Today’s visit by Ms. LaBarge’s 8th grade ELA students was a trip down memory lane. I originally had this group of students in 6th grade when they had Ms. George for ELA. We worked together alot that year with the brand new Hi-Lo (High Interest-Low Level) books and the Blogging with Books and Buddies program I got as a grant from the Needham Education Foundation my first year at Pollard.
Last year, in 7th grade, I worked together with their ELA teacher Ms. Russo to help them find the best Hi-Lo books they could find to give them reading enjoyment.
Now, this year as 8th graders, we’ve come full circle. Seeing them evoked alot of memories of the 3 years we’d spent together and I marveled at how tall they’d gotten (which pleased them) and reminded them of the fun we’d had over the years.
I gave booktalks for three titles from the Hi-Lo collection, then students had a chance to browse through the new Hi-Lo books I had on display. They also browsed through the general fiction, non-fiction and Biography sections searching for books of interest. All of them borrowed two books, and Ms. LaBarge was very pleased they’d all found something to read. I told her about the Blogging with Books and Buddies program, so hope to see some of their Book Reviews on the blog very soon.
Have fun and enjoy your books everyone! It was great to see you again.
Categories: Library Life, Student Learning
Tags: 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, Book Reviews, book talk, book talks, booktalks, Hi-Lo, Needham Education Foundation, NEF
Happy May!
At the end of the day, I bid farewell to Mr. Kraus’ 8-4 Social Studies classes after a week of working with them on the research portions of their required research reports. By tomorrow, students are expected to have at least 5 NoodleTools online notecards completed, with a paragraph describing their thesis due the following day. The rest of their deadlines will follow, and the students were busily working hard today on their final day in the library with me.
Good luck cluster 8-4!
Vacation is over, and work has begun in earnest on the research process for Mr. Kraus’ 8-4 Social Studies classes. This group of students will be the last group of 8th graders to work on their research reports this year.
Mr. Kraus’ students will spend the week with me in the library, as they work on refining their research skills and putting into practice the lessons I taught them today. Among other skills, I showed them how to use the Gale Student Resource Center and the ABC-CLIO Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society databases, while teaching how to use advanced keyword searching with Google and these databases. In addition, I showed them tips on how to create their keywords from their Thesis Statements, showing how to use all we’ve discussed to create their online citations and notecards using NoodleTools.
Good luck cluster 8-4!
Today is the last day of school before Spring Break begins, and Sra. McKenna’s 8th grade Spanish classes were the last of almost 200 students to come celebrate Dia and Bookjoy with each other during our week long celebration. All 8th graders who take Spanish had the opportunity to learn about author Pat Mora’s founding of El Dia de los Niños/El Dia de los Libros (Children’s Day/Book Day), also called El Dia de los Jovenes/Dia de los Libros when celebrated in middle and high schools. They also learned about Dia being a celebration of Literacy, Culture, and Bookjoy.
Thank you Sra. McKenna, Sra. Streisfeld, Sra. Hill, Sra. McNamara and Sra. Wescott for bringing your classes and giving them a chance to grow in the language, experience Bookjoy, while exposing themselves to the great array of Latino literature available to them. Thank you to all 8th grade Spanish class students for your great comments, for your lovely poetry, and for sharing Bookjoy with each other. Remember – these books on the Latino culture are available to you any time, and can be accessed by searching the online catalog.
Below are some photos from today’s event (click photo to enlarge), along with a slideshow of our celebrants from Sra. McKenna’s classes.
Great job everyone, and enjoy Spring Break!
Sharing Bookjoy
Concentrating
Bilingual books
More Bilingual books
Biographies and Fiction
Culture
Entirely in Spanish
Here are the last of the poems created by Sra. Hill’s, Sra. Wescott’s and Sra. McNamara’s 8th grade Spanish classes. Thank you for celebrating Día in such a uniquely creative way.
Zach
Yuval
Victoria
Timmy
Sarah
Ryan
Ross
Regina
Peter
Today was Day #3 of our 8th grade Spanish classes week long celebration of El Día de los Jovenes/El Día de los Libros. Sra. Streisfeld’s students came to the Library to participate in group or individual readings of books from our Spanish Language collection. I created a slideshow of students reading together, and/or by themselves, while experiencing Bookjoy.
Dia
Sra. Streisfeld
Relaxing
Enjoying
Below (click photo to enlarge) are some more poems from the 8th grade Spanish classes of Sra. Hill, Sra. Wescott, and Sra. McNamara’s celebration of El Dia de los Jovenes.
Olivia
Mike
Mike
Mike
Mikayia
Lindsey
Liam
Leo
Below are even more poems from the 8th grade Spanish classes who participated in the Poetry Reading portion of our Semana de los Jovenes/Semana de los Libros (Youth Week/Book Week) celebration (click photos to enlarge).
Evan
Haley
Jack
Jake
Jake
Jessica
Josh
Kaan
Today, I worked with Sra. Hill’s, Sra. Wescott’s and Sra. McNamara’s 8th grade Spanish classes, who came to the library for their second day of celebrating El Día de los Jovenes/El Día de los Libros (Youth Day/Book Day.)
For today’s celebration, students read in small groups of two or chose to read alone, choosing from a selection of bilingual books, books written entirely in Spanish, and books written in English about the culture of Latin America which I had set up throughout the room.
Below are some candid shots of students enjoying “Bookjoy,” the term Día founder Pat Mora coined for the enjoyment of reading (click photos to enlarge.) I am also including more poems from Monday’s Día celebration, as well as a slideshow of today’s celebration. Enjoy!
Challenging himself
Enjoying herself
Learning together
Enjoying themselves
Daniel
Daryl
Emily
Erin
I received over 50 poems from yesterday’s celebration of Día de los Jovenes from Sra. Hill’s, Sra. Wescott’s and Sra. McNamara’s 8th grade Spanish classes. To try and fit all of them in, I will insert a few on the blog everyday. I scanned some of their poems so readers can see how students illustrated their poems to fit in with the themes of what they had written.
Jackson: Invierno - El invierno; frio y blanco. Voy a; Costa Rica.
Julia: Diamente Poema – Piña; pequeña bonita; Caer dormir colgar; La piña pequeña cayendo al suelo. Semilla
Brendan: Saxofón – de dorado y brillante; hablar, gritar, sussar; tocando en el viento; instrumento
Aidan
Alex
Annie
Az
Ben
Brett
Charles
Charlie
Chris
Conor
Cynthia
Dan
