MVMS LMC Newsletter
April Newsletter Because March Got Away from Me
Upcoming Events and News
- We have been celebrating National Poetry Month throughout the month with Poetry Creation Stations (acrostics, blackout, reversal, limericks, haiku, etc.). Stop by our Poet Tree to read some of our MVMS created "masterpieces".
- April 6-14th was National Robotics Week. We have our Wonder Workshop robot Cue up and running in a limited capacity; he can challenge you to a game of Simon. Stop by to see him in action.
- The Reading Marathon "three quarters of the way done" check-in will take place next week (4/15-4/19).
- Our BOGO Book Fair will arrive mid-May. Continue saving those pennies!
- We are getting a new Breakout EDU Challenge up and running for a 6th grade MIW class. If you are interested in having another Breakout Experience with your class, please email me to schedule it!
- We also have a Plagiarism Police Breakout EDU Challenge that Tammy and I created from scratch that would be great for 8th grade classes who are all working on their Community Project research. Ideally, we'd do this on both teams in one content area, so all students would have the same experience. Let us know who wants the schedule this in their class.
David Elliott's Visit
He shared from his newest novel in verse, Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc and signed copies of books students had ordered. Overall, I'd say it was a successful author visit and look forward to hosting another in the future!
What Mrs. Searah Has Been Reading
To Night Owl from Dogfish
-realistic fiction
-LGBTQ middle grade
This One Summer
-young adult (mature content)
- Michael L. Printz Award and a Caldecott Honor from the American Library Association
New Kid
-middle grade
-realistic fiction
Meet Cue the Robot
MAKERSPACE LAUNCH
We are going to start hosting Maker events during Pride Block starting this coming Thursday (4/18). This first week we will have students using Duct Tape to create Easter Eggs or Bunny Baskets. I will announce this on Monday morning, and students will need to sign up outside the library BEFORE PB on Thursday to join. Normal library business will also take place during PB.
Future design challenges will include a Duct Tape: Flower Power Challenge, a K'nex structure challenge, and an Origami Creation Challenge to start.
If you are interested in having your class come down to MAKE in the future, please let us know.
Materials we currently have available:
-duct tape
-origami paper
-yarn
-K'nex
-blank design-your-own bookmarks
-newspaper
-discarded novels
Donations are welcomed!
Thursday, Apr 18, 2019, 01:30 PM
The Library Media Center
Feeling Super Empowered!
While reading Empower by John Spencer (@spencerideas) and A.J. Juliani (@ajjuliani) and engaging in the online book chat, I started following the authors on Twitter (and Instagram). Through their posts and awesome websites, I have found a plethora of interesting resources that I thought I would share. For anyone interested in reading the book without having to commit to the assignments, I have several copies available.
1. John Spencer's site is chock-a-block full of resources to help teachers empower students, implement design thinking, and create more dynamic classroom learning opportunities.'
His Video Writing Prompts are AMAZING for use as quick writes or longer writing prompts. I could see them being used in ELA classes, obviously, but they might be great for MIW or even content areas depending on the ones you choose (Reinvent Baseball as an Extreme Sport; Create a Map of Your Life; Create a to-do List for a Super Villain; Should Schools Ban Junk Food?)
This article explains what Design Thinking is for those of you who may be interested in joining Becky Herrmann, Chris Ginty and the other daring teachers who are taking on The Global Day of Design (see the video below) on Monday, May 6th.
2. AJ Juliani's site http://ajjuliani.com/ has oodles of resources about Design Cycle Thinking, Genius Hour, Project Based Learning, etc.
I personally loved his blog post Teaching Our Kids the Necessary Work to Have an Opinion. Juliani discusses how to teach students how to have an opinion worth sharing. He provides actual exercises/lessons you could do with your students to help them see the difference between having an opinion based on a feeling and one based on research.
Krystal Searah, LMS
Email: ksearah@mvsdpride.org
Phone: 6127
Twitter: @MVMSpride