Book Bag Blog

Mystery Videoconference Session Scheduled

Summer Reading Program

Again, this summer we plan to participate in the statewide summer reading program, called, No Book Left Unread. The State Department of Education will give prizes to the winning student, school and teacher. Registration forms should be returned by May 23, 2008, but late forms will be accepted. Every student will receive a reading log along with a suggested reading list or you can find it at this link.

In addition to reading and keeping up with pages read, we will be offering a live Interactive Video Conference (IVC) and book club chat via a webcast twice a month in June and July. We will have a panel of teachers, students and parents to chat live with opportunities for others to chime in with their comments on the books they have read. Each session will focus on a specific genre and the choice of title belongs to the child.

To participate in the live book club chat:

• Parents should email me at brendabranson@gmail.com. I will need to add you to our “invite” list so that you can sign in at the time of the IVC. You will get an email saying that you have been added.
• You can sign up to join the live chat at WiZiQ.
• Just before we launch our live session, you will get an email inviting you to enter the session (if you have registered).
• If you have a microphone and webcam, you will be able to communicate using those. If not, you can type in responses in the chat box on the right side of the screen and participate that way.
• We will have more instructions and information about setting this up on this library blog under Summer Reading IVC. We have also prepared some tips for participation and posted to that page.

Schedule at 7:00 pm:

• June 30 Mystery
• July 28 Realistic Fiction

Crossing The Wire

…by Will Hobbs.  The following questions will guide you in our discussion on Thursday

Think about this story -  what  do you think will happen to Victor in  5 years?  Do you think he will be able to succeed?   Did you change in any way after reading this book?  What did you like or not like about the book?

Need Your Input

In closing out the year, I’d like to hear from you about the types of books, authors, and reading activities you enjoyed most this year. Please complete this survey.

View Survey

Media-gam-arama

After the SCASL conference in March, I became very interested in the idea of “gaming” in the library.  For years we’ve had checkers, chess, Trivial Pursuit, and Scrabble and the students love the idea of playing with the games.  I’ve always tried to make visits to the library media center fun and for some that meant games.  However, we went through a period when tech departments were instructed to come in and take all the games off desktops - “no playing Solitaire in school!”  District filters even blocked sites that have “game” related to it. 

Fortunately, we’ve done an about face at our school in relation to games - yes, I believe we’re still having some filter problems with a few game sites, but even so, the idea of engaging students with games has been integrated throughout the school’s curriculum.  While gaming, we see students engaged in cooperative learning situations, developing social skills, problem solving, decision making, and having loads of fun.   Our school has had Scrabble tournaments, the 6th grade had its own March Madness extravaganza, we own Webkinz for the school - one per grade level, PE classes use Dance, Dance, Revolution, Uno, the music department uses Guitar Hero,  we have had a Chess Club, and class sets of card decks can be found throughout the school.  Our library student work stations have bookmarked, several game sites for student  use and I’ve made it a passtime to continue searching for great student games, especially those with educational content.

90% of our staff is WOW (Working On The Work) trained and the commonality among our classrooms, is that total engagement of students, especially when involved in activities with game components featured as part of the learning.  I’ve been feeling pretty good about our exploration with games.  Except now!  I just read about a state movement to include games in education and library settings to the extent that they have correlated various and numerous games to their state curriculum standards.  The game featured on their blog Home page is even one I bought for my husband at Christmas, Snorta.  The School Library System of Genesee Valley BOCES  has done a remarkable job identifying games that support their curriculum standards.  Chris Harris has even aligned the premise behind some games and the skills involved with the AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner.  WOW, never did I think about how those basic board games that we all have stuffed away in our closets could be so closely related to the curriculum and provide hours of engaged learning in our schools! 

My goal for this summer is to clean closets in search of games, examine the games for their potential value in the media center, hit some yard sales, and add a new component to our library collection.  Of course, I can’t put down my Mac, so I’ll be constantly reading all those wonderful blogs and discovering other great games online.  If you have ideas or suggestions, please share in a comment on this blog.  Otherwise, be sure to check out some of these blogs that focus on gaming in the library.

Gaming School Libraries and the Curriculum

Library Gamer

Game On: Games In Libraries

The Shifted Librarian

Schu’s Blog of Lit and More

School Library Land