March 2016 Learning Commons Data
Palmer Middle School Learning Commons
March - in like a lion, out like a lion!
March was a busy and fun month in the Palmer Media Center! From our Spring Scholastic Book Fair to Family Fun Night to moving forward with our Learning Commons model, we enjoyed the activity this month!
Check out more about what is happening at the Palmer Learning Commons on our blog -
# of classes that scheduled the Learning Commons in March
# of students visiting the Learning Commons independently before school or with a pass
# of collaboratively-taught classes in March
Mrs. Wickline was the lead teacher in these lessons, working with AVID, Special Education, and Language Arts.
# of classes visiting the Media Center for book checkout
Family Fun Night - Gettin' Crazy!
Students enjoyed playing games, creating art projects, visiting the book fair and creating tricks for Mr. Ozobot with their family in the Media Center. The Ozobots will be available next year in the Game Room for students to play with during lunches.
Spring 2016 Book Fair enjoyed over $3,000 in sales!
The sales translate into almost $1,200 for the Media Center to use towards more books and moving towards a Learning Commons design.
Collaborative Lessons in March
Newsela
Newsela is a wonderful web site that offers leveled, nonfiction texts for students. The texts are interactive, students may annotate, highlight, take quizzes, and respond to short essay questions. The basic features of the site are free. Mrs. Wickline worked with Mr. Koilpillai's AVID 8th grade classes, introducing them to the web site and the basic features. Students came in for another lesson to work specifically with annotations. They noticed the difference it made in their quiz scores after annotating. We look forward to using this web site more in the future.
Genius Hour
Ms. Wickline began Genius Hour projects with Ms. Quinn's and Ms. Stohl's Gifted Resource classes as well as with Ms. Groeneveld's Special Ed Reading Classes. The experience has been considered a huge success. Students and teachers have learned so much from these self-guided projects, and we look forward to enhancing the experience for next year!
Scholastic's Jackie Robinson Breaking Barriers Essay Contest
Ms. Wickline worked with Ms. Mahre's and Ms. Duke's 6th-grade Language Arts classes to complete essays for Scholastic's Jackie Robinson Breaking Barriers essay contest. Ms. Wickline took students through the entire writing process from prewriting to editing and revising for their final essays. This was such a great lesson to connect with our students and learn more about their personal lives. While sometimes finding it difficult to write about personal obstacles, students ultimately expressed that they enjoyed the exercise of writing about feelings from a personal standpoint. We look forward to this lesson next year!
Congratulations to Mrs. Woodham, our Media Center Parapro and Palmer Middle School's Classified Employee of the Year!
March Madness Tournament of Books a Huge Success!
We had almost 80 student participants in the 2016 Tournament of Books! It was a close battle, but the students and faculty selected The Hunger Games as their favorite book. Our student winner was 8th grader Madison DeSantis, who had a perfect bracket, and our faculty winner was Assistant Principal Brad Blackman! Madison won a $25 Amazon gift card and Mr. Blackman won a Bojangles chicken biscuit!
Palmer MS Learning Commons
Email: taylor.wickline@cobbk12.org
Website: www.cobblearning.net/palmerlc
Location: 690 North Booth Road Northwest, Kennesaw, GA, United States
Phone: 770-591-5020