This post comes just in time for Halloween! Mary Howell continues to do a great job collaborating with the Denton Public Library by bringing cross-programming to South Davidson. This collaboration really benefits those students that don't have transportation to the public library and helps them to build relationships with the public librarians there. Even though some events had to be cancelled due to weather, it still proved to be engaging for students. Thanks, Mary. During the month of October students at South Davidson Middle and High have been having some Halloween related fun! During the week of October 9th - 12th the Denton Public Library visited South Davidson for special programming. On October 9th, students from two 7th grade science classes and one high school class came to learn about zombie preparedness and put together their own zombie preparedness kits. On October 10th, they partnered with the high school theater teacher and the high school art class came to learn about make-up and created their own zombie looks and wounds. Unfortunately, zombie week was cut short due to the hurricane; however, students were still able to complete and turn in zombie posters which have been on display throughout the remainder of the month of October. The zombie poster contest participants received a goodie bag on Halloween!
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Thanks to SLMC Daniel Everhart for sharing this personal reflection about his own school library experience. To begin this blog I must take the time to reminisce about my library experiences as a child. There are two vivid memories I have about the public and private libraries I attended as a little boy. The first memory is the children’s librarian at the Davidson County Public Library. My mother brought us to the library about once a month and it was certainly a highlight of our various activities. I wasn’t one of those readers who always picked up a thick novel that had that new page smell. Many times I would prefer a piece of non-fiction that focused on my current obsession. I went through many obsessions over the years from dinosaurs to old horror movie characters. Regardless of what I was excited about at the time our local public librarian knew what it was. She knew my name, what I was currently interested in, and always smiled when I walked through the door. At the time I thought this was because I was just such an awesome kid. In hindsight I know better. She knew how to make me salivate over books and was ringing the bell just like Pavlov. When I came in she asked me how I enjoyed the last book I checked out and asked what I wanted to find that day. She was as specific as she could be given the number of children that walked through her door but it was obvious to me that my interests were of importance to her. She led me to the exact spot I needed to go each visit and shared the new books that were available. I felt special when I was there and it was because she took the time to make me feel special. The second memory was at my local school library, which happened to be Southwood. The librarian would hang large posters up in the library with artwork from high quality books. She had collaborated on this with the art teacher. The librarian would always take time to share about the books and get us excited while still longing for more. After this introduction to the book, it was every student for themselves in regards to checking them out. I remember waiting months to finally lay my hands on a copy of Superfudge. I had read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing about a million times and I anticipated the continuance of the characters’ stories. Every time I came to check for the book and found it gone, there was always that beautiful poster reminding me how bad I wanted the book. The strategies used by these master librarians aren’t extremely complicated. They suffered from the same lack of time we do today, work with the same large number of students, and would have liked to have a larger budget. These things didn’t deter me from falling in love with books. Sometimes it just takes remembering what kind of books a student checks out, giving a smile, treating books like they are gold to be searched for, and building a relationship with your clientele. Their slick library skills were smooth enough to slide me right into this position a few years back. I have tried to keep these experiences in focus each time I make decisions about the library. Yes, it does matter that students take care of books, it is important that we get books back into the library, and it is important that we try to build collections that are connected to library expectations. Thirty years from now there will also be some things that don’t matter. Overdue books will be forgotten and that book that was left in the rain and wasn’t paid for will never be thought of again. I do not say these things because we should simply forget about teaching students to be responsible and caring of the books they are borrowing but instead I say them because they don’t align with my main goal as a librarian. That goal is for a kid to look back 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now still loving books, still drooling over an upcoming release, and still actively using their surrounding libraries. What I don’t want them to feel is that using these local institutions is a hassle, to feel uncomfortable in their surroundings, or to lose a love for books. Maybe I am just an idealist but I think that goes hand in hand with being an educator. We have to be pragmatic idealists in order to build lifelong lovers of books. My Mother Leesa in the center, my brother Adam on the right, my sister Hannah in the middle, and me on the left with the funky face. Bless my mother for sharing a love of reading.
If you ever need ideas for promoting your book fair, look no further than Shanna Leonard at Southmont Elementary. Shanna also welcomes her new ETMS, Keely McConkey! Southmont has transformed into a magical forest as we host the Scholastic Enchanted Forest Book Fair this week. We started our Book Fair fun with a teacher preview party on Friday, October 5th. We had the following enchanted snacks. Unicorn cake (cake) Enchanted drinks (water/soft drinks) Twigs (pretzels) Branch dip (Ranch dip) Unicorn food (Fruit Loops) We decorated the entrance of the media center with a magical tree, mushrooms, and unicorn pumpkin. The students brought in their spuds for the Spud Love Book Fair contest. They are extremely creative! The spuds will be judged on Wednesday of this week. Thanks to Tracy Varner for sharing her successes with the Giant Map of North Carolina in this blog post! If you have additional ideas for map lessons, please be sure to share below or submit your own blog post. A GIANT map has taken over the media center at Reeds Elementary!! If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience the National Geographic GIANT North Carolina map, you don’t know what you’re missing!! The students absolutely love it, and it gives them an awesome opportunity for hands-on learning. It’s been great having the map for an entire week this year, since Davidson County purchased our very own map to travel from school to school in our district. I’ve been able to individualize instruction for each grade level, and really focus on including Common Core Standards for those grade levels. In fourth grade, it was easy to choose a great topic, since many of their standards include topics about North Carolina. We are in the midst of starting our eWise research on North Carolina Native Americans, so I decided to take advantage of the giant map, and have them locate where each tribe settled. We had already had our “Wonder” session, and this was one of the things they wondered--where the tribes had lived (or still live) in North Carolina. The Giant Map lesson enabled them to “Investigate”. Our fourth grade classes are very large, so I divided them into three groups. Using stations for each group, I had some who were doing research on laptops, recording information they discovered about where these tribes settled in North Carolina. Another group used laptops and headphones to view a 10 minute video about Native American tribes of North Carolina, which was provided by the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh. They took notes as they watched. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCexDy_9FfE) The third group actively located these tribes on the Giant Map.
We will continue investigating next week, however, the National Geographic Giant North Carolina map was a great way to interactively investigate. I just wish we had had more time! It flew by, and we could have probably used another whole day to do everything! Thanks to the Authors in Schools program from Bookmarks in Winston-Salem, Scott Reintgen was able to visit two schools in Davidson County this week. SLMCs Kelli Pendergrass from Central Middle and Lorie Steed from Central High hosted the Durham author. |
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