Progress

Creative Commons image
no attribution required

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.

Wikimedia Commons
Creative Commons image
Copyright Chromium Project

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
www.brainyquote.com

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.