Book Study - Chapter 11 - High Behavioral Expectations

1. For student slouched in their chair, I would motion with two fingers up indicating that they should sit up.  I would do the same for a student with their head down on their desk with their eyes up.  For a student with their head down and eyes hidden, I would gently tap them on the shoulder and then indicate with my two fingers they should sit up.  For both a student gesturing distracting to another student or a student looking under their desk, I would use my hand to up in a "Stop" motion to indicate they need to get back on task.
2. Sit up please.  (positive group) I need two more students sitting up. (anonymous correction).   
   Respect those around you please (positive group). I need one more student to respect those around them. (anonymous correction)
   Track me please. (positive group) I need one more set of eyes. (anonymous correction)
3. Students are quietly working--give them a Titan Token as positive nonverbal reinforcement.
   Student has the correct answer--nod
   Student is on task--smile
   Students are tracking me with their eyes--give a thumbs up
4. Write this in your notes.  Study it tonight.
   Tyson, sit up and put your feet on the floor please.  Put your eyes on me.
   Avery, eyes on me please.  Put your pencil down.
   Dontae, eye on my please.
   Titan Up class.

Book Study - Chapter 10 - Systems and Routines

Covid Book Checkout Routine:
1. 1) Put library books in the return book bin.  2) Stay in your social distanced line until it is your turn (of three students at a time) to browse the checkout tables.  3) Touch only the book you want to checkout.  If you touch a book and decide you do not want it, put it in the return book bin so it can be quarantined.  4) Bring the book to the checkout desk.  5) Line up socially distanced while waiting on the rest of your classmates.  Read your new books silently.  

2.  

3.  Students often ask to go to the restroom or for a pencil during lessons.  Students can raise their hand with two fingers to ask for permission to go to the restroom.  Students who need a pencil can raise their hand with one finger raised.

Book Study - Chapter 9 - Building Ratio Through Discussion

1. Some of the successes are that students can turn and talk to a partner to have a deeper conversation.  Their partner might point something out they did not think of.  A challenge is that in a group of students, it is hard to monitor the conversations and make sure they are all staying on task.  A way to minimize challenges might be to tell students after the turn and talk I will be calling on several of them to share with the whole class.
2. I want students to be engaged in the topic at hand and I want them to transition back to the whole group lesson quickly.  I would cue with, "Now with your partner, discuss..."  To pull them back, I would say, "Titan Up", which is something we say universally at our school to get everyone's attention.
3. If I were still working with the research websites from the previous week, I would have students turn and talk to tell their partner which website they think is going to have the most accurate information and why.  Turn and talk in this example would increase participation ratio.  I will extend the students thinking after turn and talk by having a group discussion.

Book Study - Chapter 8 - Building Ratio Through Writing

1.  When teaching a lesson to third graders about research on explorers, I will ask them to write down one thing that they know about one of the explorers.  Complete sentences are not required and I will not be collecting the work.  I basically want them to "fact check" themselves while they are completing their research.
2. The objective of this lesson is for students to learn how to evaluate sources for research.  The scaffolding would be giving the students prompted questions about the websites they are using for research, "Which one's graphics/visuals makes it look more trustworthy?"  This activity is more of a think ratio because students have to evaluate the websites and the "facts" to see which website is credible.  The All About Explorers website is not trustworthy because it says Christopher Columbus set sail 9 years before he was born.  
3. After giving students a few minutes to write, I will show call one of the student's work.  For example, I would showcase a student who noted that the website said John Cabot was born in 1405 but sailed in 1947. I would then ask students to tell me what they learned on the Enchanted Learning website about John Cabot.  Students would review their work and explain which website is correct and why.

Week 12

This week has been a regular week filled with shelving and checking out books to students.  Every morning (and after every class comes to check out), I restock the tables where students are allowed to choose books from.  

These are the tables with picture books, beginning chapter books, and lower level non-fiction.

These are the tables graphic novels, chapter books, and non-fiction.

I really hope next year we are able to allow students to choose their own books from the shelves again!  I think having to choose from tables takes away from the experience of being able to find a book that students really want.  Due to covid though, this is what our county is requiring us to do.

Monday afternoon, most of our students participated in an online Flipgrid Virtual Field Trip with Dav Pilkey, the author of Captain Underpants, Dog Man, and Cat Kid.  The topic was "Create Comics with Dav Pilkey".  I have to admit I was a little disappointed in the session even though it was free.  When you signed in, it allowed teachers to post questions from students.  However, the session was prerecorded so none of the questions were ever addressed.  The students were a little disappointed as well.  They are obsessed with the Dog Man series and although it was interactive and fun, it felt rushed.

Above is a screenshot from the session with Dav Pilkey.

Thursday afternoon I was able to attend the Georgia Children's Book Awards and Conference of Children's Literature which was held via Zoom.  This week's author was Jennifer Nielsen.  She is the author of one of my favorite books, A Night Divided.  The session with her was amazing!  Jennifer has such a passion for researching her books and writing historical fiction.  The main discussion was about her book Resistance, which was a winner of the Georgia Book Awards.  She showed a slideshow presentation of historical documents and pictures of the real people who inspired her story.  Below are a couple of screenshots from the Zoom session.

I have had Resistance on hold through our public library for a while now.  After hearing Jennifer Nielsen talk about it, I can't wait for it to become available so I can read it and recommend it to students!

Week 11

 This was a busy week of check outs and book shelving.  This week while I was checking in books, I found this:

When the student came to check out later in the day, my Media Specialist had a conversation with him about not eating near library books and being careful about storing food in desks with library books.  She did not charge the student this time even though the book is most likely ruined and we will have to delete it out of the catalog.  

I have been trying to read more of our media center books so that I can give honest recommendations to students.  This week I finished Front Desk by Kelly Yang.  

I'd heard from my son that the book was great, but it exceeded my expectations.  The book is about a family of Chinese immigrants who run a motel for little money and support from their landlord.  The landlord takes advantage of the fact that they are immigrants and do not have many options.  It is full of diverse characters, hardships, and standing up for what is right.  Front Desk has become one of my favorite elementary chapter books of all time now.  The author has written a sequel to it called Three Keys that is on my list to read soon.

In my opinion, an important part of being a Media Specialist, (or even a Media Clerk) is to try to read as much of the material in your media center as possible.  I want to be able to discuss books and honestly recommend them to students.  You can't do that if you don't know your collection well by reading it too.

Our students have been challenged to read 3,000 minutes by the end of the school year.  They earn small prizes along the way.  However, if they complete 3,000 minutes they earn a t-shirt and are entered into a larger drawing for a tablet, a Sphero robot, and some other great prizes!  I have a Cricut and a heat press for shirts at home so I have been working on making the shirts for our students.  Here is this year's design:

We have nine students so far who have already reached 3,000 minutes.  Hopefully we will have more by the end of the year!  With a little over 1,000 students, our goal is for at least 100 students to read for 3,000 minutes total.

Week 10

This week I finally finished re-processing all of the books purchased with Title 3 funds!  I was so relieved to finally finish this project.  The students were very excited to have access to the new books this week too!

I spent most of this week doing book checkouts with classes.  I was able to recommend several books to students who were struggling to find something they were interested in.  We have many reluctant readers at our school and sometimes it is difficult to get them invested in anything besides a graphic novel.  One of our most popular graphic series' is The Babysitters Club.  On Friday, we were out of all of the graphic novels so I recommended one of the chapter books to a 5th grade student.  I promised her it was so much more detailed and entertaining than the graphic novel.  I hope she reads it and lets me know what she thought.

Our students use an online tool called Biblionasium to do book reviews for their peers and record their reading logs.  In a book review this week, one student said how people should always read books that were turned into movies because the book gives you more detail into the character's thoughts.  I love that!

This week we received twenty new Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark Assessment kits.  The classroom teachers use this system with their students to assess their reading level and their progress throughout the year.  It was my job to barcode each kit and enter it in the Destiny textbook administrator system.

On Thursday afternoon, I was able to attend the Georgia Children's Book Awards and Conference of Children's Literature which was held via Zoom.  This week's session was with author and illustrator Kris Di Giacomo.  She is the illustrator of one of my favorite picture books, When a Wolf is Hungry.  She told us that she started out as an English teacher in France and discovered French picture books.  She began creating her own English to French illustrations to teach students English and her career just kind of took off from there.  She has illustrated twenty picture books and authored a few of them as well.

Professional Learning Network

 View my Professional Learning Network here: https://www.pearltrees.com/candicemathews64

Week 9

 Monday and Tuesday of this week were the last two selling days of the Book Fair.  We did really well and our total sales were approximately $6,200.00 with about 55% of our students attending school in-person.  On Wednesday, we packed everything up and setup tables for normal book checkouts to return.  I was so happy to have students come to check out books this week!

In between checkouts, I also started working on my last bin of Title 3 books that I have to add spine labels to and change the Destiny records.

Believe it or not, this cart is holds what 4 large plastic bins previously did!  It's more than you would think because these are all paperback books and not library bound.

On Thursday afternoon, I was able to attend the Georgia Children's Book Awards and Conference of Children's Literature which was held via Zoom.  This week's session was with author and illustrator Ryan Higgins.  He is the author of the Mother Bruce picture book series as well as We Don't Eat Our Classmates.  The session was really fun!  He gave us a little background knowledge of the book We Don't Eat Our Classmates. The book was inspired by he and his wife's fears about his oldest child going to Kindergarten and whether he would make friends easily.  He drew Penelope the T-Rex to look as friendly and cute as possible.  Some of the characters in the book are modeled after his son, daughter, and even his editor.  In the screenshot below, Higgins is pointed at the character inspired by his editor.

Higgins also shared that the artwork featured in the book is actually made by real children.  He struggled with drawing pictures that actually looked as if they were done by children.  So he enlisted the help of his two children and their friends.

I was so glad I was able to attend this session virtually and am looking forward to attending the other March sessions as well!

Friday was an inclement weather makeup day for Gwinnett that was not used so students and teachers had the day off.  

Webinar 3 - Checklist Item 4

 On February 27th, I attended Edcamp Cardigan Camp.  Edcamp Cardigan Camp was the first virtual Edcamp for all school, public, higher ed, and special area librarians from all over the world.

I attended four sessions called App Smackdown, Marketing, Grants and Funding, and Data Collection and the School Library.  Each session lasted approximately 40 minutes and had a link to a Wakelet with the resources discussed and shared by the librarians that participated in the session.  

From the App Smackdown session, the most interesting I learned about was how to create your own search engine through Google which lets you limit what websites your students can search.  

The Marketing session was very insightful overall.  I learned about a website called Hootsuite that makes it easy to post and manage your different social media accounts for your library.  One of the attendees shared different marketing materials she has made in Canva to help promote her library.  Library podcasts and using TikTok to promote books were also some of the ideas shared.

The Grant and Funding session was probably my favorite session as I had absolutely no background knowledge of grants and funding outside of Donors Choose.  Several grants and funding options were shared.  I will be using the resources shared to help me with the grant assignment.

The Data Collection and the School Library session made me see the importance on reporting on more than just numbers.  I should be reported what activities we had in the media center, about our programs, how many classes were seen etc.  Data should be shared at regular intervals throughout the year.

I really enjoyed the sessions I was able to attend!  I bookmarked the main page so I could access the Wakelets for the sessions I was not able to attend.  

Book Study - Week 7 - Building Ratio Through Questioning

 1.  I think teachers feel strongly about Cold Call because students know Cold Call is a possibility and can increase the likelihood that students will anticipate being called on and be actively engaged.  It also can foster positive engagement because students may not volunteer to answer because they don't think they know the correct answer.  When they are called on, they can surprise themselves.

2.  For a story element lesson reading Dog Breath to 1st graders, I would Cold Call after reading the first page to ask if students could predict what Hally's big problem might be from the illustration.

After reading the second page, I would Cold Call and ask students look at the illustration and tell me one way that they can tell Hally's breath is very bad.

After finishing the story, I would Cold Call and ask a student what the miracle was that happened for Hally.

The first student I Cold Call would be one who I know is paying attention. Then, I would call on students who need a little "nudge" to participate or feel confident.

3.  Repeat-I would say, "The conflict of a story is..." and the students would respond, "the problem".

Report-I would say, "What is the conflict or problem for Hally?" and the students would respond, "her bad breath".

Reinforce-I would say, "Can anyone tell me how the problem was resolved for Hally?  Yes Brianna, the family changed their minds about her breath.  Class, what problem was resolved?" 

Review-I say, "What is the first thing the children tried to cure Hally? (A breathtaking view) Ok, an what was the second thing the children tried to cure Hally? (A movie to leave her breathless)"

Solve-I say, "How did Mr. and Mrs. Tosis change at the end of the story?" Students respond they accepted Hally's breath as a good thing.

4.  When I use Wait Time, I want my students to really think about what I am asking them.  I want to give them more time to think of the correct answer instead of simply an answer.

Week 7 and 8

 There has been a lot going on these past two weeks with the Book Fair going on, but not a lot to blog about.  We continued Book Fair browsing for students to make their wish lists for part of Week 7.  My Media Specialist was out due to being exposed to covid, so I ran it mostly alone.  It was very busy.  Once browsing ended, the selling started.  This is where it really got busier!  

Students were very excited to buy from the Book Fair.  We had a ton of books that were $5 and under and many of our students took advantage of the deals.  One fourth grade students bought 22 books from the value table!

Tuesday was a digital learning day for all students.  I brought my 16 year-old daughter with me that day and we moved the entire Book Fair to the gym.

Parents and digital learning students were able to come and shop in the gym with plenty of social distancing.  We were open from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. We didn't have as many parents come to shop as we'd hoped for.

Wednesday and Thursday were extremely busy.  I barely had time to inhale my lunch.  I sold about $1,600 both days.

Friday was steady.  I was able to call and order books we sold out of and I worked a little bit on editing the records of the Title 3 books.  

Next week, there are two more days of Book Fair and then we get back to our regular operations again.  I love Book Fair time, but it is exhausting!  

February Media Center Activities/Statistics Report