Things You Don't Learn in Graduate School

Mr. Bradford sacrificed his dignity for a day to support our Library Media program. For that Mr. Bradford, we are eternally grateful. We exceeded all sales in WMS Book Fair history, thanks to your effort! Thank YOU!

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.

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!

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.

Hungry for Hunger Games?

     We didn't have quite enough interest in getting our own theatre for a Saturday movie outing to see the much-anticipated Hunger Games in April.

     We are not giving up! As soon as movie times are posted for April 14th, I will select a morning show time. You'll see the information about the show time posted on our school website, here and on the parent newsletter.

     Your parents will bring you and monitor you during the movie. We hope to see lots of our Wendell community members getting in on the fun!

     Stay tuned for details.

Manga Mania! Cooperative Stories

Our students had the opportunity to write a story during Manga Mania.  Students in a group rolled dice to determine six elements of their story:

• Characters: People, Animals, Creatures
• Setting: Where the story takes place
• Sequence: Plot, order of events
• Conflict/Climax: Most exciting part
• Resolution: Occurs after conflict
• Exposition: Details

One group of students (Tim, Will, Aiden, and Triniti) wrote the following story:

Three heroes are alerted by their mentors that danger is coming to their homes: Link in Hyrule, Naruto in the Hidden Leave Village of Konoha, and Goku on Mount Paozu.  The three meet and decide that they need one more hero and they ask Chuck Norris of Texas to join them.  Chuck Norris agreed right after he finished giving Superman flying lessons.

The four heroes know that the evil boss is hiding in an underground, underwater secret lair.  Goku teleports in and spice out the boss' headquarters. He comes back with a report about how many guards there are and that the other heroes can all get in through a long guarded tunnel.  The four heroes plan an assault.

But first, they have to navigate the tunnel.  The four heroes decide to use the "pure stealth" tactic to sneak past all the guards.  Finally they arrive at a very heavy metal door leading to the secret lair.  At the front door, Chuck Norris taps the door with with his index finger and it explodes...epically!  Link climbs in to the rafters and hides, looking for more guards.  He finds where the boss is hiding with his special elite guards protecting his computerized control center.

Then, Link is surprised to hear voices talking.  There's not one,. but two evil bosses: Elusive Man from the Mass Effect Universe and Pain the leader of the Akatuski who are Narotu's enemies.  Link hears them talking about destroying the Earth in many different universes. 

This is more than enough for the heroes to act on.  They begin an all-out attack on the two evil bosses and their minions.  Naruto does his amazing Shadow Clone Attack and takes down lots of guards at once.  Link swings his magic sword, slicing through many enemies from a distance.  Goku does the Super Saiyan Kame Hame Ha attack and collapses the ceiling and two walls.  Chuck Norris round house kicks the entire room of guards and both bosses until no one is left standing.  Link uses the code he overheard the bosses talking about to disarm the multiverse nuclear warhead.  The four heroes win and save the day!

A Day in the Life of WMS Media Center

Here's a snapshot of a regular day:


7:10AM Doors Open

• Student NewsFlash! Crew comes in early to edit the news teleprompter, getting ready for air at 7:25am.
• Alternative Learning Center student checks out a laptop to stay on top of his school work.
• Students come in to check out new books and return old ones.
• Played student's CD for ambient music.
• Media lab has a few students checking their SAM accounts and researching for projects (with some re-direction away from Google images thanks to yours truly)
• Manga Mania student-directed club meets each morning to talk about movie and novel characters.
• Teacher sends student to pick up some books for classroom use.
• I edit the announcement clock PPT for in-house broadcast.
• NewsFlash! show begins while students check out before tardy bell.

7:30AM

• 8th Grade Science class uses media lab to work on a fossil webquest from University of California Berkeley.
• 8th Grade Language Arts group (16) discuss Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper.
• Teacher brings in laptop for troubleshooting and repair request.
• I write up another computer issue at the same time.
• Assisted a student browse our MP3 collection.

8:30AM

• check e-mail for directives and requests.
• Alternative Learning Center student checks out a laptop to stay on top of his school work.
• Students in media lab using Edmodo for classroom discussion.
• downloaded apps for classroom ipad set
• two 7th grade HOWL periods (approximately 64 students) visit for a briefing on new displays, book fair and circulating books.
• Assist a student who needs Flash downloaded on a borrowed laptop.
• Plan media lab times for 8th grade high school registration. (It's nearly full for March!)
• Help student give "the best book ever" a rating on our online catalog.

9:30AM

• Begin prepping stations for after-school Manga Mania activity.
• More students come to circulate books.
• Students in media lab for Cool Math free time
• (unsuccessfully) troubleshoot ipad problems.
• Run out, between classes, to Food Lion for Manga Mania activity refreshments (paid for with my own money). 
• Next 8th Science class works in media lab.

10:30AM

• Research articles for upcoming 7th grade writing test research activity.
• two more 7th grade HOWL periods (approximately 64 students) visit for a briefing on new displays, book fair and circulating books.
• Library Leaders visit during their lunchtime to help shelve and straighten the media center.

11:30AM

• new 8th Grade science class in media lab
• re-direct student on Google images to appropriate resources
• assist new staff member in finding materials for classroom
• finally leave for the Food Lion Trip planned at 9:30am.

12:30PM

• 8th Grade Language Arts group (18) discuss Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper.
• Students visit media lab for project research
• Set up Tears of a Tiger Read-Alike book display
• Move furniture to create Manga Mania stations
• Set up technology and supplies at each station
• Set up snack table for event.
• Create sign-in sheet and gather door prizes.

1:30PM

• Still setting up stations while assisting students with needs.
• Help teacher take care of a broken desktop in their classroom.
• Write repair request for broken computer.
• Library leaders come to help shelve books, re-arrange messy 700 section, sharpened pencils, moved chairs and assist students looking for books.

4:00PM

Where did the time go? 

We are in the middle of our Manga Activity!

• Station 1: Bento Box webquest in Media Lab (self-directed)
• Station 2: Katakana Japanese character writing with Ms. Shaw
• Station 3: Drawing Manga features with Mr. Gallagher
• Station 4: Roll the Dice story building activity with me
• Station 5: Cosplay role-play theatre with Ms. Turner

Here are some photos from the cosplay station. They had too much fun!

4:45PM

Whew! As you can see, in just one day, Media Specialists/Teacher Librarians have direct impact on student instruction, staff support, technology support and reading promotion. 


We truly are the learning commons in the school.