The Spartan Librarian

I finally found two minutes to sit down and write my first blog post for the school year!  It has been a whirlwind! My PTO president and I, did a little redecorating in the library, painting an accent wall, adding a canopy, and some cool over sized candy decorations.  My theme for the year is "READING IS SWEET!!!".  I have a little more work to do under the canopy I picked up at IKEA, but the kids have gotten a kick out of it!   My daughter and I used masking tape to create these fun patterns on some bargain canvas' ($4.99 a two pack at Michael's).  We had them taped off and painted in about 30 minutes.  I then cut vinyl letters using my Silhouette machine and ta-da, cheap wall art!  Some construction paper flags had been hanging here for the last four years, and who knows how many years prior to us moving into this building!  It was time for them to go!   Starting my second year as Teacher Librarian, I am finally making it mine!

I love when kids find things at home and bring them to share with me, but this was a little creepy!   Santos a 4th grader, brought this complete snake skin in for us to see.  His dad does insulation and found this skin under a house he was working on.  The skin measured 6 feet and 6 inches LONG!!  I do NOT want to run up on this snake! If you are interested in reading more about snakes check out the 597.9 section!

I think I have a social networking problem (but I think I can call it work)!! My new love is  Twitter and I have found a great group of librarians, teachers, and technology users that I follow (stalk) all the time!! @Barrowmc and @WESmediacenter are two of my favorites!  @Barrowmc shared a Crowd-Source poem she was doing with her students.  She created a Google form with sentence stems about the media center and had the students complete the sentences.  Sounded like a lot of fun and a great way to get insight into what our students really think about the  media center! I didn't use Google forms, but created a Quiz in edmodo and assigned it to the kids.  They completed it today during computer class.  The responses were predictable, funny, heartwarming, quirky, not-what I expected, and touching.  The following are actual responses from my actual students! P.S.....if you want to follow me on twitter my name is @readforcupcakes (no need for explanation!!) Our media center i

The 4th graders have been learning all about pourquoi stories in their ELA classrooms.  After listening to several stories, the students wrote their own original pouquois.  The writing process was completed in the classrooms, and they came into the media center to publish their work. They used our new iPads and the Scribble Press app to write and illustrate each story.  The kids loved seeing their work online in a digital ebook format! Check out some examples: How some Dogs Black and White Fur by Izaya n. - read the free ebook now from Scribble Press! Why Cat's Hate The Rain by Leonilla Garcia - read the free ebook now from Scribble Press! Chameleon and parrot by Written and Illustrated by Cody C. - read the free ebook now from Scribble Press! Why the Cheetah Runs So Fast by Written and Illustrated by Kevin W. - read the free ebook now from Scribble Press! How a Shark Got Its Sharp Theeth by Written and Illustrated by Emmanuel C. - read the free ebook now from Scribb

Mrs. Shepard, a fabulous fifth grade teacher here at UIS, had her students write poems about the Civil War as a cumulating project.  She had them share them with me----all I can say is AMAZING!!!!!  These kids did a faboulous job and you can tell that learning had taken place! I had her send them in to me in the media center, and they used  Audacity to record their poems in their own voices.  I then uploaded them to Sound Cloud to share with the world! Check them out!!

April is National Poetry Month To celebrate the students choose original or published poems to share with the school each morning during the announcements.  Visit our link below to hear all the wonderful poems.  Be sure to check back often, as we will be adding a poem daily!

During a recent staff meeting, the administration put us into groups to dicuss the results of our Spring Benchmark, and what we could do to improve on our scores as a whole.  At this time, the teams discussed which items and objectives the students did not do well on. Using the information gleamed from this meeting, I, along with a 4th grade math teacher discussed creating math centers for the students to work on in the library.  The seed was planted! We created math centers focused on the objectives that the students had shown weakness in. Center #1 - Using Edmodo and EdCanvas , I created a lesson to review lines of symmetry.  The students logged into their accounts and completed the activity. (Objective 4.G.3) Center #2 - Using our New iPads, the students explored fractions using BraningCamp's Fraction app.  The students completed activities on equivalent fractions, common denominators, and adding and subtracting fractions. (Objectives: 4.NF.1, 4.NF.2, 4.NF.3) Ce

I have the most wonderful parent assistant any librarian could ask for!! I gave her the idea of what I wanted my bulletin board to look like for National Poetry month and she came through with flying colors, a 3-D tree, and paper flowers!!! In computer class today, the kids used some online poetry creation sites to write their own poems. Following Easter Break, each morning after the pledge, a student will read an original poem or recite a favorite! Can't wait!

OMG!  That's all I can say!  Our principal purchased 12 brand new iPads for the students to use!  They arrived the end of last week.  Today, we did our first little mini lesson using them!  These kids were engaged!  That's all I know to say! Every single one of them, got started quickly, stayed on task, and even did the assignment more than once, just to get to use them! Our kids just recently took our Spring Benchmark and 5th graders scored poorly on questions dealing with multiplying and dividing fractions.  We used Fractions by BrainingCamp .  It started with a video lesson, followed by questions, then ended with a challenge mode! I can't wait to share this with our other teachers!!

Today I started an enrichment Civil War activity with my 5th graders. I read aloud Pink and Say by Patricia Polacco. As I read, I introduced actual Civil War images that correlated with the story. The Library of Congress has a huge selection of period images and artifacts. We viewed images of the colored troops, burnt out buildings, Andersonville Prison, and more. Following the story and a discussion about how Pink and Say must have felt and the impact the Civil War had on these young men, the students competed in a Civil War challenge using blubbr.tv! Isreal, Cesar, John, & Carlos from Mrs. Peterson’s room have the highest score of 385!!    They were beat!!  German, Tyquan, and Ryan from Mr. Allen's class scored 424!!  Can you beat that?

We have just finished week 1 of our March Madness Accelerated Reader Contest.  The sixteen teams are no now down to eight!  Keep reading!     Team Standings: