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New and Notable:

EARTH DAY!
Posted Thursday, April 13, 2000
Check out the special Earth Day link that includes activities, projects, and Internet resources to help you celebrate our planet all month long.

Poetry Fun For Kids
Posted Wednesday, April 12, 2000
Check our websites for some terrific poetry ideas to use with kids. These are not just for use in the classroom, they'd be lots of fun to bookmark for those rainy summer days!

The Book Police?
Posted Monday, March 20, 2000
At least once every two weeks, I will receive a phone call either from a teacher or a parent asking me to not check out certain materials to students. I’d like to explain why I don’t feel that this is something that is appropriate for me to be doing.

First of all, librarians agree to uphold the First Amendment. I feel very strongly that ethically, I won't be the censor for students and their choices of reading materials. Often kids (especially boys) will take nonfiction books that they can't read, but they enjoy the subjects, such as dinos, cars, machinery, animals, etc. I teach students that pictures and illustrations in nonfiction books are considered primary resources (according to the Minnesota Grad Standards for Media), and that a lot of information is found in them. One thing that we hope to add to our collection are high interest, low readability books. Books about cars, animals, etc. that primary students can read alone.

To me, it is a parent's responsibility to monitor what their kids are reading, not your child’s teacher or mine. If there are materials that some parents find controversial, I encourage the parents and children to read them together and discuss it, or the parents can tell their children that they would prefer that they choose something else.

Now, if they are interested in me steering the kids to books that they can read alone, I can do that. Or I can help that find a particular author, illustrator, I can suggest books that might interest them, but I will always let them choose one they want.

Starting with Kindergarten through second graders, I have students bring a note from home if their parents want them to be taking “chapter books”, as often they will read them together. Sometimes the classroom teacher will send a note if she/he wants students taking “chapter books”. (“Chapter books” are books found in the Fiction section, generally with few pictures, and often more difficult to read.)

Kids of all ages enjoy being read to. Watch what your students bring home, read them together, discuss them. They will remember that experience always, and it’s a wonderful cycle to start for them in their own lives.

Parents are welcome to stop in to discuss this, e-mail me at school, or give me a call between 8:30-9:10 each morning. My phone is 616.3215, e-mail psharon@lfalls.k12.mn.us.

Lights! Camera! Action!
Posted Monday, March 20, 2000
It seems as though television plays a huge part in our daily lives. It keeps us informed of the up to the minute things that are happening in the world, extends our boundaries of living and let’s us experience things that we would otherwise not be able to experience. My personal opinion is, maybe not experiencing all of it would be a “good thing”, on the other hand, television has truly changed our lives.

In order to form a better understanding of television, to more critically view it, the fifth grade students are in the process of creating their very own television shows. We are spending time learning about what can and cannot be put on television, how ads are created, as well as:

-Question creation (how to formulate effective questions to get
information)
-Interviewing skills
-Informational writing
-Oral presentations
-Camera operation, techniques
-Audio equipment operation, techniques

Each class will create (write, direct, act in and film) a variety of three to four shows, everything from a news show to game shows. Each class will also create a minimum of two ads. The end results are always fun to watch, and the students have learned so much during the process.

I will be doing a documentary about the kids working through and learning this whole process. If all of the technology works, you should be able to view it on my web site in May.

This and That
Posted Monday, March 20, 2000
Can you believe the school year has gone so fast? Seems like only yesterday I was planning all of the new ideas that I wanted to try with the students of Lindbergh Elementary, and now I’m planning for the last eight sessions of the year!

Check the web page often to be updated, as all classes are doing lots of different things.

Thanks to all of those who have been so good about returning their books. We circulate around 3000 books per week-- isn’t that great?