Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Happy Thoughts

   Today was going to be a scheduled paperwork day. I dropped the paperwork when I talked with a student who admitted their struggle to pass this year. I cleared time with his teacher, then we spent hours today sorting through a mess of unfinished projects, worksheets and class assignments.
    After sorting all of his class work into different folders and creating To-Do checklists on each folder, we picked the largest obstacle, an overdue science project, and started there.
     The student made a connection with something of interest then took off! I'm just as thrilled to finish an overwhelming task, turn it in to the teacher's delight, and check it gleefully off the list. It's a start, but I think it was a precious moment for both of us.
     I hope these moments are considered when libraries and librarians are stacked on the budget cut list for next year. These experiences are just a fragment of the differences a professional librarian can make in a child's education.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Book Fair Luau 

We had a night of family fun in our media center this week. Mr. Corbitt directed Reader's Theatre for Hunger Games, Cabin Fever and The Day the Stones Walked. The kids had a blast performing and the audience enjoyed the interactive entertainment!
We loved hearing our WMS Band perform and enjoyed hearing from our PTA President too. We're already looking forward to next year's event!


Renee Todd and our award-winning band played Hawaii 5-0, of course.
The narrator introduces The Day the Stones Walked

Our Tropical Cafe had great ambiance.

Scene from The Hunger Games
Katniss interviews with Cesar Flickerman
The audience participated interactively
The Library Leaders made a great Book Fair Crew this year.

Peeta interviews with Cesar Flickerman




The cast takes a bow
charming and friendly student crew set the atmosphere


We had lots of sales tonight. We can have some new books next year!

Thursday, April 12, 2012

8th Grade Language Arts Non-Fiction fun


We are Common Core ready at WMS! All 8th grade Language Arts visited out media center this week to explore many formats of non-fiction. Using Bloom's Revised Taxonomy activities, each station provided opportunities to use primary and secondary resources, technology for reading, analyzing and evaluating non-fiction.
See the pictures below to get a peek of our station activities!
NatGeo app on ipad helped students examine skills use to process text, video and photos.


This sorting station used analyzing skills to sort books into persuade, inform and entertain.
Only one team got them all correct - it was tough!

Butter or margarine? Students read articles to compare authorship and quality of information, then compared them visually.


The Library of Congress is a great way to get a peek into the past with quality primary resources. Students listened, viewed, observed and responded to photos, music and manuscripts.


Investigate! Is it an historic document? A research work? Analysis or newspaper?
The team had to arrive at a consencus before they revealed the Top Secret answers!


This could be either informative or entertaining.


This is fun! Is it entertaining?


Students read an article on the Hindenburg explosion, listened to the primary news broadcast,
then created a  mind map of details on the ipads. Oh, the humanity!


What is margarine? Most students didn't know there was a difference from butter!

These students were excited about seeing the original draft of the Gettysburg Address!


Popplet is a great app for mind mapping the Hindenberg events

Book Fair Pictures


We will have our Parent Night Book Luau on Tuesday, April 17th.
Our drama department will have three one-act plays for reader's theatre:
The Hunger Games
Cabin Fever
The Day the Stones Walked

There will be "candlelight", refreshments and our award-winning band will perform!
Come out between 6:30PM and 8:00PM to join the fun.

Our main entrance

the student entrance

Aloha! Welcome to our book luau.

The tree creates an island atmosphere!



Wendell wolf welcomes our guests

We're promoting poetry too!

Larry, Moe and Curly

Our student crew had great fun making our signs and decorating.