GCS School Library Media News
November 2019
Ensley Grant at Brookside Elementary!
With six consecutive hour long classes how does one find the time to shelve books? The 2019 Ron Ensley Grant allowed Brookside to furnish center activities for K-2. Centers have long been used here for 3-5 but the options for younger students were lacking. This time for students to 'inquire, collaborate and explore' has allowed plenty of time to shelve books between classes.
Some of the hottest items include: Zoob-Bot Builderz, Code & Go Robot Mouse, Botley the Coding Robot, Aieggy the Coding Robot, Miniland Mosaic Art, Plus-Plus building blocks and Brickyard Construction Engineering.
Hispanic Heritage Month at Brookside Elementary
Brookside celebrated National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15. Our ESL teacher visited the Media Center to share some of her favorite stories and cultural information. We compared Halloween with Día de las Brujas and Día de los Muertos. Some of our students from the now closed new-comers center shared books they created (in ESL sessions) about their culture and life before moving to America. Third-fifth students were challenged to use their research skills to complete a difficult Hispanic Heritage crossword puzzle.
Fall Scholastic book fair at Grier Middle School
Conference Highlights and NCSLMA Updates
November...a wonderful month to slow down, enjoy family and friends and acknowledge what we are truly thankful for during the start of the busy holiday season. For me, one thing I am thankful for is our Gaston County Schools librarian PLC and the support we offer one another. Add in the network of support we have across the state if you are a member of NCSLMA, and I can honestly say that we are very fortunate indeed.
As you read this, the annual NCSLMA conference is complete, and I hope that if you attended, you found wonderful take-aways that you are already using with your students in your school libraries. Peter H. Reynolds, Olivia Van Ledtje and India Hill Brown were wonderful keynote speakers and a pleasure to have join us in North Carolina this fall. It was wonderful to see so many Gaston County librarians at conference this year, and I am truly grateful for your help volunteering, your words of encouragement, and your overall support of me in this statewide leadership role. I am proud to represent all of you and Gaston County Schools as I fulfill my responsibilities for NCSLMA.
NCSLMA is a volunter organization and we would love to have YOU get more involved! Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Membership is $40 annually.
NCSLMA has over 1,800 members.
Contact me, Cindy Sturdivant or Bitsy Griffin if you want to get involved.
Annual Conference each year is a wonderful opportunity to connect with colleagues across the state and to recharge your professional batteries.
Regional PD will take place this spring, so keep an eye on ncslma.org and your emails for updates and announcements.
Login to your ncslma.org account and update your profile and make sure you know your 8-digit membership number. (The old 4-digit number is no longer used)
Battle of the Books compliance forms should all be turned in now. The deadline was November 1st. Contact Deb Fidali with BoB questions at debfidali@ncslma.org
We are an affiliate organization of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Membership in AASL has so many benefits, so please considering joining our national organization as well. Visit aasl.org for more information.
One thing to keep in mind as you plan for this school year and beyond are our NCEES standards. Standard III states, “School library media coordinators implement a comprehensive 21st Century library media program.” Many of our distinguished expectations involve leaderhip and advocacy in the district, state and national level. NCSLMA is a great way to get plugged-in and grow professionally!
Finally, please update your contacts and let your school financial secretary know that NCSLMA no longer uses the Raleigh address. The only correct email for NCLSMA is:
NCSLMA
151 NC Hwy 9 Ste. B #188
Black Mountain, NC 28711
Have a wonderful November. May it be filled with all things pumpkin spice, family, friends and thankful hearts!
Laura Long
Highland School of Technology & NCSLMA President
SPOOKTACULAR BOOKS…
Although William Blaine Beam Intermediate is only grades 4 and 5, and the students are a little taller and older than those that have primary grades in their schools, everybody loves a good Halloween book!!! So each October Mrs. Beam displays a variety of books that may appeal to students this time of year. From spooky and haunted, to silly and gross, her students love selecting books from this holiday table.
THE LEMONADE WAR!!!
Students and staff of WB Beam Intermediate kicked off the school year with a One Book, One School campaign with The Lemonade War! Literacy teacher, Vicky English and School Library Media Coordinator, Kim Beam collaborated on this event. Principal Todd Dellinger purchased copies of the book for each student and teacher, and they were given out at our Open House in September. Fourteen community, business and educational leaders were videoed reading a chapter from the book. Those readings were added to the school website, for students to read along with each night. Students were given a schedule of readings and each morning there were trivia questions. There was an overall 4th grade winner and 5th grade winner of the trivia contests. These young ladies were rewarded with some free books and other reading goodies! Also the winning class with most earned Trivia questions received a class Pizza Party! The culmination activity was the actual lemonade war between Principal Todd Dellinger and School Counselor Mark Reep. Each had their stand decorated and served up lemonade to each student and staff member in the school. Votes were collected to see who’s lemonade was better and who marketed theirs better? After a day of fun and strong competition, Mr. Reep was declared the winner of the war!
Follett Book Fair at York Chester Middle School!
MakerSpace in Our Media Center @ Cherryville Elementary:
Our MakerSpace stations are set up as free choice stations. I begin by allowing students to select their station. I have each of our activities printed out on a small card. Students select a station by selecting a card from the table and bringing it to me. This is much easier for my younger students who often wandered around trying to remember their choices. Also, it allows me to limit the number of students without any worries about who got there first. If they do not have a card, they are not supposed to be in the station.
All my activities are grouped into 6 major categories: Building/Construction, Puzzles, Games, Coding/Technology, Creation Station and Relax & Read. Some of the activities for each category are:
Building/Construction: Legos, MagnaTiles, K’nex, Tall Stackers, ClickBlocks,
Puzzles: Hidden Puzzles, I Spy books, Floor Puzzles, Wooden Puzzles, Brain Teasers, Optical Illusions, Marble Run
Games: Guess Who, Uno, Jenga, Hangman, Tic-Tac-Toe, Checkers
Coding/Technology: abcya.com, Coding with Awbie (OSMO), Tangrams (OSMO), Code-and-Go Mouse, Ozobot, code.org
Creation Station: Make a bookmark, seasonal crafts, puppets, origami, drawing books, coloring books, book-related creations (Dots for Dot Day)
Relax & Read: find a comfy space, choose a book, e-book or other reading material and read.
MakerSpace has helped my students become more confident and creative. It has allowed students who are often not leaders in other academic situations a chance to be leaders. I think students are more accepting of others, and as a result, they collaborate more.
Halloween Creation Station Literature Connection: Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds
Students created their own creepy carrots after reading the book.
Bessemer City Primary Tradition
Every Halloween, the students and staff at Bessemer City Primary have the opportunity to transform into their favorite storybook character and celebrate their favorite books. We begin the day begins with a parade. All the students line up and parade around the building showing off their costumes to holiday tunes such as “Monster Mash” before returning to their rooms to enjoy some favorite stories.
As our celebration approached this year, I began asking some of our veteran and retired teachers about when the character parade at BCP began. Everyone’s response was the same, “I don’t ever remember us not having a parade.” After some digging through some old memory books left by past staff member, I was able to nail down the first character day to November 9, 1979 and an event planned to celebrate the ending of Children’s Book Week. During that year’s celebration, each class picked a favorite story and dressed up as the character from their chosen book. Each class then presented their story to the school during a program called “A Trip to Storyland.” Over the years, the celebration continued and eventually moved to Halloween and become part of our Red Ribbon Week Celebration. The tradition of inviting guest readers to join in was added a few years ago by Mrs. Beam. This tradition has continued with many of our readers returning year after year.
Dancing for new books at Page Primary!
The students at Page Primary participated in the fall Dace-A-Thon to raise money for new books in the Library. We are so proud to share that we exceeded our goal of $16,000 and students raised $17,400 for new books! We worked hard to share the current statistics of the Page Primary collection in order for parents to see the need to update our collection that has an average age of 2001. We also partnered with South Point High School students to promote our Dance-A-Thon and the need for new books. Pete the Cat even came to celebrate the generosity of all those who contributed and danced!