Middle School Blogs! Middle School Book Club!

   I am  hoping to promote  that student in our 7&8  grades  will be blogging next year.  I am hoping to work with the ElA teachers  or maybe start a lunch time book club for students.  Each group - a 7th and an 8th would have a blog attached to our library website.  Then they will read the book and then discuss . The students will be volunteers!  
    I will write an intro to the book( or maybe have the students do a book review.)Then students can present their ideas about the book in the blog during the month- So I am thinking that  maybe a monthly meeting would work.   I will think about it over the summer. 
    But if you have any ideas , please comment below!  I am looking for some input

Next Year! New challenges!

      Next year I am told  that I will not be doing all day 7th grade all day. So I will be a 'real " librarian.  So my first challenge will be  getting teachers to collaborate  with me  during the following year.  I know several of the teachers will be glad to work with me. 
      For instance , the music teacher always does several projects requiring  research  on famous   musicians.  I am trying to also remember  if there was another project that he did.  We already  have a whole packet worked up for this project.

       Both of  The 7th  grade science teachers also  do at least one project on endangered species that require  the students to do research on an animal.  So I am quite sure that they will also work with me,

      The one 8th grade social studies class does  a  project on Immigration and also I think another on Washington DC before their trip in the spring.  

   So I will springboard off of these and work on getting other  teachers to work with me on different projects.

It's June! End of year!

     I'm getting ready for the end of school! It's been a long  and interesting year!  7th grade has been a challenge to say the least! I think having the centers was a good idea and I will prepare some  more for next year to have set up for when students visit.   As far as I know, I will not be having 7th grade classes but will be working more closely with the teachers doing student based projects!!  So excited about that!!

      Over the summer I will be checking out some ideas  to get the teachers prepared to collaborate with me when they are doing their projects. This is really the way to run a library and have the students really learn how to use the resources that they need to use.

      I will write more about this over the summer . But I am looking for ideas on how to get teachers to collaborate so please  join in the conversation  of your ideas and suggestions, and what you do if you are in a situation where you have a flexible schedule  for student teacher collaboration.

   Some ideas for you for your June Bulletin Boards::  It's the end of the year so get ready for lots to do!



  Summer Read- Feature covers of student favorites . Use names and say" Jeanne recommends"

  Get Carried away with Books- Balloons or hot air balloons. If you want - add titles to balloons.

   Hot Days- Cool Books- summer scene-  reading on the beach

  Photos of students  reading their favorite books in their favorite places.

  Dive Deep  Into Reading- under the ocean, fish, sharks, water plants.


Special Days:
Fathers Day
Flag Day
Summer

Elementary Librarian- lesson plan resource

  Even though I teach 7th grade Inofrmation Literacy skills, I find that /ElementaryLibrarian.com  is very useful in many cases and also adaptable. Although I am not a subscriber to the entire service, I most likely would be if I were at the elementary level where I had to  plan weekly lessons for   5 or 6 grades.  I did sign  up for their monthly emails , and they come with links to  lessons and the resources needed to go with them.  

  I have used some of the lessons without adapting and some I have changed  just slightly.  The extra resources are printables and also some have power points.     Having just discovered this  I find it very helpful when doing my planning of lessons and it gives me great ideas for things I could include in my lesson rotation.

Netsmartz.org _Parent site for NSTeens

       Netsmartz.org    is the 'parent ' site from the one that I talked about last week. This has lots of  links , ideas, videos, etc for parents and educators   to help  children and students learn more about the safe use of the internet.
  NetSmartz is an interactive and educational program of the National Center for Missing and Exploited children.  It consists of age appropriate resources  for students 5 to 17 to be used by parents, and educators.  There are  many resources here  which include videos, games, lesson plans, activity cards, and presentations.
     The programs are  both educational and entertaining. My students love the NS teens and go back  to replay the games and look at the comics.  If you poke around you will find something you can use with your own children or students.

   Did anyone  find anything similar?  I am constantly on the look out for more sites like this that have excellent content for use with the students.

Recent lessons- April

    During Information Literacy we have been stepping back and doing some literacy type of activities.  Students  listened to the book , The Witches ( Dahl) and  demonstrated their comprehension by  drawing/ writing  about the different components of the story( plot, characters, story arc,)  Students enjoyed this activity and it gave them  a little bit of break from the other activities we had been doing previously.

   Some of the classes  were listening. reading 12 Angry Men (Rose  ) and were  rewriting different scenes  into a play.   We also  wrote some poems for poetry month which most of the students enjoyed.

  This was a little break from the research and information skills that we had been doing .