The Spartan Librarian

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