November 2011

Blog Bits and Interesting Links

• K12OnlineConference - Going on right now, this event for K12 educators worldwide has a fantastic lineup of speakers - and you can learn at home with a cup of hot chocolate. Lots of great videos here too!  Full program schedule posted at this comprehensive website.
• We Give Books - A great website for reading free digital books AND donating a book to a reading initative of your choice at the same time!  What better thing to do during the season of giving?
• International Education Blogs - Bookmark this LibGuide page with blogs on international education.  What others should I add? 
• Libraries as Learning Labs -  Think a library is just books?  Think again!                    

Language Book Talks Schedule

A language book talks schedule for the rest of the year will be posted in the library and sent by email.  Pascale, Elke, Lucie and I will give book talks in French, German, Spanish and English respectively as shown on the schedule.  We are always available to suggest books and help students, but on these days we will have a special book talk ready to share.

PYP Unit Lists

We are working to update PYP Unit Lists to reflect the changes in central ideas, organizing themes and allocation of subject matter between English and the other languages.

You can help us tremendously by working with us when you check out unit books AND BY: 

• returning unit books directly to library associate Pascale Viala, and
• completing a very short questionnaire about the books at the end of the unit.

When you return the books to Pascale directly, she can ask you for any information she needs to update the unit list. 

If you need help returning books, library staff will be happy to come to your classroom to retrieve books.  Just send one of us an email to that effect.  Thanks!


Request Library Books to Support Curriculum


We count on you to help us identify the best books for library purchase.  Please recommend books that you would like to see in the library.  This link will take you directly to a box where you can enter the title (and whatever other information you have) of the book that you want the library to purchase for its collection.
 

Shadra Strickland Visit Posted on YouTube

During the Fall Book Fair, two of our third grade classes visited with illustrator Shadra Strickland via Skype from the library computer lab.  A portion of that visit is posted on YouTube.  The library is hosting an exhibit of Strickland's original work for five outstanding picture books.  Please watch the video and then visit the exhibit in the library!


Upcoming Library Programming  

Two primary school library events are now on the calendar:

• February - Black Authors Exhibition
• February  - French Book Fair  

Twitter "Hashtag of the Month"

#k12online11

Follow the talk from the K12Online Conference.  Looking for some help with Twitter?  Try this video tutorial from CommonCraft.

Accelerated Reader Update

• Spanish AR books are being labeled as such to make them easier for students to locate.
• Please remind your students that they can check to see if a book has an AR quiz by going to http://www.arbookfind.com/.
• Students who have participated thus far will be acknowledged before winter break.
• Team participation is relatively low, so please encourage your students to take at least one quiz.

Flat Classrom Book Coming Out


Vicky Davis and Julie Lindsay have coauthored Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time, a new book to be released in February.  Davis and Lindsay are the creators and leaders of the Flat Classroom projects.  Would you be interested in participating in an informal book club on the book?  A group is forming now. 

April 2009

Blog Bits

More from the bloggers:

a. AASL Standards for 21st Century Learners - Here's a post by Kristin Fontichiaro about the new American Association of School Librarians Standards for 21st Century Learner. The focus of the standards is inquiry, not the older term of information literacy. Read how Kristin describes the application of the skills, dispositions, actions and common beliefs from the new standards to 21st century learners.

b. What are the emerging classroom technologies?- The Horizon Report, made possible by a Microsoft grant, examines emerging technologies and their impact on teaching and learning. Read this post by Judy O'Connell describing the Horizon project. The six technologies discussed in the 2009 report are collaborative environments, online communication tools, mobiles, cloud computing, smart objects and the personal web. Confused? Check it out . . .

c. IB Blogosphere - Did you know the IB has a "blogosphere" that you can explore and to which you can contribute?

Lunchtime Book Clubbers Create Audio Book Reviews

Six fifth graders participated in the second session of the Lunchtime Book Club. They created audio book reviews in English, French and German to be posted to the audio book review section of the PS Library E-Bulletin Board. Please listen to some of the audio book reviews -- the quality is best from home.

PYP Threads and Flat Classrooms - Do You Do Nings?

You may want to join "PYP Threads" and/or "Flat Classrooms". Each of them is a Ning, meaning an online social network formed for a particular purpose or interest. At the site for each, you will find information about the members and the various discussion threads posted on each. These can be great sources of information about curriculum and instruction as well as a chance to network with educators around the world.

Magazines for Next Year

We will be submitting our magazine subscription renewals in early May and we anticipate reducing the number of periodicals in our collection. Please let us know what magazines you think we should renew. What magazines are useful to you in support of your curriculum? Help us make our subscriptions worthwhile by using the magazines in our collection and encouraging your students to read them. For your convenience, I have listed below magazines to which the PS Library currently subscribes:

Spanish - Reportero Doc, Okapi, Iguana, Caracola, Leo Leo
French - Images Doc, Histoires Vraies, Astrapi, Wakou, J'aime Lire, Mes Premiers J'aime Lire (with CD)
German - Wissen Macht Ah, Geolino, National Geographic (German edition)
English - I Love English, Faces, Calliope, Cobblestone, Ask, Click, National Geographic(English edition)

Thanks for your help in the selection process - this is your chance to speak up on what you like . . . and what you don't like.

New Books Page Now Features Covers

The "New Books and Book Talks" section of the PS Library E-Bulletin Board now features book covers through Library Thing. Take a look at that section of the library page when you have a chance. Currently showing are covers of some of our new French, Spanish and German books.

Suggestions to Manage Overdue Books

I’m looking for some good ideas and who better to ask than you? So here are the two questions I have for you.

What should be the “next step” if a student has had an overdue library book for one or more months and has neither returned it nor responded to overdue notices? What should be the reward this year for the class that has the least library books unreturned at the end of the school year? For the past two years, that class has received popsicles from the library to celebrate. Thanks for your thoughts!

Poem in Your Pocket

Visit the library to find a poem for your pocket this April, National Poetry Month! "Poem in Your Pocket" Day is April 30. See our display of poetry books for suggestions or look up one of your favorites!

October 2008

Reprise of BrainPop Instructions

BrainPOP has special password information and procedures and several teachers have asked me to republish this information. You will need a password for BrainPOP even at school. There is a special access point for teachers and an after hours password for teachers has been created so that teachers will be able to access the site after school hours from home. Students can only use BrainPOP from home until 5:00 p.m. BrainPOP is the only resource we have with this type of password arrangement. I will put the passwords on the Library and IT bulletin board in Ivana's office.

Update on Language Book Talks
We have now lined up presenters for the Spanish and German language book talks, so we will continue with our language book talks schedule and hopefully make up the missed weeks for those languages later in the year. I am delighted that Mayte S. has generously agreed to present new Spanish books and Astrid S., parent of students in the German track, has graciously agreed to be our German book talk presenter.

Here are the upcoming book talk weeks scheduled for each language:

Spanish
October 27 - October 31
French
November 10 - November 14
German
November 17 - November 21
English
December 1 - December 5

Remember that each language will be featured for an entire week. If you are interested in bringing your class, please let me know the day of the week that is best for you and we will try to work it out. We try to schedule book talks on the days of the week that are best for the greatest number of classes in light of the presenter's schedule.


Request for Book Purchasing Suggestions
Please look ahead to units of inquiry that you will be teaching in spring, 2009, and let the library know of any purchasing requests for library materials to resource the units.

Also, as you reflect on completed units during the planning meetings, please send me an email with purchasing requests based on your experience with the unit and any special needs or weaknesses in the library collection with respect to that unit.

We are actively engaged in weeding out-dated materials and replacing them with current materials that better align with the curriculum. If you are interested in participating in the collection development planning for your language collection, please let me know. Our collection will be better if you help!


The Book Club Blog

The primary school library e-bulletin board has a blog in place for The Book Club, a fledgling book club for 4th and 5th graders. It has been used in the past, but at present it is dormant and I'd love to get it going again. The students who participated previously were 4th graders and they really enjoyed posting their comments (moderated of course) on the selected books. This is a great way to encourage a variety of transdisciplinary skills and have fun too.

Is anyone interested in working with me to get this project going again? If so, please let me know.

Photos with Creative Commons License

Will your students need photographs for classroom projects? Talk with me about online sources for photos that are available for use under Creative Commons licenses. Creators of these photos have placed them them online with only some rights reserved, meaning that they have given advance permission to allow certain uses of the photos without copyright concerns. This makes these photos more desirable for school projects. Please ask me for information on Creative Commons resources if you are interested.

August 2008

New Online Resources

We have several fantastic new online resources this year! Bookflix is a library of fiction video paired with nonfiction ebooks in a variety of thematic areas, most of which correspond closely to our PYP units of inquiry and/or the organizing themes. We also have Brain Pop for younger students in English AND Spanish -- be sure to take a look! Finally, for the older students, we have a number of new reference materials including a Dorling Kindersley library of reference books by subject and a new Universalis in French. Check with Sharon in the library for more information!

Flexible Checkout

This year all students in Grades 2 - 5 will have the opportunity to come to the library on a flexible basis for book checkout. For second graders, this will be in addition to their regularly scheduled library visit. We hope you will create ways to use this time to support your classroom reading initiatives and that you will encourage all of your students to take advantage of this opportunity. This year, I will be sending you reports on which students are lagging behind in book checkout so that we can work together to keep students reading and practicing their library skills. More information on that coming soon!

Language Book Talk Weeks

Language book talk weeks are back this year. This month look for a schedule of the French, Spanish, English and German book talk weeks ahead. In connection with the language book talks, take a look at the Audio Book Reviews link on the E-Bulletin Board. I am building this section to provide audio information about books in all languages and many of the books from the language book talks will be featured in the audio book reviews.

Book Clubs

Stephen Krashen says that free voluntary reading is a key factor to increased student achievement. Last year, we introduced Accelerated Reader to make reading more fun for the students. This year, I would like to offer several book clubs as a way to involve more students in reading activities. Students engage with books in different ways. Those with strong orientation to the written word and traditional testing will enjoy Accelerated Reader. Students with strong listening skills may like to try a new Listening Book Club which will explore audiobooks and podcasting. For students who enjoy more interpersonal activities, I would like to offer a traditional book club to meet and discuss books one afternoon a week in the library as well as online. What do you think -- would anyone like to help with one of these clubs?