I Wonder - Clues

This week's I Wonder was truly a wonder and it had both students and teachers guessing. We had clues on the Morning Announcements for three days. Here are some of the clues:

• It is from an animal that is a carnivore.
• This animal has no teeth when it is an adult.
• This animal lives in the ocean.
• It came from an animal that is also called "broadbill".

Today, Friday, the announcement was made that it was the bill of a swordfish. I borrowed it from my best friend who knew kids would love it. Did you know that the bill is really the upper jaw of a swordfish? Well, I've learned that fact and others this week. Quite a few kids guessed what it was - even without the clues!

The Wonder Table has been such fun this year as we share and learn more about our world. If you look at the background of the photo, you'll see the next items for the Wonder Table. The nests were saved by Carol Driver who is a former librarian at Charlestown School. She brought the nests to our school and Mrs. Truppi knew exactly the best spot for displaying them. Thanks to Mrs. Driver and Mrs. Truppi for our next Wonder Table. Thanks to friend Karen for the swordfish bill!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I had to grab my phone and get this picture today when I realized how many different student activities were taking place at one time in the Library. If you count, you'll see 9 students (plus two at other tables). You'll also see Mrs. Renner, paraprofessional, who was helping Mrs. McGill and working with some of the students.

What made the scene so interesting to me was that it encompassed three totally independent student activities. One group of students was working on a special project. Another group was taking the STAR Reading assessment. The last two were taking Accelerated Reading Practice (AR) quizzes.

The library isn't always quite as busy as this, but keep in mind that this was going on in an "empty" block - no library classes scheduled. During this "empty" block, I was working with 5 students, Mrs. Renner with 4, and another 2 children came independently to do AR quizzes

Teachers take advantage of the sign-up sheet to reserve the library, or they are encouraged to use our resources and space if it doesn't interfere with library classes. The library is often a "hotbed of activity" and I love it!

OPAC

Do you know what the OPAC might be? Well, the official term is Online Public Access Catalog but OPAC is much easier to remember. If you use that term in a library, they will know you mean their catalog of what they own. Our 3rd and 4th graders know that if they go on the Charlestown School Destiny Quest OPAC they can look up books, get the call number, and find the book. If the book is "out", they write their name on a Hold list so they'll be in line for when it is returned.

When we went to Destiny Quest in September, it enabled us to make our OPAC web-based to allow searching outside our school. I've been wanting to add a link to our school library OPAC and hope I'm finally getting it done. That means I hope you will go to our Destiny Quest OPAC if you click the link below:

http://opac/quest/servlet/presentquestform.do?site=202&alreadyValidated=true

Destiny is the trade name for our Follett Software which is much more visual than the previous OPAC; kids like seeing the cover of the book. Of course, Destiny is the system that crashed for over a month and we're still repairing portions of it. That means, if you look at the Destiny Quest homepage for any Chariho elementary school you will see some lists for Richmond School, namely "4th Grade Battle for the Books" and "Playaways" (we have Playaways, but that list is for Richmond). I met with other district librarians last night and we're still trying to fix those problems! Meanwhile, I will be encourage students to use Destiny Quest from home.

Trying to Keep Up

The photo above shows three of the new pieces of audio equipment now available in the Library. It's part of an attempt to upgrade available resources and try to keep up with technology. With budget money we purchased one iPod/iPhone portable boombox and two stereo systems that play iPods/iPhones + CDs +AM/FM tuner. They are barcoded so teachers may check them out for use in their classroom. I expect they will be popular and hope that next year we can upgrade to furnish classrooms with newer equipment.

I expect some parents wonder why they see old, "antique" AV equipment in our school. Well, we still have audiocassettes that have wonderful read-along stories and songs. We can't just discard everything and much of it is still useful. Until we manage to equip every classroom with the newer digital resources, we need equipment that can play a variety of formats.

If you look at the photo, you'll notice VHS tapes that are part of the library collection. These have been gradually discarded for many years, but some titles reflect resources that are either not available or too expensive to replace quickly. It may be embarrassing, but it's a fact of life in most schools. We hope to get videostreaming in our budget next year and that will enable us to move away from VHS and DVDs.

And these examples just represent some of the AV issues - let's not even talk about computers! Just rest assured that everyone is trying to do a little catching up as fast as possible
I do hope everyone recognizes that keeping up with technology is virtually impossible these days. It's not easy at home or business and even more difficult in education. Have you heard of Moore's Law? Try looking it up. I'll blog a little about it next week.

C. Reiser-Jones
P.S. When I came to Charlestown in 1998, the first big task was weeding and discarding hundreds of filmstrips!

Dr. Seuss 2012

"Go Green!"


This is not a good photo with the glare from hallway overhead lights. However, it does give a good idea of our 2012 celebration for Dr. Seuss' birthday.

This year our theme was "Go Green" in honor of The Lorax book (and movie). The hallways were full of Truffala trees and children's work with ideas on how to help save our environment. My library display focused on our Lorax pencils that came from recycled newspapers. All students received a pencil; these are pretty neat because when they are sharpened, it's obvious they came from old newspapers!

Mrs. Wright arranged getting seeds to send home with each child and we hope "Go Green" results in some beautiful flowers or delicious vegetables in Charlestown School family homes this summer.

The spirit of the day even extended to our Office when Mrs. Haney came up with the idea that perhaps yummy truffles came from Truffala trees. Wouldn't we all like to pick chocolate truffles off trees in our yards? Happy Dr. Seuss Day to one and all!