May 2013

Library News

                                                                        by C. LOng

 

What have our students been learning this spring?

 

6^th graders:

Students in sixth grade have been learning about digital citizenship and internet safety.  They created projects in VoiceThread and Prezi to demonstrate their understanding and to learn new presentation tools.  Creating a project in iMovie is next.

 

5th graders:

Students have been studying Westward Expansion; they completed their four paragraph essays which they typed in MS Word.  New technology skills they acquired include: adding and citing images, adding text boxes and footers, using spell check, and various formatting tools.  

 

4^th graders:

Fourth graders have been researching and creating projects in PowerPoint about Canada and its provinces.  Students have honed their presentation skills with PowerPoint. A study of Mexico is coming up. 

 

3^rd graders:

A third grade project this spring addressed social studies and technology standards.  Students used both book and online encyclopedias to research famous Baystaters and used the software, Timeliner, to show what they learned.  Next students will research the flora and fauna in the habitat behind our school.

 

2nd Grade

Each student was assigned a different country and used non-fiction books to learn about what came from that country that we have here in the U.S.  Students presented the posters they created.  The project addressed many learning standards including Social Studies, Information Literacy, and English Language Arts. 

 

1^st Grade

First graders learned about the national symbols.  The unit reinforced Social Studies standards and English Language Art (parts of a non-fiction book). 

 

Kindergarten

Using the software program, Kid Pix, students wrote a rhyming sentence and drew a picture about their favorite place to read. Students have enjoyed some classic read-alouds and coming up, each class will use Kid Pix to create a class alphabet book.

                                                  

This spring we have been celebrating literacy with reading incentive programs and a community read aloud.  There have been reading incentive programs for both the lower and upper grades.  The lower grades logged over 1000 hours of reading during our “Apples Up on Top” challenge.  Many of our upper grade students are reading 5 or more books from a special collection in the Library.  Some have created their own goal of reading 10+ books!  New this year, 5^th and 6^th graders are enthusiastically blogging their book reviews. 

 

All books will be due back in the library by Friday, May 31.

Exceptions will be made for special circumstances, for example if a student needs a book to complete a project.  Library classes will continue, students will finish projects and participate in activities that review library skills that they have learned throughout the year.  Librarians from the Sargent Memorial Library will be visiting library classes in June to talk about the public library’s summer reading program.