CMS Media Center Connections
Quarterly Update - February 2020
What’s new in the CMS Media Center this Winter?
As many students and teachers know, our Media Center is an ideal place to make presentations, share information, and host gallery walks. During December and January, a steady flow of students and classes have been visiting our Fiction area for book talks, or utilizing the Innovation Space, "Launch Pad," and computer lab to plan, craft, creating, and polish amazing projects!
In January, the Media Center was full of movie-makers! Ms. Domuracki's 8th grade seminar students worked with Mr. Ciancio and Ms. Bresler in learning how to plan, film, and edit movie projects for their non-fiction unit. Once completed, they shared their work with an authentic audience by inviting Ms. Wollard's and Miss Cerniglia's 6th grade classes for a special viewing.
Ms. Fallon's 7th Grade Seminar class celebrated their research on raw materials with an Ethics Expo on January 16th. The Expo helped to inform the public about consumer responsibility, and how the products we buy have a whole global history before they make it to the store shelves. The raw materials featured in the expo included: coffee, tea, avocados, sugar, cotton, and diamonds. Photos below show how students shared what they learned about what happens from farm-to-table. Visitors included parents, teachers, and fellow students.
Ms. Domuracki was back with her 7th grade classes in order to create "Book Trailers" using WeVideo. After reading narrative non-fiction books, students chose their favorite title and planned how to showcase the book by creating book trailers. Finished products were then uploaded to Padlet for sharing, and to allow fellow students to offer constructive criticism and feedback.
Movie Makers
Sharing is Caring
Working Together
Special-tea
How sweet!
Staying Green
Library News
Since our previous newletter was published in November, over 2,700 books have circulated from our Library Learning Commons. While many of our check-outs are for curricular units, we have a healthy number of students who read for fun.
Top Non-Fiction Books - First Quarter
1. "Garlic and Sapphires" by Ruth Reichl
2. "How they croaked: the awful end of the awfully famous" by Georgia Bragg
3. "My Life in Dog Years" by Gary Paulsen
4. "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" by William Kamkwamba
5. "Chew on this: everything you don’t want to know about fast food" by Eric Schlosser
Top Fiction Books - First Quarter
1. "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio
2. "The Compound" by S.A. Bodeen
3. "The Raft" by S.A. Bodeen
4. "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
5. "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Tech Tip
Please tell your students not to delete old classes from Google Classroom just because they are finished. Teachers might still need access to their work for grading. If a student deletes a class, teachers will no longer be able to access the files.