide on their purpose for reading. Next they must choose a book that is interesting to them. However, this can be a daunting and time consuming process. Students are then guided on how to find a book that may appear interesting to them by looking at the cover and following through by reading about the book on the back cover or inside flap. Once the students believe this to be a book that is interesting to them specifically, he/she must open the book to see if they can read most of the words so they can understand or comprehend the text. Students need a great deal of support to be successful in choosing good fit books independently.
The success of choosing good fit books is to have enough books on hand in classroom libraries and in the school library media center. This is why it is so important to have a healthy book budget and a school that backs the media center in providing current and popular books for students to select.