Progress

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So we have successfully made it through our first full week of school...and it feels great to be back. Every student made it to the library this week for book check-outs and a review of computer use at the junior high. Almost every student has authorization for computer use for this school year and we hope to have all students set up by the end of next week.

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We are very excited to be receiving 300 Google Chromebooks for our building this year. The Chromebooks will be located in most of the classrooms for easy access. We hope to have these beauties in use in the very near future. Many teachers are already incorporating Google Education in their classrooms. The new Chromebooks will be a great addition.


Next week we will tackle student Google and Infinite Campus accounts. Every student will come to the library for this review and another opportunity to check out books. Our students are receiving a lot of information at the beginning of the year to help them start the school year with some tools to help them toward success. We are off to a great start and super excited about all of the adventures still to come this school year.

See you in the stacks!

"Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource." John F. Kennedy
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Spring has Sprung

Winter finally arrived...at the end of February. Two snow days at the end of February and two more in March...What is the world coming to? Life goes on and here are some of the goings on in the library from January, February and March.

January

We have a new Chromebook cart! The excitement level upon the arrival of this beauty was pretty much off the chart. We have been sending it out for trial runs here and there with the hope of full integration by 4th quarter. These are amazing little techno workhorses. Our ELA lessons were over the importance of intellectual property and the evils of plagiarism.

February 

We had a super fun collaboration with eight grade social studies this month. Student groups created a country and then used GoogleSites to create a website for their country, including all of the traditional information like official flag, anthem, etc. Ms. Duggan had extra fun as the official musician for each team as they recorded their anthem for their websites. Who knew a library office could double as a sound studio? On the ELA side of things we focused on using online databases when conducting research and how to create a work cited page. Not quite as exciting but still very important and useful.

Love was in the air. Or rather, a love of reading with our Valentine Book Display, "Blind Date with a Book." Students had to read and agree to the Blind Date rules before they could check-out, sight unseen, a blind date book. We could not keep them on the shelf. This was a really fun activity for everybody involved.

March 

Our students who read and reviewed at least four Truman nominees came to the library for a pizza party and to vote for their favorite. We will find out the winning Truman in mid-April.

Our lesson for March was over the Missouri Readers Award program. Seventh graders watched video trailers of next year's nominees while the eighth graders watched videos for the Gateway (9-12 grade) nominees. 

We also had fun showing our green side with our book display for St. Patrick's Day. Books about everything Ireland were on display along with a few new additions to the library; a fun new display cart and some live greenery. Mrs. Fears is in charge of keeping the plant alive as Mrs. Tilley has a brown thumb.

March finished up with our big Barnes & Noble all district bookfair. Artwork from all buildings was on display with many compliments from the bookstore patrons. Did you know that Barnes & Noble sells vinyl records? Mrs. Tilley's wallet found that out the hard way!

With only April and May to go, we are definitely on the downhill slide of this school year. It has been fun, fast and furious. We'll check in one more time at the end of the year before signing off for summer. Until then, you can find us in the stacks!

Hello and Good Bye 2014

So this school year has been a whirlwind which is why this "Back to School" post is also a semester wrap-up review. Let the good times roll!

August was filled with the usual getting to know you activities, like going over and turning in computer usage agreements, infinite campus instruction for all, and some much needed updates to our technology/building wireless network.

In September we focused on ALAs annual Banned Books Week with displays and interactive lessons where students became detectives searching for evidence (or books they have or might want to read) in our Banned Books crime scene.

GoogleDocs was our focus area in October. Everybody learned how to access their hillsborohawks.net Google accounts and some of the cool features of GoogleDrive. Library Reading Review logs were created and shared so that students may submit Truman nominee reviews in a paperless fashion.



Our Scholastic Book Fair was in November and it was a big hit. In fact, it was such a success we are thinking of having another one this spring. Keep your eyes and ears open for more information.

In December the library became our very own Winter Wonderland. It was a lot of fun bringing out all the lights, greenery and decorations.

The final Truman Reader Award nominees for next year were announced this month, too. We are busy getting library and classroom copies of each of these amazing teen/YA novels for your reading pleasure. The twelve nominees were chosen by 6-8 grade student readers, teachers and librarians over the course of the past year.

We will be voting on our favorite Truman nominee for this year early in March, so keep reading and reviewing. 

Hopefully this upcoming semester is as fast paced and fun as the first. We have had a great time and are ready for more.

Sweet, sweet summer

Summer officially arrived a few days ago, but we have been enjoying summer break for about four weeks. It has been great so far.

We have something fun for summer going on that will keep your mind, body and soul active while on this much deserved break. It is called the HJH 3Rs of Summer. This fun, volunteer program consists of running or walking the equivalent of a half marathon (13.1 miles), reading 1300 pages, and doing 13 good deeds from now until homecoming week. We will finish off the run/walk portion by walking as a group in the homecoming parade.

It's not too late to sign up. If you are interested email Mrs. Tilley at tilley_cheryl@hsdr3.org. You will get a Google doc shared with you to keep track of your successes. We have a few students and teachers already walking the walk and talking the talk, so join in. The more the merrier.

And in case you were starting to miss school already, don't fret. Only 50 days until the first day of school!

Home Stretch

What a year. We are in the home stretch and things are looking great. It's getting warmer; the trees are all green again; MAP is in the books. So as we approach the end of another great school year, let's take a look back at life in the stacks here at HJH.

We had a great turn out for our first Scholastic Book Fair. Several students received a "golden ticket" good for one free book thanks to a great idea from Mr. Allison and a generous donation from Mothers Club.

Amazing author Richard Paul Evans visited the Intermediate and the awesome intermediate librarian, Mrs. Clark, invited us to the Hillsboro Veyniacs assembly and book signing.

Ms. Duggan and Mr. Cruzado took their 8th grade social studies students on a trip to Colonial America through the power of the World Wide Web. Their 21st century "choose your own adventure" lesson culminated with students as Loyalists and Patriots along with a better understanding of that time in history.

Snow; we had a lot of snow. 

www.pixorial.com

Web 2.0 tools made their way through the classes to 8th grade science when Mrs. Burgio and Mr. Sebourn's students used Pixorial for making videos that really rocked. They were studying rocks. Get it. Okay, I'll stop now.



Mrs. Morrison from the guidance department collaborated with the library on a lesson about our digital footprint. It was very eye opening. Be careful what you post; it may come back to haunt you.

Did I mention that there was a lot of snow? 

There was.

Law and order was in the library when Judge Missey visited with our 8th grade social studies students. A good time was had by all and no one went to jail; success story.

We joined with the rest of the district libraries in a district-wide book fair at Barnes & Noble. Junior High art and singing was on display for the event and everyone looked and sounded great!

Another Truman Reader Award year came and went with the novel Legend by Marie Lu winning for 2014. We celebrated by giving away lots of goodies to our dedicated Truman winners.







And while it's almost time to officially put this year in the books, our library is looking way too good for the school year to end thanks to Mrs. Isermann's art students and their paintings that are on display in the library. Come down and take a look when you get a chance; they are pretty impressive.

May 30th will be here before you know it. Before we officially bring this year to a close I will share a fun summer challenge for faculty and students to think about. Until then, I'll see you in the stacks!

The Long and Winding Road

We've almost made it. Our journey is nearing the end. But we still have a long way to go. So let's get started with what is new and exciting in the library.

On the exciting end of the spectrum, we just gave away all kinds of cool prizes to our Truman Nominee readers. Students got a raffle ticket for each Truman nominee that they read and reviewed. We had several author signed books, a big pile of YA fiction, and a tablet. Everyone that "played" won. I think we had some happy customers! Now it's time to get the new Trumans out on display. Yay!!

As for something new, we are trying an online library sign-in. Statistics aren't necessarily associated with the library but come in handy when sharing with others what actually is happening in this wonderful space. Our Google Form sign-in sheet will help us do just that; keep track of the who, how, and how often we are helping here in the library. It only takes a few seconds and so far our students are taking to this added feature like ducks to water. Our students are the best!

Speaking of having the best students, we are on the verge of MAP testing and I know they are going to do great. So this next little bit is for those awesome JH students. Just to make sure you are ready to exercise your brain, make sure you: Get enough sleep, eat breakfast, and wake up your mind with some morning activity. You have worked hard all year. Now is your opportunity to show what you have learned. We are Missourians, so go SHOW-ME what you know and I will see you in the stacks.

Hippity Hoppity

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. We had an amazing time with an awesome speaker thanks to Ms. Duggan and Mr. Cruzado. Judge Missey talked with the 8th grade social studies students about many things, including the difference between reality TV shows like Judge Judy, TV dramas like Law and Order, and how a real court room actually works.



He had great stories to tell and he looked pretty cool in his robe. Mr. Cruzado made sure to give Judge Missey something extra cool to wear under his robe, too.

Librarians learning to Tweet...
I know, right?!
#it'sabouttime

On a far less exciting note for everyone else, but way exciting for me, I just came back from the Missouri Association of Librarians spring conference and boy did I learn a lot. From creating makerspaces (we will have one some day soon I hope) to using Twitter to how to be the hub of learning for your school to listening to amazing award winning authors speak on how grateful they are to have an amazing young adult audience reading and sharing their books, this was three days well spent.

We also found out the Missouri Award Reader winners for this year and the Truman Reader Award winner is....Legend by Marie Lu. Thank you to all of our Truman readers who voted this year. We'll be drawing names for our Truman Reader incentives next week!

Now it's time to get ready for the Assessment For Learning Fair where our teachers will get to see and share the projects on learning they have been working on this year. Yes, even teachers have projects and presentations. I hope everyone has a great four day weekend and we will see you back in the stacks soon!