I'm working on revamping station ideas to tie them in with my Field Notes lessons. One of the stations I want to pursue is I am a Biographer and I thought I'd start with Women's History since it starts just next Tuesday.  Read Write Think had this great idea of creating a scrapbook for Women's History.  First, decide how to organize the scrapbook. Group entries thematically, such as Women in Sports, Women in Politics, or Women in Science. Pages can be arranged chronologically, by date, year, or decade. Students may also choose a unique approach, such as Women's History A-Z, with an entry for each letter of the alphabet. Use the  Alphabet Organizer  to get started. I like this because it can be done any month for this station, so I click on the Alphabet Organizer link. This lovely screen is what I see: Whoa! Wait! I thought I had Flash! Obviously I don't, so I click on the link and find out that they have retired Flash. mmmmmm that would explain why I've see...

 Winter Olympics Link

link to lesson

Link to Lesson

  I just finished an article y Joellen Killion called Are You Coaching Heavy or Light? I'm having a hard time finding it online, but if you search for it, you can download it.  Again, I'm drawing parallels from a coaching article to school librarianship, but they really aren't outside the realms of possibilities. I'm at the beach right now, so while the author uses the terms light and heavy, I'm thinking shallow and deep. We start out in the shallow end. We learn the terrain, grasp the temperature, better understand the way the water is moving. If we want to get more than our feet wet, however, we have to venture out into deeper waters. I laughed when I saw Ms. Killion used these terms near the end of the article! Possible shallow behaviors: book recommendations lists of websites materials that support read-alouds attending PLCs teaching that supports subject standards These are important as the help build relationships with teachers and students and they are defini...

I’ve been thinking a lot about the place that librarians have in the curriculum continuum in a school, and this has led me to reading books, blogs, and websites of curriculum coaches and a few principals.  Ms. Houser recently posted titled, “ How to clarify instructional coaching roles & responsibilities .” As I was reading it, I thought this could really be beneficial to school librarians too. I’m going to modify the list a bit to fit what we do.  1. Define what school librarians do .  Make a list of what you do daily, weekly, monthly, and even annually. As an elementary librarian, what people see me do is teach, and at times it may look like I’ve got a good bit of spare time. But there are so many things that go on in the background when I’m not teaching.  I loved that she included the question, “Where am I stretched thin?” Those times are on us before we know it, so let’s highlight them and see how we can make those times or tasks less cumbersome. Find a partn...

  Last school year was a bear for us all. We taught remotely, we taught combinations of remote and in-person, we taught multiple groups on different days, and we taught in person. We were told 6-feet was very important until there were too many kids in school to do 6-feet, then 3-feet became important. And let's see, how many first days did we have? Well, I quit counting so, I'm not really sure anymore! Thank goodness for summer! We have 8 weeks of summer break, and it's been a little more than a month now. When people ask what I've done, I say nothing. Glorious nothing. So I have done the following: watched TV read napped spent untold hours on social media lunched with friends played with the grandkids went on lots of long walks with Ron and lots of no-brain needed things ;) I focused on all those good nothing things that there just never seems to be enough time for during the school year!  But doing nothing isn't quite right. More tangible things have slipped into...

  I’m the immediate past president of NCSLMA this year, which means I get to serve on NCSLMA’s Conference Planning Committee. I served along with our president elect, Cindy Sturdivant, and the incoming president elect, Jenny Umbarger. This year’s conference proved to be as rewarding as it was unusual! Planning Under Cindy’s leadership, we made plans for a traditional conference. Then COVID hit, and NC all but shut down. Since we contract for several years out with our convention site, we moved forward with plans for a traditional conference. There were so many unknowns, but until NC called for a time extension on the shutdowns, we couldn’t  renegotiate the contract for 2020’s fall conference. Read more . . .

I walked into the new school library at Chatham Grove Elementary School for  the first time in May 2020. There was so much space! It was incredible! We  could host a square dance in between the eighteen double-sided rolling  shelves, four book carts, and two rolling chairs. The furniture looked so  small all by themselves. [...] You may view the latest post at https://knowledgequest.aasl.or g/when-you-give-a-school-libra rian-an-empty-space/

  NASA's OGO-1 satellite has finally returned to Earth after 56 years in orbit https://www.techspot.com/amp/ news/86615-nasa-ogo-1- satellite-has-finally- returned-earth.html After 56 years in orbit, this satellite splashes down near Tahiti. What technologies do we have today that we didn’t have when this satellite went up? How are satellites used? What was happening in NASA 56 years ago?  There was an article preview on the same page about a palm pilot which made me wonder what technologies have come and disappeared in that time frame. How does something that big falling into the ocean affect the living organisms? How has day-to-day living changed since the OGO-1 went up? (Or any single aspect of it!)

  A full “corn moon” rises tonight — and it only happens once every three years.   Unfortunately, this is yesterday’s news, but . . . Since it’s yesterdays news, it’s a good time to walk the kids through internet searching techniques to find more information on the  event . Key words, looking at the source for accuracy and authenticity, etc.  -Examine the lunar cycle/moon phases -How does this happen every three years when the moon phases every 29.53 days? This is also an amazing math exploration.  -Discuss the accuracy of the Farmer’s Almanac.  -How often do we have two full moons in the same month? For social studies —  This particular full moon is called other things in other countries. What cultural significance does the name hold in any of those countries? https://news.google.com/ articles/ CAIiEDLFz0Df5ZqfMCTK438Hll4qGQ gEKhAIACoHCAowyNj6CjDyiPICMJyF xQU?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US% 3Aen

This little piece is from Motorious, and it’s got some amazing cross curricular content in it.  Neighbor’s camera goes off every day about the same time. Culprit — little kid on bike.  For revenge, neighbor maps out a bike course for little kid! Wait! That’s not revenge. That’s a WIN! https://www.motorious.com/ articles/news/guy-catches- neighbor-kid/ Math — estimate the size of the double driveway. What’s the average size of a double car driveway in front of a house? How much area of that driveway could be covered with track and the track still be realistic to maneuver?  How does this change if the double driveway changes to a single? Angle measurements of track. Art — Well, the sky’s the limit on this one. I’m seeing Zentangles all over the place now.  Science — how do smaller spaces influence possible speed? And just how fast can a little kid travel on a bike? What happens if the driveway is on an incline? Bigger (or smaller) bikes change things. How? Social studi...

  Research shows a single  event  in the Boston area likely led to 20,000 COVID-19 cases (WXII) This article has some great math work to explore: -200 people attended the Biogen Conference in February.  -90 people contracted the virus. -20,000 were eventually infected by those 90.  How might that spread look in math terms? https://www.wxii12.com/ article/early-research-shows- a-superspreading- event -in-the- boston-area-likely-led-to- 20000-covid-19-cases/33800467

Did it really reach 130 degrees F in Death Valley? There are several interesting things in this very short piece to share with students: -information about the process for verification of temperatures -historical temperatures -and why Death Valley is such a hot spot https://www.wjhl.com/wjhl- weather/ask-storm-team-11-did- death-valley-reach-a-new- record-high/

How are things going in your state and district? In North Carolina, we’ve been waiting–waiting to hear what the governor would say and then waiting to hear how districts would respond. Anticipating a need, the Friday Institute developed a course…  Read More ›

I’m moving to a new school in a new district, and before I get there I want to plan for communication efforts. Developing a communication plans are not my problem! However, sticking to one gives me serious problems. One of…  Read More ›

My theme for the year has absolutely been change! From the moment we hit 2020, it’s been one change after another. Chatham County Schools, which is a little over an hour from here, advertised for a school librarian in their…  Read More ›

I think about conferences a lot. Anyone who has been a conference chair has a heightened level of appreciation for them. Conferences are yet another thing to add to COVID-19’s current list of casualties. Or are they? Educators are masters…  Read More ›

I almost dropped my phone when our district’s chief communications officer started a phone message with, “Welcome to week four of e-learning.” Week four! How in the world did that happen? What a shock! Where does the time go? And…  Read More ›