Poetry Month

With poetry month just a few days away, the Pleasant Valley Library is busy with activity. Nearly every grade has read, performed, written and reflected on poetry. Our display of library books about poetry and rhyming books is nearly gone. Tongue twisters are a particular crowd favoriate!

CERF and Nettrekker

I have finally had a chance to explore CERF a bit and I have found it to be a very useful tool. I checked out their website to get some general info (http://www.cerfinfo.com/) which clearly explains what a great product it is. Just this week the kids at PV experimented with Nettrekker and they truly enjoyed it. I have had 3 teachers come up to me after their lesson and tell me how much the kids enjoyed it and how easy it was for students to use. Has anyone used CERF with their students? I would be curious to hear student reaction.

School Librarian Name Change

School Librarians are now back to their original name: School Librarians. Recent students and survey have found that the general public is confused by media specialist and teacher-librarian. The American Association of School Librarians approved changing the name to School Librarians officially in all future publications.

When I think about the other teachers within my building all of them have “teacher in their title”- Art Teacher, Phys Ed. Teacher, Music Teacher. Since we do so much teaching in a day I think that Library Teacher is the best way to describe what we do. Check out the article:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6715763.html

Caldecott and Newbery Winning books

With this weeks announcement of the Caldecott and Newbery Winning books I have been reading articles and reactions in regards to the winners. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/books/19newbery.html is a great article that talks about the books, argues that the judges for the Newbery this year do seem to be in tune with what students are actually reading and that this years winners are truly worthy of the award. This article is a great look into this years’ winners.

"Memorization wrong path to proficiency in spelling" article

A recent study argues that the real key to learning how to spell is the teach students how to understand the mechanics of language and words rather than straight memorization of spelling words. Some school apparently have even suspended spelling tests. Check out this article which details the whole debate and sheds lights on the subject:
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/6802371.html

Blogging for students

As a teacher I am always looking for innovative ways to get students more involved in their own education. Blogging about classroom activities, content learned and questions they have would be a great way to get kids involved in their own learning while growing as 21st century learners. Plus it would be a great way for parents to find out about what their students are learning and to get to know their child as a student even better.

There are lots of great blogs out there for kids. To start check out:
http://onlineschool.net/2009/10/27/100-best-book-blogs-for-kids-tweens-and-teens/ a great article with loads of great links for student blogs.

If America Were a Village

A companion to “If the World Were a Village”, “If America Were a Village” (http://www.kidscanpress.com/US/If-America-Were-a-Village-P3154.aspx) is a unique an eye-opening look at the population of the United States. Taking statistics about our country and applying them to a 100 person village it's amazing what the readers discovers. For example, did you know that 50 people in this US village would live in just 9 US states or that 3 people in this village are in education, training and the library profession? An interesting and informative read that would lend itself well to a number of follow-up classroom activities.