EC Library Services
Explore, Engage, Enrich
November 2019
Native American Heritage Month
This summer, my husband and I had the awesome privilege of vacationing in Durango, Colorado. While there, we met a lovely young lady who was the desk manager at the hotel. She introduced herself as Dionna. During one of our conversations with her, we learned that she was born and raised in the Navajo Nation in Colorado. She recently had left to attend college and work at the hotel. It was so exciting meeting a true Native American. She was proud of her Navajo heritage and even spoke to us in her native Navajo language.
History shows that the Navajo people date back hundreds of years. They are known for their beautiful woven rugs and their combined silver with turquoise one-of-a kind jewelry. The Navajo people are a large and strong nation.
We also found Colorado to be rich with relics of the Native American ways. We took the opportunity to visit Mesa Verde National Park. The park was filled with cave dwelling wonders constructed by the ancestral Puebloan, including more than 4,000 known archeological sites dating back to 500 A.D. Mesa Verde National Park protects these cliff dwellings and the mesa top sites of pit houses, pueblos, masonry towers, and farming structures of the Ancestral Pueblo peoples who lived here for more than 700 years.
During this month of November, when we pause to give thanks for the abundance in our lives, let’s also remember the contributions of our Native Americans and all other Americans that helped form America.
“My children education is the ladder to all our needs. Tell our people to take it.”
-Chief Manuelito/Navajo
~Susie Havard, Harmony Elementary
Digital Citizenship
The Internet is an all-encompassing entity that holds information from anywhere for anyone. You do not have to be an expert in a field of knowledge or provide proof of the facts you are disseminating. However, do students know this? Are they being taught this extremely important lesson before being set loose on the Internet in the name of research?
Often times, it is assumed that students can already do this. Instead of assuming, let's make sure our students are great consumers of information and take the time to teach them that good digital citizens sift through data and separate quality information from those facts that are unreliable.
Where can you begin? Here are two great places to start with lessons already created.
~Angie Cooper, Heritage Middle School
Digital Resources
PBS Learning Media
A free resource, PBS Learning Media, offers PreK through 12th grade educators and students access to videos and interactives, audio, documents, and comprehensive lesson plans. The website, which is brought to our community by KLRN, allows the user to create favorites and shareable folders. Educators can create a lesson around a topic as well as create assignments for students and organize digital symbols to design storyboards and demonstrate a lesson. Once a lesson is created, it can be assigned to a Google class.
The Teacher Help Page teaches you how to:
- create lessons and quizzes
- create storyboards
- assign lessons and storyboards
- create puzzles
~Malia Stanush, Tradition Elementary
Book Reviews For All
Emergent Reads
Users of the library are often surprised by the Everybody Book collection we have a the high school. Picture books provide excellent opportunities to model effective reading strategies using mini-lessons in any classroom, and secondary environments are no different.
The Snatchabook is a favorite of mine for the rhyming text and the story of making mistakes, making things right and ultimately the giving and receiving of forgiveness.
At our home, this beautiful book is a regular nighttime read because of the fun character voices and lovely illustrations.
~Lisa Merrifield, East Central High School
Preteen Reads
A Tale of Magic by Chris Colfer
This is the first book in a new series from the New York Times bestselling author, Chris Colfer.
When Brystal Evergreen stumbles across a secret section of the library, she discovers a book that introduces her to a world beyond her imagination and learns the impossible: She is a fairy capable of magic! But in the Southern Kingdom, women are forbidden from reading and magic is outlawed, so Brystal is convicted of her crimes and sent to the miserable Bootstrap Correctional Facility.
With the help of the mysterious Madame Weatherberry, Brystal is whisked away and enrolled in an academy of magic! However, when Madame Weatherberry is called away to attend to an important problem, she doesn't return.
Will Brystal be able stop a sinister plot that risks the fate of the world, and magic, forever?
This book is set in the Land of Stories which are filled with adventure, imagination, and memorable characters.
~Diane Howes, Pecan Valley Elementary
YA Reads
This coming of age story is told in free verse - poetry without rhyme or meter. This is a great story for young teens who are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world.
Big issues such as puberty, race and faith are tackled with fierceness and heart through the voice of a 15 year-old girl who is learning through trial and error about becoming a young adult.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in poetry and the strength of the human spirit to find out who you truly are.
~Lisa Merrifield, East Central High School
Collaboration
Collaboration to Prepare for a Lesson involves
- Pulling Resources
- Preparing Resource Guides
- Evaluating Digital Resources
- Co-writing the Lesson or Unit
- Developing Lesson Documents
Collaboration for Lesson Delivery involves
- Information Literacy
- Assisting with Inquiry
- Book Talks (whole and small group)
- Providing a MakerSpace
- Constructing Literature Circles
- Proving Award Book Programs
I encourage you to seek out your campus library staff for how you can combine forces to collaborate today!
~Lisa Merrifield, East Central High School
Innovative Tool
My Bib
In this digital age, it is so easy to copy text, graphics, videos, audio, and other digital information from online resources. To be a good digital citizen, we must remember to credit our sources (and teach our students to do so).
Creating a bibliography/citation used to be a laborious process but now, there are some great online resources that create bibliographies for you. Some of them have free and premium/pay features. A new citation creation site that is completely free is MyBib.com.
MyBib creates citations (both end source and in text) in over 30 different formats, including the popular MLA, APA, and Chicago styles. There is a Google extension that you can install to instantly cite any website. Your citations are saved in correct order and can be downloaded. Citation pages can be shared with other users-great for group work!
Hope this resource will be a great help for you and your students!
~Jennifer Smith, Legacy Middle School
Tech Tips and Tricks
RCODEMonkey
RCODEMonkey is a great site to make QR Codes and it is FREE!!! I like making QR Codes from this site because it is user friendly. It is great for newsletters, fliers, and webpages. I plan on using this in my library. All you have to do is type in the URL address, pick the color, add a logo if you like. You can also customize it too. Again it is a very friendly site.
~Kandi Housholder, Sinclair Elementary
Try it Out!
CS First
~Anna Silva, Salado Elementary
Win a Gift Card!
The drawing will take place on the Monday on or after the 10th of each month there is a newsletter.
Save the Date
November 1st- Bike Rodeo
November 15th- VIP Training
East Central High School:
November 5th and 7th - Adulting 101 during your lunch
November 21st -- Game Day After School until 5:15pm
ECISD Library Services
Tiffany Lindsey-- Library Services Secretary
Jennifer Smith -- Systems Librarian
Lisa Merrifield -- Lead Librarian
Email: Tiffany.Lindsey@ecisd.net
Website: https://www.ecisd.net/Domain/34
Location: 7173 Farm to Market Road 1628, San Antonio, TX, USA
Phone: 210-634-6142
Twitter: @ECISDreads