Media Center Minutes
Wonder, Inquire, Learn, and Discover!
Resources for Nonfiction Units
As you plan for your upcoming nonfiction units, remember to take a look at some of our great resources!
WLM Library Website: A great starting point for research projects. From here, you can access our library catalog, the Grolier online database, PA Power Library resources, the research help tab which contains search engines, online reference sources, copyright friendly image sites, and much more.
http://www.southerntioga.org/?page_id=389
Go Grolier Online Database: Subscription service to the Grolier online database, featuring access to three encyclopedia: The New Book of Knowledge, Amazing Animals of the World, and America The Beautiful. Students will be able to find articles on almost any topic in a leveled reading format with many types of media and assistive features. Check out the new, more user-friendly interface for this school year. If you are prompted to login, the username is "wlmes" and the password is "flix".
PA Power Library: The State Library of Pennsylvania's expansive online database and research tool, featuring ebooks, databases, search tools, newspapers, photos, and much more.
https://kids.powerlibrary.org/?ID=PL3091
KidsInfoBits: An online database subscription service offered through the PA Power Library that provides ebooks, magazine and newspaper articles, and websites on almost any topic.
BookFlix: A subscription service offered through the PA Power Library that provides paired texts for grades K-3. Book Flix now contains over 120 pairings.
TrueFlix: New for this school, the Scholastic TrueFlix site offers on screen viewing of the popular Scholastic True book series. These nonfiction titels can be a great resource for you as your students look for quality nonfiction books.
Epic! Books: Epic Books is free for educators and offers thousands of titles to be read online. In your account, you can create collections, add students, and access book sets on many different topics.
Professional Collection Smore: A smore created by the district librarians to highlight the resources currently available in the professional collections around the district. The Smore features Professional titles, Social Emotional Learning book collections, electronic resources, and web-based resources. All items listed in the Smore can be found or accessed at Warren. L. Miller.
Newsela: Newsela offers articles about current issues, history, science, math, and much more. Teachers can create a free account or can purchase a Pro account. Articles are available in Spanish and include activities, quizzes, and writing prompts.
Hour of Code Activities
Coding Center Ideas for Your Classroom
Students in all grades participated in the Hour of Code during Library classes this week. Many classes took part in center-based activities to apply coding skills to robots, apps, and manipulatives. These activities can be used in the classroom as centers, as well. Please let me know if I can assist with setting up the centers or if you would like to borrow any of these resources from the library.
Scratchjr: "Coding is the new literacy! With ScratchJr, young children (ages 5-7) can program their own interactive stories and games. In the process, they learn to solve problems, design projects, and express themselves creatively on the computer". Scratchjr is available as a free app and teachers can view and print starter activities online.
http://www.scratchjr.org/teach/activities
Dot and Dash: Unique products and apps teach students from kindergarten on up how to code. With each of the five apps, students tackle a series of challenges and in-app puzzles that introduce the fundamental concepts of coding. The unique Wonder app uses state machine programming and an original visual design to advance young students’ understanding of computer science. The Blockly app uses the most kid-friendly block-based coding on the market to introduce students to programming.
https://education.makewonder.com/curriculum
Osmo Coding: Coding Awbie teaches logic skills and problem solving, and it helps kids succeed in an increasingly digital world. Coding Awbie is the easiest way to introduce coding to your students.
https://playosmo.com/en/coding/
Code Studio: Go beyond the Hour of Code with Code Studio. You can create free accounts for your students, assign courses, and track their progress. Courses are available for students as young as preschool and continue to senior-level and beyond.
https://studio.code.org/courses
CS Fundamentals Unplugged: From Code.org, awesome unplugged activities to engage students in computational thinking, even without a computer. These can be used to supplement online activities or as stand-alone lessons.
https://code.org/curriculum/unplugged
Many more center ideas are available and I will highlight more in my next newsletter!
Second Annual Harry Potter Trivia Contest
The Library will feature a Harry Potter Trivia Contest starting next week! The contest is only for those who wish to participate in grades 3-6. Students will take the quiz, if they choose, during library class and one winner will be selected for each grade level. Winners will receive a prize such as Harry Potter book, coloring book, or poster book. The quizzes will be organized as follows:
Third Grade will be quizzed on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
Fourth Grade will be quizzed on Book 1 and Book 2 (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Fifth Grade will be quizzed on Books 1, 2 and 3 (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)
Sixth Grade will be quizzed on Books, 1, 2, 3, and 4 (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)
And for those who really want to challenge their Harry Potter knowledge, there will be a quiz covering all 7 books!
Please feel free to promote this to your students and let me know if you have any questions.
Girls Who Code
"At Girls Who Code, we believe the gender gap in technology is an issue we must all come together to solve. With your support, we will continue to build a future where our next generation of girls and boys will prosper through creativity, through bravery, and through teamwork."
The Girls Who Code after school club will start in January for girls in grade 6. I will promote the club to students starting next week and will hand out application forms to any girls who are interested. The club will have to be limited to about 20-25 girls, so I may ask for teacher recommendations if more girls sign up. Check out the Girls Who Code website and let me know if you have any questions.