Click here to find out more information about our Under the Sea book fair.
During the week of January 12, we were fortunate to have an exhibit from the Kennesaw State University Museum of History and Holocaust Education. Fifth grade students were introduced to the Holocaust and its causes and listened to an amazing speaker tell them about the causes of the Holocaust and World War II. After the presentation, a traveling exhibit was in our Media Center for the week. Students could come and read the exhibit and learn a little bit more.
Students were engaged and interested for the entire hour! Thank you so much Dr. Harker and the Museum of History and Holocaust Education. This is a fabulous, local, FREE resource! The museum is located near the Kennesaw State University campus and is free to the public. Please check their website should your family decide to go. What a fantastic day!
Thanks to help from Mrs. Simpson, our Target teacher and Madeline and Wesley, two college students, our Keheley students in grades 2-5 were able to learn the basics of coding, or computer programming. We participated as part of the Georgia Day of Code and used the website http://studio.code.org/. Students chose to either learn how to make Anna and Elsa make snowflakes or work on some fun projects with Angry Birds, Scrat and Plants vs. Zombies. Many of our students were so excited that they likely went home and showed their parents what they learned. It was terrific to see such delight in learning a new idea! Coding includes knowing how to problem solve as well as how to make your computer do what you want it to do. We learned many things; from understanding that the computer does EXACTLY what programmers tell it to do, no more, no less to figuring out how many degrees are in different angles. It was an incredibly eye-opening day! Are you in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade and interested in joining a book club? Check out this link to our book club page to see what we are doing.
We will meet once per month, after school. All the dates for the remainder of the year are on the calendar. It will be necessary for you to sign up each month (by a cut off date) in order to attend. January's book is The Fourteenth Goldfish by Jennifer Holm. The first ten students to sign up will receive the book for free! Please email me if you have any questions, and HAPPY READING! We have been having a few contests in the Media Center lately. The students love them and I have a lot of fun planning them. Currently, our contest entails answering a trivia question about the Guinness Book of World Records. If answered correctly, one student will be the first to check this NEW book out!
The question is: When was the Guinness Book of World Records first published? (Hint: this is an anniversary year). Students may look up the answer however they choose. They will drop their answer in the answer box in the Media Center. On Thursday, November 13 I will draw a correct answer from the box and bring the book to that student. They may keep it for two weeks and will have earned the privilege of checking it out first! Good luck! This week, we began using iPads in the Media Center. Students in kindergarten and first grade learned the rules of iPads, followed by using an app called PicWall. We had so much fun!
Here are the rules: 1. Always use two hands. 2. Make sure your hands are clean and dry. 3. Only use the apps that the teacher tells you to use. 4. Make sure to stay seated while using an iPad. (We broke this rule already, on purpose!) 5. Raise your hand if you need help. 6. Share with your friends. We are lucky enough to have 10 iPads for use in the Media Center, but we do not have enough for each student to work on one, so we need to be able to share. It's been so much fun learning how to use them, what our technology standards are, and sharing. In 2nd grade we worked on the 5W's; who? what? when? where? why? We read a story and then read some Shel Silverstein poems so that the students could answer the 5W questions. They did a terrific job. Due to Cogat Testing, this week has been shortened somewhat. The next two weeks will be the same, although the Media Center will be open for checkouts during the ITBS. Good luck! Classes are off to a great start! We have been doing Media Center Orientation for the last week. Now, we are off and running with classes. In the past few days, we have worked on character, setting, book care, how to check out items, and how to do self checkout. Your students are working hard and gaining independence in the media center.
Each time they come in, we work on Media Center standards as well as their classroom standards. Students in grades 3-5 can check their books in and out by themselves. We are working on making it a totally independent process, but for now we are there to help. Students in grades 1-2 choose books based on their own reading abilities. We have begun to discuss choosing a "just right" book and how that is accomplished in a place like a Media Center that has so many books! They are doing a great job. Kindergarten classes come in for a 30 minute class which includes a story, discussion and book choice. Currently, we help them choose books from a much smaller selection, but as the year continues, they will begin to choose from the shelves themselv Today, we opened the media center to students and what fun we had! We talked about standards, books, what the Media Specialist does, what they are expected to do, and how fun it is to read! At the end of each orientation session, we got to put books in the students' hands. That thrills me! I am always happy to watch children enjoy reading and LOVE the book that they chose.
If you need help finding a book, please let me know! I'm always willing and happy to suggest some reading, and I always ask students to tell me what they thought about the book we chose. Thank you for visiting the Media Center blog! I am excited to be back at Keheley for another year. We are looking forward to getting books into the hands of the students, and trying many new things. As many of you may have heard, media centers in Georgia are making a new shift to that of a learning commons. We are in the beginning stages of that shift and I couldn't be more excited!
A learning commons is a vibrant place; full of students who read, use their knowledge to form new opinions and ideas, use sources appropriately for resource, and make all kinds of exciting strides in their educational growth. I'm so happy to be a part of that and to watch as your students thrive, change, and grow. It makes me thrive and grow too! Students are coming in to the media center and checking out books all ready. Even your kindergarten child will be bringing home a book in the next week. Please take the time to read with or to your child; it will make you both happy! |
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