And... we're off!!

Our first day of orientation started today. By this time next week, I will see all 970 of our students! It is quite a challenging year so far. The media center has solo staffing this year, so we need as many parent volunteers as we can muster. My primary role is providing collaborative teaching and learning projects to support the new Common Core curriculum in the classroom.
What does that require? Full-time clerical work. Hours of technology troubleshooting. Staff trained in technology and literacy support. Are you ready for a challenge? Please contact ldextre@wcpss.net if you can give your time to volunteer.

On a happy note, our orientation, which started with sixth grade classes today, went quite smoothly. We had some great comments from students on their exit tickets:

"What I liked about the media center is all the interesting books and how much room there is."

"Two things I liked about the media center were that you can still check out books if you loan something or donate something [take-it-or-leave-it]. Also, you can check out almost every book."

"I think the media center was really fun, and it was a comfy place to be in."

"I liked the library here. It had a lot of good books and I like the bookmarks they had."

"Checking out the books was slow. We need two librarians."

"I love the way they really give you a choice in the media center with all those books all organized all neat. Good job, library staff!"

"I like that you're allowed to sit anywhere you want in the media center. I also like that you are able to keep your book for three weeks."

"I love the way everything was set up and the anime books. They need a lot more anime books."

"I really liked it. It's so different from elementary school. It's bigger and better. I loved it!"

 Trying to maintain our previous level of service with 60 hours less of help each week will prove to be my biggest challenge in my career. How will I handle it? With grace and focus, remembering that student literacy comes before plugging in cables. Involving parents in their child's education by listening to advice and allowing them to lend a hand for displays, project setup and resource support. Collaborating with classroom teachers to create a meaningful, fun project will trump paperwork piles, technology fix-its and laminating. 

 I will hope that we will again see a state IMPACT model standard, along with a national school learning environment to support the needs of our Common Core teachers and learners. Teacher librarians can't do it alone, but we sure work with remarkable efficiency and a welcoming smile anyway.

Are you wired to be a gamer?
Join the LEVEL UP Book Club for some summer fun!

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.