Thanks to Bookmarks of Winston-Salem, students at Northwest and MIdway Elementary Schools were treated to a school visit by debut author, Zeno Alexander. More than 200 4th and 5th graders got to meet the author up close and personal to hear about the writing process as well as hear some excerpts of his new book, The Library of Ever, that was just released on April 30th. SLMCs Candy Pierce and Joanie Williams hosted the author in their schools on May 1st. "With her parents off traveling the globe, 11 year old Lenora is bored, bored, bored—until she discovers a secret doorway into the ultimate library. Maze-like and reality-bending, the library contains all the universe’s wisdom. Every book ever written, and every fact ever known, can be found within its walls. And Lenora becomes its newly appointed Fourth Assistant Apprentice Librarian.
She rockets to the stars, travels to a future filled with robots, and faces down a dark nothingness that wants to destroy all knowledge. To save the library, Lenora will have to test her limits and uncover secrets hidden among its shelves." - (Goodreads) Students had an opportunity to purchase the books from Bookmarks and have them signed by the author on site. Copies are currently available at Bookmarks in Winston-Salem. Alexander's sequel, Rebel in the Library of Ever, comes out April 2020.
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Thanks to Lorie Steed for sharing this neat lesson she did with her HS media assistants. The lesson could easily be adapted for any grade level. My students just finished a long-term project on book reviews and they did such an excellent job that I think these could be posted to Goodreads (not requiring them to do this although one student was so proud of his he said he might). First they had to do the "Book Review Research" assignment which was to read 5 reviews of a book they were familiar with so they could get a sense of how reviews are written. They used Goodreads and Amazon reviews for this. Then they had to read a book of their choice from the library and take at least 20 notes on their reactions - in whatever format they wanted - sticky notes, Google Doc, etc. This was so they could track their reactions and have raw material for the review. Then they wrote the review. Today I'm having them print their final reviews & am going to display them alongside the books they reviewed. I'd also love to share with you the reviews they wrote because I was so impressed with them. It took a lot of hard work on their parts & some individual conferencing on a rough draft for them to get this far, but they got there! (I'm attaching a sample of one that just amazed me & that I got permission to share - but honestly they were all very good and I would say of publishable quality.) Here is a sample: "Carrie by Stephen King: I will now and forever be obsessed with his work 5-5 stars When Carrie, a high school girl with telekinetic powers, is pushed over the edge by her peers, she'll be sure they regret their actions and get what's coming to them. The book Carrie is listed under the fictional horror genre but in my opinion, the book itself is not all that scary. While reading I felt sad more than anything because of the way the main character’s mother treats and raises Carrie." For the full review, click here. Thanks to a partnership with Bookmarks of Winston-Salem, Davidson County Schools was able to bring in NC author Megan Shepherd to area high schools April 4th and 5th. Mrs. Shepherd is a full time author from Brevard that has published 8 books with her 9th book being released in 2020. The media coordinators from Ledford, Oak Grove, North, South, Central and East hosted Shepherd in their media centers, where the author held a writer's workshop to English classes and book clubs on April 4th and 5th. Students learned about the history of young adult literature as a genre, tips for successful writing and they also participated in some writing activities using prompts. This was a great opportunity for students in our district to meet a real author in person! Students also had an opportunity to purchase her titles at a discount courtesy of Bookmarks. What better way to teach young people the power of maps and the limitless depth of geography than a half court-sized map of a continent or a classroom-sized state map on which they can explore, travel around, compete, collaborate and have lots of fun? DCS is so lucky to have our own map that is available for check-out one week at a time. The map is mostly free the remainder of this school year, so if you would like to reserve just email Sedley to check for availability. Although the lesson ideas are for K-5, a number of our middle schools hosted the map this year as well. We are also looking to include high schools in the rotation next year if requested. Sue and Libby are pros at using the giant map, so they are excellent resources for lesson ideas at all grade levels! Recently, Tina Heitman hosted the Giant Map at Davis-Townsend. She and digital learning coach, Libby Ferrell, collaborated on lessons for grades K-5. Tina kindly shared her lessons for this blog post. Supplementary materials are available in this Google Drive folder: K-1 (20 minutes) Letterland
M=Mountains, C=Charlotte, P=Piedmont, A=Asheboro, O=Ocean, S=Salisbury, L=Lexington, B=Boone, G= Greensboro, K=Kitty Hawk, W=Winston-Salem, R=Raleigh 2nd (20 minutes) Compass Rose, Map Symbols 2.G.1.1, 2.G.1.2 Introduce students to the cardinal directions on the compass rose, map legend with symbols, and ask them to notice the size of the text. Why are some cities spelled with smaller/larger text? This is based on the population of the city! Each partner group will complete one of the below challenges:
3rd (20 minutes) Relative/Absolute Locations: Introduce the map by having students to walk its perimeter.
4th Grade (1 hour) NC Role in Major Conflicts and Wars (Revolutionary & Civil Wars)
5th Grade (30 minutes) GooseChase GooseChase game link- https://gsch.se/game/703adc3470b74139b02bf5d17630ddd1/share/
For more questions about these lessons, please email Tina Heitman at tinaheitman@dav... Readers are leaders in Davidson County! Thursday, March 21st, all 18 elementary schools met at Denton Elementary to compete in the annual Battle of the Books Competition. Students read books from the official list of titles and answered questions with matching titles and authors. Each team competed 6 times each for a total of 54 rounds.
This year's competition focused on community service. Teams collected pet food and made hundreds of dog toys out of old t-shirts to distribute to local civic organizations in the "makerspace" sponsored by the Davidson County Public Library Bookmobile. Ron Bellini from Davidson County Senior Services also shared that helps to feed the pets of our senior Meals on Wheels participants. This program is by donation only, and Mr. Bellini thanked students for their contributions. Students were excited to receive a personalized video message from BOB author, Barbara O'Connor. When O'Connor announced that DCS had purchased each BOB student an autographed copy of her book WISH, the students went WILD! First place went to first year SLMC Julie Faria and her team from Friendship Elementary! Tied for 2nd place was Davis-Townsend (Tina Heitman) and Fair Grove (Rebecca Condon). Reeds Elementary (Tracy Varner) came in third. An estimated 45o people were in attendance. Many students and parents remarked about how much fun the day was. A special thanks goes out to Dr. Kelsey Greer and staff from Denton Elementary for hosting our event and to the Denton PTO for providing concessions for sale for our more than 200 parents and family members. This event also could not have been possible without the support of many DCS staff members and community volunteers. The list for next year's eBOB competition can be found here: 2019-2020 eBOB list School Library Month is the American Association of School Librarians' celebration of school librarians and their programs. Every April school librarians are encouraged to host activities to help their school and local community celebrate the essential role that strong school library programs play in transforming learning. More about the history of School Library Month. The 2019 theme is Everyone Belongs @ Your School Library and the 2019 spokesperson is Dav Pilkey. For banner art, printable posters and a calendar of events, click here to access the toolkit via AASL: http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/slm The PSA can be shared across social media and other electronic means via YouTube.
Members of the media and public are welcome to embed the School Library Month Video with Dav Pilkey within web based platforms (i.e., websites, social media, blogs) provided that no alterations are made and that the posting is for educational, noncommercial purposes only. Readers are Leaders in Davidson County Schools! The district middle school Battle of the Books competition was held Thursday, March 14th at the auditorium at the Historic Cecil School Building in downtown Lexington. All 7 middle schools were represented. Students read books from a list of 27 titles and competed with each team in 12 question rounds. SLMC Stacy Morgan led her team from Oak Grove to first place. Ledford Middle (Angie Laycock) came in second with North Middle (Kristi Allred) a close third. Students, coaches and volunteers enjoyed a pizza party courtesy of the Davidson County Public Library immediately following the competition. Oak Grove will move on to the regional competition in Summerfield on Friday, April 5th. For the 3rd year in a row, SLMC Lorie Steed has facilitated a staff book club at Central Davidson High School that focused on fellowship and fun. This organic group of readers works together to choose the titles and meet about monthly at a local eatery after school to discuss the books. The idea came from Principal Valerie Feezor who had benefited from a similar book club years ago. Feezor, herself, even participates from time to time! One condition? NO professional books. The point of this club is to create a diversion from the daily grind, to just create opportunities to read some great books and spark some great discussions on interesting topics. The suggested titles are crowdsourced using the website Tricider. Books are selected by having members suggest titles by posting summaries and vote on their favorites. Lorie does facilitate the group by sending email reminders, setting dates and bringing discussion questions to the group. But all in all, the group is low pressure and fun.
This month's selection is Where the Crawdads Sing and the restaurant is Cafe35. January 28-February 1 the North Carolina Giant Map landed at Fair Grove Elementary. Students in all grades had a lesson about the giant map in the media center. Students in Kindergarten - First grade used the Letterland Letters to identify and locate specific places in North Carolina. They also examined the Compass Rose and learned a way to remember the directions NSEW: "Never East Soggy Waffles." Second and third grades found specific locations and scanned QR codes with clues for a Digital Breakout. Fourth and fifth grade students used the app "Goose Chase" to complete a scavenger hunt which contained many locations and facts about North Carolina. Sue Tobin, DCS digital learning coach co-taught with Mrs. Condon and created the Goose Chase activity. Our school revealed our One School One Book title, Old Yeller, on Wednesday, January 30 during our Reading is “Dog-gone” Fun Family Night. We kicked off in the gym with staff entertainment. Each family received a copy of Old Yeller as well as completed a stamp card by visiting the following 10 dog-themed stations:
Second grade students visited the library to research dog breeds using the eWISE Research Model. The library hosted a Recycling is “Dog”-gone Fun Contest in which students created a dog using recycled or craft items. Along with the dog created, each student researched their favorite dog and completed an index card with the information listed below: · Name, Teacher, Grade · Students in K- 1: (1) fact about the animal · Students in 2-3: (2) facts about the animal · Students in 4-5: (3) facts about the animal Students were encouraged to use the online encyclopedia, Britannica School or nonfiction books from the library. In celebration of World Read Aloud Day (February 1), we videoed our Battle of the Books team reading Chapter one of Old Yeller and emailed the video to all classroom teachers. At 2:00, all classrooms watched the read aloud. It has been a busy week! Seeing the smiles on our students' faces has made it all WORTHWHILE!! An exciting READING CULTURE is being built at Southmont!! |
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