4/22/13 It's Monday! What are you reading?

I finished reading::

The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine- I was hooked to this historical fiction novel about integration in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958.  Stories about this time period are popular in our school library.  I look forward to promoting this title to our students. 

Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson- I started listening to this on audiobook and had to checkout the print version to quickly finish reading it.  This story left me relieved, angry and sad all at the same time.  

City of Orphans by Avi- I was a little skeptical about this novel.  The story is set in 1893 in New York City and gives readers a taste of what life was like for immigrant families, especially children.  It's fast paced with a mystery to be solved.

I am currently reading:

The Apothecary by Maile Maloy

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby (audiobook) 

Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho

I read these titles aloud to my little guy:

Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin

Oh, No! by Candace Fleming

Little Dog Lost: The True Story a Brave Dog Named Baltic by Monica Carnesi

No Sleep for Sheep by Karen Beaumont

Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett

Road Work Ahead by Anastasia Suen

Star of the Week by Barney Saltzberg

The Charger Research Model

I completed an online class through PBS Teacherline titled 'Building Critical Thinking Skills for Online Research' last summer.  During the course, I read and learned about various research models in order to develop my own research model for my school.

Going into the project, I knew I wanted to develop a research model that was simple and easy to follow without overwhelming students with a lot of steps. I borrowed and adapted from the following research models: the Big6, New South Wales (NSW), South Carolina's The Simple Four and The Research Cycle Model (RCM).

Click here to view The Charger Research Model for Students.

My favorite model was the NSW model because, along with sharing what the students were doing at each step, it also listed what the teacher should be looking for in the student work at each step. Since I also wanted to share this model with teachers, I borrowed heavily from the NSW model.

Click here to view the The Charger Research Model for Teachers.

So far, I've shared the model with all of our teachers and our seventh grade students. Before sharing with the seventh graders, I decided to add the list of links and tools they would use at each step of the research process. We are a 1:1 computing school and I wanted to make sure to demonstrate how our library resources, technology and other tools all come together during the research process.

Sharing the model with students also helped me update the homepage of the school library website. I wanted students to be able to click on the resources they would need for reading and research when they arrived on the school library homepage, instead of hunting for them in the sidebar. I find I am always creating stuff on the library website and going back and making it simpler. I have a love/hate relationship with the library website.

Now that I've gotten my feet wet with seventh grade, I am looking forward to sharing this with our sixth graders next school year to help set the stage for research. Starting off with our seventh graders helped me refine & tweak what I originally created in the summer. Please feel free to borrow, copy and share :)

4/15/13 It's Monday! What are you reading?

I am pushing myself to read more middle grade books to help me be a better book pusher.  In an effort to meet my reading goals, I applied to serve on our South Carolina Junior Book Award committee.  (I just received my acceptance email today! Yea!)  I hope that joining the committee will help me stay on track with my reading goals, as well as participating in this 'It's Monday! What are you reading?' meme.  We shall see :)

My reading goal for the next several weeks is to read all twenty of of the 2013-2014 SCJBA nominee books before we go on summer break.  Last week I read the following books:

"Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart" by Candace Fleming.  I am pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying more and more nonfiction books.  This book kept my attention with its alternating chapters between details about Amelia's life & career and the heartbreaking search for her during her final flight.  I look forward to promoting this book.

I finished listening to Carl Hiaasen's audiobook "Chomp" last week.  I enjoyed the humor and reality TV show plot.  I kept thinking about my favorite survivalist Cody Lundin from the television show "Dual Survivor."  I know in my heart Cody is nothing like Derek Badger.

I booktalked "Hidden" by Helen Frost to a member of our school book club the following morning after I finished reading it.  The student checked it out on the spot and came back the next day raving about the book.  I like reading novels written in verse.  I hope to get more students to try out this genre by booktalking this quick and engaging read.

I finished listening to the audiobook version of "Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading" by Tommy Greenwald.  All of our library copies are checked out right now.  I look forward to hear what our students think about this title.


Last week, I read the following picture books to my six year old son:

"Three Hens and a Peacock" by Lester Laminack

"Babar and his Children" by Jean de Brunhoff

"Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" by Jane Cabrera



I am currently reading:

"Saint Louis Armstrong Beach" by Brenda Woods

"The Lions of Little Rock" by Kristin Levine (audiobook)

Read Across America Day, Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Disability Awareness Month

During the month of our March, our school has a wonderful tradition of celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday and Read Across America Day by reading one book in one day as a whole school.  This is a great event that promotes reading and creates a feeling of community in the school.  We accomplish this feat by reading aloud 3-4 chapters in each class period until we finish the book in the last class period of the day.  

In the past, we read Sharon Flake's book "The Broken Bike Boy and Queen of 33rd Street", David Lubar's book "Hidden Talents and Three Cups of Tea- The Young Reader's Edition by Greg Mortenson, Sarah L. Thomson, and David Oliver Relin.   

At the end of last school year, our Special Education department chair suggested we read a book that ties in with Disability Awareness Month which is also recognized in the month of March.  This year we celebrated Dr. Seuss' Birthday, Read Across America and Disability Awareness Month by reading author Sharon Draper's book "Out of My Mind."

If you have not read this book yet, please go out and read it.  Our teachers and students loved this book. And to make it even better, when I explained to our Language Arts department our plans to move forward with this theme for Read Across America for next year, a Language Arts teacher volunteered to read books to help us pick out a title for next year.  Now there are three of us reading books and discussing possible book titles for next year's Read Across America.

If your school reads a book as a whole school, please share in the comments!

3rd Quarter in the BMS Library Media Center

Please take a look at what we've been up to in the media center during the third quarter of the 2012-2013 school year.  Look forward to posts about different events and projects we had in the library recently.

2012-13 Second Quarter in the BMS Library

Broadcasting live from our school studio!

I am really proud of our school news show.  I started out without a clue, but things have turned out nicely after four years of winging it.  I thought I'd share a little bit of how we run our live school news show in hopes of helping out anyone else that finds themselves in the same situation I was in a few years ago (new to working in a school environment without any prior video or technology experience and knowing zilch about putting together a news show.  Yea, that was me :)).

Our school news crew is made up of seventh and eighth grade students.  At the start of the school year, students interested in becoming part of the school news team pick up an application and teacher recommendation form.  I schedule interviews with the technology crew applicants and auditions for anchor applicants.  Once the students are selected, I create a rotation schedule for the anchors and technology crew members.  I rotate my anchors every 6-8 weeks.  I usually rotate my technology crew members by semester.  The exiting news crew members trains the incoming news crew members.  Once a news crew member completes his/her turn on the news show, I may call on them to fill in whenever another crew member is absent.

The nice thing about having seventh grade students on the news team is that I ask them to start the news show the first week of school during their eighth grade year.  These same students also train the new students that join the team that school year.  The students run the news show and I'm there to make sure everyone stays on track and nothing too crazy happens.  So far, I've been really pleased with how responsible and professional our students are about the news program.

Here are the roles and tasks for the news crew member:

News anchors: These two students write the weather announcement and national/world news announcement each morning.  I proofread their announcements before we go live on air.

Teleprompter technician: This student transcribes all of our announcements onto PowerPoint slides that the news anchors will read from.

Video technician: This student creates the visuals that will accompany the announcements.  He/She will also be responsible for transitioning between the our news anchors, special guests and visuals (videos and images).
Sound technician: This student controls the mics and sound board.  I usually place a second year news show team member in this role.  Each year I usually have at least one student that does not stop showing up for the news show and he/she has also taken the initiative to learn all three technician roles.  Having this student on the team really helps because I'm confident that things will go well with the news show even when I am away.

Equipment & tools:

• Desktop computer to create & display visuals
• Small TV monitor to see what we are displaying to our audience
• Sound board
• Video mixer to transition between our desktop and video cameras
• Two video cameras
• wireless microphones and hand held microphones
• Two laptops (one for the teleprompter tech & one for the news anchors)
• TV set
• Google Docs
• Gmail 
• Thumbdrive- we use one very important & precious thumbdrive to hold our videos, pictures & music for the news show.

When I first started working on the news show, I trolled the web for ideas.  The Daring Librarian Gwyneth Jones has a wiki with lots of information.  Check it out!

Google docs has been a great tool because I can easily create, update and share information with the news team.  The news team accesses a Google doc for the script where I collect announcements sent via email to me from our school staff.  I also use our school newsletter to collect news.  The news anchors update the script each morning with the weather report & news piece.  The teleprompter tech creates a Powerpoint from the script all the while everyone is able to edit/view without having to print out a new script.  I also use a Google Form to collect song requests from our school community (I stole this idea from the Daring Librarian :)). My video technician checks a separate Google doc titled 'BMS Music Sheet' to learn what song to play each day.

We play music and videos each day on the news show.  I use the thumbdrive to hold the songs and videos for each week.  We play a booktrailer each Thursday.  I may use a booktrailer from Youtube or a student  may submit a video he/she created.  I play Animoto videos that I create to advertise different events in our school.  (With an educator account in Animoto, I'm able to download my Animoto video as an .mp4 file.)  Sometimes I give the news crew a flip camera and a question to ask their fellow classmates to create "Word on the Street" videos.  I only have five minutes (maybe seven minutes if I push the envelope) of air time, so I can't get too crazy.

If you run a school news show, I would love to hear about what you do!