Category Archive

I can’t believe that this is the end of another school year.  If possible, this year has passed even more quickly than last!  I do feel so guilty that I have a great opportunity to hear what students are thinking about books, but I just can’t seem to get on a regular schedule with this blog-thing.  I must say, in my defense, that whenever I have the tiniest amount of free time, I read!  That means I am not writing in my blog!  Maybe I should have named this the BookReader….   So, I have promised myself that I will make the commitment to write on some sort of regular basis.  I just have to define what that is!  As the days of summer pass, I will be planning the launch of the BookBlogger for the school year 2008-2009.   Have a wonderful summer reading!

Last Friday our Reading Challenge celebrants had a great time with good food, good (once you get used to it) music, and good fun!  If you were not there, you missed out!  Readers received Mardi Gras beads and rings, ate Cubbies’ burgers and fries, and drank gallons of green voodoo juice (punch).  We finished up with King cupcakes for dessert.   I explained a little about the Louisiana celebration of Mardi Gras, which means Fat (Gras) Tuesday (Mardi) in French. This year the date was February 5th.   It is the last day before Lent begins, so there is the tradition of parades, lots of good food, and lots of fun that ends before the weeks leading up to Easter.  The King Cake is a pastry filled with many choices of sweets, iced with the royal colors of purple, green, and gold to represent the three Wise Men that visited the baby Jesus at his birth.

After we ate and drank, we played a little bingo for prizes.  We thank the moms that helped out with pickup and serving of the food and drinks!

At the end of the next quarter, we will have another great celebration and we would love to have everyone there!  The genres for this quarter are Non-Fiction: Mythology, Folklore, and Fairy Tales.  Read at least 4 books (it takes two to equal one link for the really skinny books).  There are so many subjects to choose from!   Keep reading!

Take a look at the pictures of these characters!  These are only a few of the fantastic “visitors” that have been showing up in Mrs. Lancaster’s room.  We also have a few other projects from the books that students have been reading on display in the library.  It really shows that these folks took the assignment seriously and did their best so that the rest of us could enjoy a part of their book!Thanks for sharing them, Mrs. Lancaster! 

(“The Clique” below; “War of the Worlds” below.)

Wow! We have wrapped over 3/4 of the library with our Wrapped Up in Reading chain! So far this quarter we have 25 students that have read 4 or more books from the genre categories of Mystery, Realistic Fiction, and Cultural Exploration.  I know you have been reading, so make sure you tell your LA teachers about the book and get a link for our chain. If you haven’t been reading in this quarter’s genres, then be sure to look at the next quarter’s. We would love to have as many folks as we can to join us and celebrate the habit and hobby of reading!The third quarter’s genres are: Non-Fiction, Mythology, and Fairy Tales/Folklore.  There are soooo many good books from these genres!  You can easily find a book you will enjoy that fits into one of them. We plan to celebrate our reading in the next week or so, so be sure to finish any book for this quarter by Friday.  Put your name on the chain link and turn it in to the library by 3 pm.Keep reading!

The Battle of the Books teams of Carteret County have been invited to a luncheon at Captain Bill’s Restaurant!  Afterward, we will walk over to the Webb Memorial Library to see for ourselves what’s up with the ghosts in there!  A special group of “ghost busters” has been hired to check out the library and the Battle of the Books teams will be the first to hear the results of their tests!  We’ll let you know what we find out!  Check back with us after November 2nd!

The Media Center is joining the crowd!   This year we are all jumping from our web pages to the more interactive blog.  It really is a minor thing, but when I think about it, it has not been that long since we were all setting up those brand new web pages that gave parents and students an inside track to teachers.  The ease of communicating through a blog does make a difference.  Both teachers and students get to express their thoughts.  I am hopeful that the written word will continue to be the main form of expression for awhile.  It is excellent practice of a necessary skill for all of us.  Unfortunately, the speed of growth and improvement in technology mean our next move will be to cameras and speakers.  Does the urge to drag my feet mean that I am getting too old??

Stay in touch with the Media Center!  I love to have your input as I work on book orders this fall!

Over a week ago I attended an inspiring technology conference.  Everything was moving in high gear and we could see enough of the future to know we need to redirect the educational path for our students.  But back at school on Thursday, the thoughts of ”our students are already so far behind that if we don’t do something soon, we will be last” came to a screeching halt.  An upcoming old fashioned, hand-held, print book competition became the focus. With the competition over and some time to reflect,  I rehashed the past few months of reading books, making time to practice with students,  and generally working with the rudimentary tools of paper and brain.   It is as if there are parallel worlds; one with the imagery of “the Jetsons” zooming past, and the other with the candle and charcoal of Mr. Lincoln.  I read somewhere that when our students come to school, they have to shift down from their multi-tasking technology to reach the turtle speed of the average classroom.   It seems there is a huge chasm.  There has to be a way to bridge this difference.  Many of us see the need to help move our students, i.e. future leaders, far from the ordinary education that we are used to and put them on the cutting edge of learning as we now see it coming.  But does it have to be Either/Or?

Today’s opening session with Will Richardson was jaw-dropper inspiring!  As he made each point, we found ourselves nodding in agreement, and it all made perfect sense.  However, I felt the tiniest inkling that he was preaching to the choir, so to speak.  Those of us in attendance, for the most part, already want to spread the joy of technology around.   We may not yet have the “passion” that Mr. Richardson mentioned, but we now have the motivation to take our smoldering embers of interest and fan them into flames.  It seems that our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to set the rest of the team, staff, school, community, etc., on fire with that passion and create lifelong learners using the ways of the future, not using the ways of the past.   

The sessions throughout the day had their ups and downs of technical difficulties, along with the slight let down of following an enthusiastic ”cheerleader” for the cause.   As our MCMS team compared notes, we found we had a good variety of experiences and a lot of good information.  After one more day of soaking up the offerings, we will be back on the road to reality at our home school.   Our challenge then will be organizing all this information and putting it to use to brain-wash (and I mean that in a good way!) the remaining staff.  We must do much teaching/leading by example for these little embers to turn to flames.

Last fall our school technology facilitator won (a competitor thinks there was some injustice…)a trip for 5 teachers from our middle school to attend the NCAECT conference in Raleigh.  And the time is here! Our team is leaving Morehead City Middle midday on Monday and will return much wiser on Wednesday.  The session descriptions are online and look like there are some pretty good choices.  Our team plan of attack is to spread out and hit them from all directions!  Then we will meet together over food and drink to debrief the successes of the day.  This is going to be exciting!  We will share the highlights on our blogs, so there will be much reading and writing over the next few days.  Come back to see us!

So I have officially been welcomed to WordPress, the blog-o-matic of the internet world.   So far, so good.   I’m learning as I go, so please forgive any major goof-ups.   This is going to be a great opportunity!  I’m told that sharing your thoughts and experiences in an open arena can build bridges of communication with folks that you will probably never meet, but would like to talk to.  I may not share a lot of thoughts, but I am always anxious to hear yours.  (There may be people out there who know me and laugh heartily at the previous statement.)   I know that some students do not like to be seen talking to an adult, so I am hoping to get some good input from those that are at least willing to write it!  So, here we go!

My first topic is:  What is your favorite technological device?  This can be anything that you feel is invaluable to your everyday existence, or just something you think is pretty neat!

I get to go first.  My answer is the cellular telephone.  Although I have not had one for as many years as some people, I have become rather dependent on it.  I can go on with many pros and cons, but I am asking YOU what you think.