So excited about Destiny!

Hi Everyone!

We are so excited at the library to be welcoming our new operating system by Destiny Follett.  It is a wonderful program, with lots of capabilities including the option to write reviews for books that will show up for all library users and the opportunity to create your own personal book lists. As Mrs. Velazquez and I learn more about the program, we will certainly pop by to let you know about any neat features we find!

Current happenings in the library:

Book Clubs...

Mrs. Velazquez hosts a 4th and 5th grade club on Mondays.  this club has been reading The Homework Machine, by Dan Gutman, which turned out to be the winner of this year's Sasquatch Reading Award!

Mrs. Ferrell hosts a 3rd Grade book club on Wednesdays.  We just finished Diary of a Fairy Godmother by Esme Raji Codell.

Puppetry Club every Friday...

4th and 5th Grade and 3rd Grade, Team 1, are only a few weeks away from being ready to perform their puppet shows!  They are performing fractured fairy tales with puppets they created themselves.  We are currently rehearsing to perform for younger grades and for the Talent at Lunch program.

3rd grade, Team 2, begins this Friday!  

Kindergarten...

Our Kinders have made the big move out into the non-fiction section of the library to check out!  They are doing a great job using their browsing sticks while finding favorite areas.  In the next few weeks they will be continuing with various author and poetry studies with Mrs. Velazquez and exploring a Frog unit with Mrs. Ferrell, connecting to the science curriculum.  They will look at the uses for fiction and non-fiction frog books and explore some of the features that make non-fiction books useful for learning.

First Grade...

Mrs. Velazquez is leading our first graders through a month long poetry unit, which should be very exciting.  The first graders will be exposed to poetry in both English and Spanish.  The 811's are a big section and Mrs. Velazquez plans to delve in deep to explore what our library has to offer.  Mrs. V is creating a poetry wall in the library, so please come and check it out!

Second Grade...

The remainder of the school year will be dedicate to learning how to maximize the use of the OPAC and learn how to use the information on our computerized circulation system to record the vital information found there and go out and find the ONE book you selected out of the over 17,000 we have in the library!  Mrs. Ferrell will be leading our 2nd graders along this journey that will lay the foundational OPAC work that we will build upon in the upcoming years.

Third Grade...

Our 3rd graders will be exploring the Super3 research model, working through "Plan, Do and Review" to learn how to solve information literacy problems.  Our focus will be on weather, again connecting to the science curriculum, with each class determining a specific task and using the information found in our library and on the Internet to work through the task.  They will each create a product and review it to be sure they met the requirements they needed to.

Fourth Grade...

In fourth grade, we have moved into the Big6 research model, which is the more advanced model, expanding on the ideas presented in the Super3.  The Big6 is used in 4th through 12th grade and helps kids work through the key steps in any research project.  4th graders are currently working on Step 5, synthesis, where they are creating posters to display their learning. They should be on display in the hallway soon, but NOT before they complete Step 6, which is evaluation!  To find out more specific about the Big6, please visit their site.  Upon completing this project, we will be moving into a Historical Fiction genre study, featuring Caldecott winner and honor books that will connect with the Coretta Scott King Award as well.

Fifth Grade...

We are currently also in Step 5 of a Big6 project.  Our 5th graders performed a great deal of the work independently, with support from the Teacher-Librarians as needed, whereas the 4th graders had a much more guided experience.  5th graders performed Internet searches on their own using safe searches, like Google safe search (www.onekey.com) to find information about African-Americans that had made significant contributions, usually being the first African-American to accomplish something.  These are being completed, with that all-important evaluation piece being the capper, and are on display in the library as students finish their projects.  5th graders got some in-depth Internet safety discussions through the course of this unit and understand the importance of protecting identifying information, such as their last names and the towns in which they live, as they navigate the Internet, connecting with other Internet users.  They also learned about finding reliable resources on the Internet and why Wikipedia is NOT the best resource on the net!  :)