Scholastic Book Fair Volunteers

Our Scholastic book fair will be December 14th-18th in the Memorial Learning Commons. I'm really looking forward to a successful book fair in order to get a lot of fiction and nonfiction books for our collection.

I need your help! If you're willing to volunteer, please fill out the form below.

Let me know if you have any questions, comment, and/or concerns.

Thanks so much in advance.

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Mrs. Olshaw's Visit to Oak Alley Plantation, Louisiana

Mrs. Olshaw and other Burlington Public School educators are in Louisiana this week for the NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies) Annual Conference. Yesterday her homeroom students and I connected with her via a Google Hangout on Air from the Memorial Learning Commons. 

Mrs. Olshaw showed us Oak Alley Plantation as she walked around the big house, through beautiful trees, and into slave homes.  She and her students compared Oak Alley Plantation to Plimoth Plantation (where her students visited as third graders).  

As you can hear from the YouTube video, her students were thrilled to "visit" Louisiana to learn about some of our rich American history.

Mrs. Olshaw in Louisiana connecting with her students in Burlington. 

An Oak Alley Plantation Slave Home

The YouTube video of our Google Hangout on Air (about 11 minutes)

Mrs. Olshaw and I would like to thank Katie Bercury, Burlington Public School's Social Studies Coach, for orchestrating the trip to NCSS as well as for helping plan this virtual field trip.

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Trusting the Process

Mrs. Dressler started a staff book discussion on the book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. Staff members and I are trying to foster a growth mindset in ourselves, as well as our students, opposed to having a fixed mindset.

This week I read The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthral aloud to students. (We’re in the midst of an Amy Krouse Rosenthal author study during the Global Read Aloud.) I shared that I’m an “ok” skier, reader, and deep breather and I strive to set goals, reflect, and trust the process to become a better skier, reader, and deep breather.

After reading the book, students brainstormed social, emotional, academic, and athletic tasks they’re “ok” at and shared with a few of their classmates. Third, fourth, and fifth grade students wrote a reflection about what they're "ok" at on their iPads using Google Classroom and Notability or Google Docs.

I look forward to continuing the conversation with students about trusting and praising the process.

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Global Read Aloud, Week 1

Kindergartners, first, second, and third graders all participated in the first week of the Global Read Aloud. Along with children across the world, we read Chopsticks written by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Scott Magoon.

We used our schema (background knowledge) to make inferences. And we laughed. A lot. After the song "Chopsticks" was referenced in the book, we listened and watched the following YouTube video. 

We also discussed our favorite parts of the book with other students around the world via Twitter.

We asked the author, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, how many books she’s written and she responded to our question:

Next week we will read and discuss Duck! Rabbit! and continue to collaborate with other students across the world.

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Self Checkout Station

Today was a good day. Because I want the majority of my time to be spent with students and teachers, and because I want to empower students and give them access to the library throughout the entire school day, I needed a self checkout station. Yesterday Follett tweeted me these Setting Up a Self-Checkout Station directions for Destiny Library Manager...the Destiny setup process only took five minutes.

Bob, Dennis, and John (part of the magical Burlington Public Schools Educational Technology Team) came to Memorial Elementary School today to set up the station. (Luckily the library had an extra desktop computer and the EdTech Team had an extra bar code scanner.) I'm incredibly grateful.

These 4th graders had a BLAST checking out their own books this afternoon.

Self Checkout Directions:

1. Scan or type in your LASID number
2. Scan the library book barcode (not the ISBN barcode)
3. Click “Reset”

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Welcome!

I’m thrilled to be the new Memorial Elementary School Library Media Specialist. The Memorial Library is the most gorgeous elementary school library in which I’ve ever been. Over the last few years I’ve attended several state and national conferences that have helped me create a lot of ideas to make our library more friendly and accessible to students. In order to make this possible, I need help.

I want students to use the library for more than a traditional library time. I’d love for most of my time to be spent assisting students to become critical thinkers, successful researchers, and passionate life-long learners while connecting them to others around the world to collaborate and push their thinking deeper. I want to orchestrate student reading groups during student lunch time (optional of course). I hope students come to the library anytime during the school day to research topics they’re passionate about and curate information in various new and fun ways.

Of course cultivating passionate readers is essential as well: the more students read, the better readers they become, the more they love to read...it’s a fabulous cycle. In order to make all of this great learning possible, I need volunteers to help check out books to students and shelve returned books.

Please let me know if you’re interested in volunteering in our library this year. I’d REALLY appreciate your help.

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