Grade 7 and 8 Overnight Trip to Mansfield Outdoor Centre

So students are about to embark on a three day, two night trip to Mansfield Outdoor Centre, which is located just 1 hour from Toronto in the beautiful area of Mulmur. Students will be staying in the cabins at the Main building and will be participating in a variety of outdoor based activities. Essentially, our students will be coming to a traditional kind of summer camp, only we're going during the school year.

I believe strongly in the value of getting kids outside and having them experience nature, learn and be connected with their world. Once you get them outside and experiencing and learning they love it and become even more curious. Richard Louv author of the "Last Child in the Woods", discusses the importance of kids gaining independence and getting outside.

These types of activities are so important for our kids. Firstly, many of our kids never get to come to a place like Mansfield and experience the outdoors. So many of my city kids have no idea what it's like to spend 24/7 outdoors, in nature.

When we come here kids  get an opportunity to explore the nature. We give them freedom within a set of boundaries. For instance, during free time kids can go and explore the area as long as they see the main building at all times. This rule allows kids to explore approximately a 4 or 5 acre area while still being within eyesight of our home base. The kids play soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. They explore the fields. I make the rule that students can climb trees as long they stay on branches that are thicker than their wrist. The reality is they never really get very far off the ground but it feels like a huge freedom. So many of them have never climbed trees before. Last year we taught a group to make a horn noise by blowing on thick pieces of grass. Some of them were so entertained by this they spent the whole week playing with grass horns.

The programs we participate in are also extremely valuable. Kids, participate in pond study, where they investigate pond creatures, or they complete orienteering maps and explore the forest. They learn about nature through experiential education.

I'm truly looking forward to this trip and can't wait to see what happens.

The Twits by Roald Dahl and using Imovie to Summarize!

Having recently purchased Imovie for our iPads, Mrs. Camarda and myself decided to utilize the pre-made trailers within Imovie as a tool for teaching students to summarize a novel. Mrs. Camarda utilized an audio book version of "The Twits" by Roald Dahl to read the story to students, in class. They then completed several comprehension activities with in the classroom.
Mrs. Camarda and I then sat down to plan how we would introduce the idea of creating a movie trailer to the students. We decided to have the students create a storyboard that showed, in detail each scene they would film. We asked them to think about the important events in the book and how those events would look were you to view them in movie format.  Each trailer comes pre-made with background music and captions which students could edit. The students were told to choose a particular style of trailer and then to plan out their scenes using the storyboard we provided to them. Students were given two periods to create their storyboards and to plan out their props, etc.
The filming was completed in the library. The different groups were able to spread out and utilize different areas of the library for their scenes. Many of the students created some pretty impressive props which included wings for the bird and a real pie. Students were then given three class periods to film their scenes, and edit their work. Students were very excited about the project and worked well with each other. They began to get creative with their work. In one instance students made balloons out of construction paper then laid them on the floor and a student pretended to hold on to them to create the appearance that he was flying. Other students utilized the screen shot feature in the iPads to take images from the web, edit them using our photo editing app, then insert these images into their trailers. One group asked to utilize an app that puts beards on people to insert an image of Mr. Twit into their work. There were very few conflicts, etc.
The end result has been extremely positive. The trailers are well done and students have shown a general enjoyment of the project.

We asked several students what they feel they have learned from this project. The following are direct quotations from the students.

"I learned that in a group you can't use all of your own ideas you have to compromise."
"Things have to get cut out sometimes or changed if you want to finish the project."
"There's a lot we can do with an iPad."
"Summarizing is hard you really have to focus on the important parts because not everything can fit in the trailer."

Mrs. Camarda and I talked about these comments after the students had left and we were impressed with their perceptions of the learning. They weren't interested in reciting facts to us rather the students mentioned learning life skills like creativity, flexibility and the ability to cooperate. We feel the project has been very successful and hopefully we will post several of the trailers here for people to view.

Photo Essays on Migration

Recently, students in Mrs. Naidu's grade 8 geography class completed a research assignment on the push and pull factors that affect human migration. Students utilized smart ideas to organize and map out information which compared the quality of life in Canada to life another country. Students utilized The CIA World Factbook, and many other sites to find information about birth rates, literacy rates, unemployment rates, etc. Students then took this information and synthesized it into a photo essay with captions for their chosen images. Students had many different options available for creating the photo essays. Some used the iPad or their Mac book, others used Prezi or PowerPoint. We gave them many options for creating their photo essays.
Students were given several periods to research their topics and Mrs. Naidu and myself guided the students through the numerous facts and information as they built their webs on Smart ideas. All in all the results were pretty successful. Students learned a great deal and had to do a lot of thinking about their topics. Some found that their countries weren't very different Canada in terms of health care, education, etc. These students really had to think about what might draw a person here to Canada if their home country was so similar to our own. We watched the students think they're way through the project and learn a great deal about life in other countries. Many of the students were surprised by infant death rate in many countries. It's fairly unheard of here in Canada to lose a child so this statistic surprised them quite a bit.
The project was an enjoyable experience for both teachers and students and the results were valuable. We look forward to working together on the same project next year. Of course there will be items that will be tweaked and the amount of data will probably be lessened. Student feedback on the project mentioned that this was a difficulty they had with the project.

Below are some links to examples of the project and the finished photo essays.
Jordan's Photo Essay
Nesha's Photo Essay as a website
Amy's Morocco Photo Essay

A Fall Report on our Library

I just wanted to write up a little progress report on the activities occurring here in the library over the fall term. There’s been a lot and I’ve learned a lot. We have a lot to do still to keep building this place into a learning commons.

My Goal to build this library!!!

1. A welcoming, service-oriented, tech-rich environment that is open on a regular basis and that invites students in to find resources and services that support their work.
2. Comfortable reading areas that attract students to books and to developing the lifelong habit of reading.
3. Comfortable working areas that enable different groupings of students to work, from independent learners, to pairs and small groups to whole-class instruction.
4. 24/7 access to digital resources as well as a collection of dynamic print resources all supporting curriculum and reading.
5. An area that would invite teachers, and guests to work with a class or group, with the support of the teacher-librarian to present multimedia or other performances.
6. A place that would provide students and teachers with opportunities to learn more advanced technology skills and create more complex digital products.
7. A place that is available for teachers to work in groups in workshops/lunch n’ learns to build new skills or collaboratively develop new resources, tools, etc.
8. provide a multitude of literacy initiatives and reading programs

Total number of Forest of Reading Books - 160
Total number of students participating in Forest Voting - 194 signed up
Activities for Forest of Reading

• Book Club
• Award Design Contest
• Talks with Expert Teachers
• Voting
• Imovie for the blog

Library Helpers
Currently 17 students come to the library regularly to shelve and restock books and help with maintaining the library

Study Hall
This runs Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 99% of the time I’m full and have to turn people away


Total number of checkouts to date - 2971
grade 6 total = 567
grade 7 total = 847
grade 8 total = 784

Total new items purchased by year
2011 - 503
2012 - 788

Total number of items in the library
Books - 2594
easy read/picture - 246
Graphic novel - 210
Magazine subscriptions - 8
Prof reference - 334
encyclopedias/reference - 180

Age of Books
Average age of books is 11 years old by publication year
2004 - 1111 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2001 - 887 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction
2008 - 442 total books published this year these are fiction and non-fiction

Graph Age of books by Dewey system

Teacher Research/Collaboration

• grade 6 research for Biodiversity - students researched and created presentations using poster board or prezi or powerpoint
• group research on Aboriginal peoples - students created a presentation for class on a specific group of native people
• completed Dare Arts cards
• research for grade 8’s completed Island City project
• grade 7 french project to create comics using Bitstrips
• utilized Tumble books
• website creation with live reenactment utilizing twitter for confederation
• recording radio advertisements in french for restaurants
• utilizing ipads and screenchomp for explaining websites for a charity “Shattered” novel study
• utilize computers to work on gizmos for science
• utilizing Imovie to create TV ads for a French Restaurant
• utilizing Ipads to film skit for french
• research project on mixtures and solutions end product was powerpoint or prezi
• research project with students on Canadian Artists
• research project on famous musicians students create a presentation for the class, like Prezi, powerpoint, frames 4, or jeopardy
• research project for migration students are creating photo essays on push and pull factors
• robotics project
• collaborating with me to train students on premier

Upcoming Projects/Plans

• using both the cart in class and the lab students will do research for cells
• will use Imovie to create trailers for the book the Twits - we will split the class and do storyboards then alternate filming times
• students will research water then create children’s stories about water utilizing Storybird
• utilizing audacity to make podcasts in music

6 Teachers bring their classes for regular book exchange

Fundraising

• Book Fair - 250$ - store credit
• Chapter’s night - 400$ - gift card
• Dare Arts - 95$ - cash
• Adopt a School - 500$ - gift card

Major Expenses for library budget

• Purchasing Fiction titles appropriate for grade 6’s - 1500
• Purchasing Graphic novels - 500
• Purchasing replacement book tape - 150$
• Repair books - 195$
• Magazine subscriptions 275$
• Incidentals like barcodes, magazine racks and board games took up the rest

Lessons learned from this year so far

• I can’t let teachers book regular weekly periods for computer use. There isn’t enough flexibility to schedule around them in 4 period day
• I needed to purchase more than 8 copies of Red Maple for Forest - they’re very popular
• The cart is a huge maintenance issue - reliable students should be trained in September to help with upkeep
• Cell phones are too small for BYOD to be useful awkward for kids to read
• The cart needs to monitored every period to ensure everything is back
• If Ipads are constantly plugged in to charge the battery dies
• Netbooks must be shut down with each new user or you can’t get on the network
• Each Wi Fi hub has 30 logins
• The cart is heavy
• Not everyone knows that you can sign out books from the library
• Not everyone knows that they can bring kids to the library to do research and collaborate/team teach with me
• Many teachers aren’t aware of the need to scaffold research so students of all levels are successful
• I have a lot to learn :))))

Gearing up for the Forest of Reading!!!

We are currently gearing up to kick off our Forest of Reading event in our school. Every year the Ontario Library Association hosts the Forest of Reading, which is a celebration of Canadian Authors. Our Forest of Reading program is funded through our chocolate fundraiser. Each year we use some of the fundraising money to purchase the books for students.

There are several different categories. Our school participates in Silver Birch Fiction, Silver Birch Non-Fiction, Silver Birch Express, Red Maple Fiction, Red Maple Non-Fiction, and White Pine.
Here's an introductory video about the program.

Here's what kids have to say!!!

There are many ways that students can participate in the program, here at RHL. Students can read the books for sheer enjoyment and leave a quick note on our blog or on our comment board in the library. They can choose to participate in our book club which will run during the last half of period 2 on Thursdays. Students may wish to participate in our book reviews which will be posted (with parent permission) on this blog site. Students may also wish to participate in the Forest of Reading contest. The contest allows students to vote on and decide on the best books in the Forest of Reading this year. They must read at least 5 books from any one category in order to be eligible to participate in voting. The winners of the contest will be announced in the spring. We will have a Forest of Reading celebration at the end of the year which will recognize the success of our students.

School Library Staffing is on the Decline

In an earlier entry I discussed staffing and formulas used to decide just how much staffing a school library receives  The reality is that funding for school libraries is in heavy decline. Funding for libraries has been decreasing. Statistics and many different studies say this is a bad thing. A recent article by CBC News discussed a report by People for Education. The report discusses the decline of school libraries and the important role libraries play in student success.

The report by the group People for Education found 56 per cent of Ontario elementary schools in 2010 have at least one full- or part-time teacher-librarian, an accredited teacher who has library training. That's down from 80 per cent in the 1997/1998 school year, according to the report, which was released Monday morning.

Meanwhile, 66 per cent of secondary schools across the province have at least one teacher-librarian, down from 78 per cent in 2000/2001, when the group first started tracking data for high schools. CBC News

Libraries play an important role within the school. It offers a place for work to be completed, literacy to be encouraged and perhaps its most important role is as a support resource role for teachers. Quite often I meet with teachers to discuss teaching strategies and ideas for promoting literacy and content understanding, in their students.

Annie Kidder from People for Education also sites the importance of Libraries in helping to improve student achievement.

Teacher-librarians play an important role in helping children find information, evaluate and thinking critically about it and then applying it, said Annie Kidder, the executive director of the group in an interview.

"These kinds of skills that sort of help kids in what we are calling these days the knowledge economy are incredibly important," she said.   

When I first arrived at Lagerquist,  9 years ago, as a classroom teacher we had a full time Librarian who supported teachers through many different initiatives including the Forest of Reading and a research skills program. She was reduced to 80% the following year and then as years passed the job was again reduced to 50%. It was only this past year that the allocation was increased due to the arrival of grade 6 students at our school.

The state of our library is pretty good all things considered. We have new computer and work tables as well as well as Wi-Fi and a full computer lab available right in the library. We have a supportive principal who believes in the importance of a library and she has given me a lot of freedom to encourage use of the library. Students are free to visit during the day to complete work and to utilize technology. We are extremely short on books though. We're about 1000 titles short for a school our size but fundraising efforts are helping this. Visit our adopt a school site. I enjoy having the library open as much as possible in order to help students and teachers. I notice an excitement in the kids when we discuss books and kids are flocking to the technology we are offering students in the library.

There are many schools that can't say they have this much, I know that but this doesn't mean we can't keep building towards something even better. This is my goal to build up the library to make it the hub of the school.