Weekly Roundup: GoodReads and Science News for Kids

This week was mainly about pleasure reading. (yay!)
Here's what we did:

Grade 9 English: 
Guiding Question - Why use GoodReads?

Grade 9 English teachers have set themselves a goal to increase their students' pleasure reading outcomes. They have agreed that students will read whatever they choose and that they will give time in class for silent pleasure reading. When they came to me to ask about a way to structure this, I jumped on the idea of setting students up with GoodReads accounts.

My reading goal ends in December

GoodReads has been the #1 way I sustain my motivation to read. As I tell students, I love to read, but I also love to watch TV! Sometimes it's hard to make time to read when it's easier to sit and chill. What keeps me going with books? GoodReads. Knowing my friends are out there reading and sharing keeps me motivated to do the same.

My Shelves

Students created accounts, set their privacy and notification settings, created avatars for their profile pictures, and set a reading goal for now through December. We talked about adding "shelves" to help sort or categorize their books. They "friended' others in their classes and their teachers and are expected to check their updates at least once a week. In short, they accomplished a lot in one session!

We'll meet next week to see how it's going and talk about writing good "blurbs." 

Grade 6 Humanities: 
Guiding Question - What's the difference between "Middle Fiction" and "Fiction"?

"Middle" Fiction books

Our sixth grade Humanities teachers are committed to making time for students to find books in the library and giving students time to read for pleasure. In this first session, students learned how to find books using the catalog, "Destiny Quest," and we talked about the difference between "Middle Fiction" and "Fiction." 

Middle Fiction books are chosen for their topics; these books deal with issues appropriate for sixth through eighth graders. The reading level of these books covers a wide range from elementary level through high school level. The topics also vary widely: school stories, friendship issues, horror, light romance, and historical fiction such as the Holocaust. It's a section that's good for everyone.

"Fiction" books

Fiction books are chosen for their topics and reading level. The topics are appropriate for students in grades 9 and up, although some middle school students may find topics of interest to them as well. The reading level of books in the "Fiction" section is geared toward the upper grades. 

Middle Schoolers checking out books from the "Fiction" section learn to read the back cover and inside flap of their books to make an informed choice about the content, and they learn to read the first pages to make a choice about the difficulty of the text.

Grade 7 Science: 
Guiding Questions - How should we choose a news article for our Science project? What's the difference between browsing and searching?

Our grade 7 Science teacher asks students to complete four reviews during the year about science articles they have found interesting. In our session, we reviewed the two key "musts" for finding a good article: 

1) it's interesting
2) we can read and understand it! 

We talked about the difference between browsing and searching. Browsing is when we're poking around and getting ideas about what we're interested in. Searching is when we know exactly what we want to find. To begin this assignment, most students chose to browse. 

They started the browsing process using selected online resources (linked from our new library website). We also showed our print collection of magazines. Science News, Popular Science, and National Geographic all have articles for seventh graders ready for a more challenging read. Current and back issues can be checked out to read at home, and we have a photocopier in the library for student use, too.

After showing various science news sites,

we talked about how to search by reading level in google. 

We can filter or narrow our search by choosing "Search Tools" after entering our search terms. One of the search tools is "Reading Level" and that gives us three filtering options: basic, intermediate, and advanced. 

We looked at sample sites at each reading level to get a sense of how dense the text can be in various websites.

Finally, we talked about saving articles. Students learned to use the "Share" button found on most websites to send articles to their email. 

EAL (English as an Additional Language):
Guiding Question - How can we find books for our age with words we can understand?

An "Interest Level" search

Students in middle school who are just starting to learn English have a special challenge when it comes to finding books. They need simple vocabulary, such as those written for elementary-age readers, but they want stories that deal with topics for teenagers. 

Then add a "Reading Level" search

Happily, Destiny Quest lets students narrow their search for books by interest level and then by reading level. Students can choose their current grade for interest level and a lower grade for reading level. This gives them a book for a teenage audience with basic vocabulary.

We also have a section of books put aside especially for EAL readers. These are shorter books with beginning vocabulary that have covers with teen appeal.

Book Talk Tuesday

On Tuesdays, I'll feature two books: one for Middle Grades and one for High School. 

One Year in Coal Harbor, by Polly Horvath
MF HOR

This is the companion to Everything on a Waffle, which I have not read! Those who have read it will probably love this book even more than I did. 

This was my first experience with Primrose, the spunky narrator of the story. She's eager and interested in everything that goes on in her coal-mining town: she plays match-maker for two of her favorite grownups, becomes involved with protests against a logging company, and keeps up with her best (boy) friend and school all the while.

The best part of the story is Primrose's voice. She comes through loud and clear and has some great lines. One of my favorites: 

"Maybe we don't live in a just universe. 

Maybe we live in a universe where 
all you have control over 
is your own kindness." (p. 144)

Author's website

Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
F CAS

This fantasy kept me spellbound. Main character Katsa has the "Grace" or special talent of killing. The king of her land uses her to do his dirty work, and she's resigned to doing his bidding for the rest of her life. But when she meets Po, another Graceling, he helps her see what her true talents are. She surprises herself and the reader with what she discovers.

The story clips along with few flashbacks; we forge ahead with the characters as they wrestle through their quest to find a mysterious kidnapper, traversing seven kingdoms and defying heart-stopping challenges in the process.

Graceling Book Trailer

Happy Back-to-School

I'm kicking off my year in the middle and high school library with some new books to catalog, bulletin boards to freshen up, and LOTS of names to learn. The space is bigger than my previous library, so it's time to decorate!

Happily, I have been pinning ideas from Pinterest for months. These are the boards made the cut for our first day. Some of these pins link only to images; will the owner please stand up?

iRead: This board should be pretty versatile. I'm hoping to add students' faces on the screens. For now, it shows titles of Middle Grade books. I used the Apple font "Myriad" for the sign and throughout the library.

Photo-Collage made at Fotor.com

Read a Latte! - This seemed like a fun way to introduce a new policy: Drinks are now allowed in the library! 

They must be in bottles with screw caps or travel mugs with secure lids. Our school has a coffee shop just down the hall, so students can have their hot drink made in their travel mug and walk it down to the library to enjoy while they read or work. 

Before You Post...Think! We'll be talking about online safety and cyber-manners all year long. This board is a good reminder about how our online life should mirror the good behaviors we show every day. We're kind, We're friendly, We're helpful. 

Rules to live by: 
My mantra this year...

"Be Kind. 
Be Generous.
Be Forgiving. 
We all make mistaks." 

by Peter Reynolds




Fun Sign Makers:

Try RedKid.net and Says-It.com for templates like MacDonald's signs, Las Vegas style neon, and an iPhone.

I figure people are more likely to read the rules if they look semi-fun.

So that's Library Decoration, Round 1. There are still more boards to do...and plants. We need lots of plants! And a fish tank would be cool. And, and, and! Yes, I love my job.

Got Questions? Get Answers with Follett workshop trainings

I attended my first Follett training a year ago when we hosted Larry, "the Destiny Doctor", and two other Follett reps at our school in Budapest. I found the sessions so helpful, I attended again this past spring - this time at the International School of Prague.

Let's face it. Cataloging intricacies are low on my list of priorities during the busy days at school. When new books arrive, I dig into the cataloging aspect of the job and really enjoy it, but most of the time I barely think about it.

That's why these yearly trainings have been great for me. During the year, I keep track of little nagging questions or "enhancements" I'd like to see added to the program, and when it's time for the training, I get a chance to get everything answered and aired with the people who can actually DO something about them. It's exciting!

I was lucky to be in a two-day workshop with other librarians who were very experienced in Follett's Destiny program. We skipped through some basics really quickly and got right into the nitty-gritty details that can make our resources uber-accessible to our patrons and make us look ultra-professional with statistics and such.

So - long story short: I learned a lot. Here are four tips and tricks I picked up that may be useful to YOU!

1)   Problem: 
Patrons hold books that are "IN".

In my elementary library, we are WAY too busy to pull books that kids put on hold that are already IN. We tell the kids, "If it's IN, go get it! :)" But they still sometimes do it, and then wonder why they never get the book. 

Solution: In Access Levels > Patrons > Patrons Tab > Self Empowered > UNCHECK "place holds on available copies.

This takes the "hold" button away if a copy is available. YAY.

2)   Problem: 
Linking to items in a resource list doesn't work from outside the program.

For example, if a teacher grabs the link to a resource list and posts it on his or her class web page, it doesn't work.

Solution:

Locate the suffix number of your particular catalog. You can find it from your library's Destiny home page. It will probably be something like "100" or "101". 

Grab the URL of the resource list you want linked

Paste it in the address bar and add "&site=" and the suffix number.

In my school it's "

&site=100" in the elementary and "

&site=101" in the middle/high.

This new link will be a permalink to the Resource list. When you add titles to the list...it will show the latest changes. Oooh!

Note: If you use Remote Hosting, there is a different process which we did not get to.

3)   Problem: I want to print a list of 
books with the summary notes, too.

Solution:

Create a list of books

Choose "Bibliography" and "Include Notes"

Print!

4)   Problem: When placing a large Follett order, I'd like to see a breakdown of exactly what I'm getting.

For example (and this did happen to me recently) do I have a crazy percentage of early readers on my "to-buy" list?

Solution:

Ask your sales rep to turn on the "Analyze" feature in Titlewave. This is not the same as the collection analysis that you probably already use (to see the date of your collection, and overall statistics), and it's not the same feature that tells you if you already own something on your list. 

This tells you a percentage breakdown of what you are about to order.

Handy if you have to submit reports or other justification with your purchase orders!

Hope you found this helpful. 

See you at Destiny!