Innovation Center
September 2017
STEM in Action
Selfie Station
Maker Mania
Lasso a book at the Wild West Book Fair!
- The Scholastic Book Fair will be arriving this week! Please pass out the book fair flyers to your homeroom students if you haven't already done so. The flyers were placed in your mailbox last week. The book fair will be open on Friday for teacher and student preview. Book fair sales will start on Monday, September 25th and end on Friday, September 29th. There will also be extended hours on Monday night (9/25) for the basketball game and Wednesday night (9/27) for PAC night.
- Please schedule a time to bring your entire class to the book fair. No more than 3 students should be sent on one pass. There will be drawings, giveaways, and a book fair scavenger hunt for students, so all are invited!
- Teachers: If you are looking to add to your classroom library, there are many options at the book fair. You can buy the books TAX-FREE at the fair with cash, check, or credit card (even your teacher LEAD card). You may also choose from a wider selection of books from the online book fair which starts on Thursday, 9/20 and end on Tuesday, 10/3. Books bought online will be sent to the school with FREE shipping. Visit the online fair: https://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bookfairs/cptoolkit/homepage.do?method=homepage&url=wmsbookfair
- Our sales goal is $2,500, which will fund the purchase of new books for the innovation center.
Shout Out!
Resources
- All Florida schools have access to free ebooks at myon.com this year because of Hurricane Irma. There are nearly 12,000 ebooks available on the site. Many of the books are aimed at an elementary audience, but the daily news articles and nonfiction titles will appeal to middle school students as well. Students can choose to have the books read to them, and the site works well on the Chromebooks. Since it's a free resource, some of the administrative features are not available to us. Let Ms. Ratliff know if you need help with the site.
- Teachers, if you would like your students to make newsletters for class projects, please let Ms. Ratliff know. Our subscription to Smore gives Warrington free student accounts. You can subscribe for a free trial at smore.com to check it out.
- Makerspace Opportunity: Join the escape room craze! Stay tuned for opportunities for your class to try out BreakoutEdu in the innovation center this fall.
SSYRA Author Chats
There are Facebook Live events scheduled for the authors of some of the 2017-2018 middle school SSYRA books, including Framed!, Randoms, The Nerdy Dozen, How to Almost Ruin Your Summer, Moving Target, and Courage for Beginners. All author chats are scheduled for 9:00 A.M. If you are interested in bringing your first period classes to these events in the innovation center, please let Ms. Ratliff know. For an annotated list of the SSYRA books, please visit the following site: http://www.floridamediaed.org/uploads/6/1/4/2/61420659/6-8_2017-18_ssyra_annotated_list.pdf
James Ponti, author of Framed!, chatted with schools on Tuesday, September 19th. You can see the video on the SSYRA Facebook page.
What's Coming Up?
- Read to Me (reading event with dogs) is being scheduled now. Stay tuned for more information to sign up your students for the October event.
- Minecraft Club should be starting in October. Tell students to look for signs with the Google Classroom code to join the club soon.
- Sunshine State Book Club should be starting in November. Applications will be given to ELA teachers for students to complete.
Visit the innovation center!
Email: sratliff@escambia.k12.fl.us
Website: https://wms-ecsd-fl.schoolloop.com/MediaCenter
Location: 450 S Old Corry Field Rd, Pensacola, FL, United States
Phone: 850-453-4770 230