In the Media Center (Week 10)

Elementary Media Center

In the Media Center is going to be a new regularly appearing post from me. I plan to talk about what my students and I did the past week during their media classes. I am a K-12 media specialist who spends half days at the Elementary building and half days at the Middle School/High School building in our district of approximately 1300 students.

This semester I am starting my days at the Elementary building and seeing fifth graders and third graders on a four day rotation (50 minute classes) and traditional first and second graders on an alternate day rotation (25 minute classes). Our elementary school has a fixed schedule where all students in a grade level attend "specials" (art, media, music, and phy. ed.) at the same time so that their teachers have a common preparation time. 

This is the first week of the second quarter. 

Fifth Grade

Fifth graders are using Google Drive to create a spreadsheet. They will be keeping track of the number of pages they read each week outside of school. Most classes this week were adding formulas and formatting their spreadsheets. Here is my sample. I'll be keeping track this quarter too. 

Third Grade

Students are finally completing their book ad posters. We have chosen a book, read, summarized, entered our information into Word, chosen a picture, traced, colored, and designed. Now we have great new posters to decorate our media center and give younger students ideas of good books to choose.

Second Grade

Since our genre this week is fantasy, I read the first couple of chapters of Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne to the classes this week. About one third of the students had already read at least one book in the Magic Tree House series. We also learned to find the books in the media center. After my second class, there were no Magic Tree House books left on the shelf.

My Wednesday group watched this Mary Pope Osborne interview at Reading Rockets.

In the lab this week, students used Up to Ten Kids to play games. I assessed each student to determine if they could get to the website. They had to double click on the Computer icon, open the Lab drive, open the Second Grade folder, and double click on the game icon. I also had them change the icon sizes in the lab drive. Most students can do this quickly and easily now. 

First Grade

I read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordecai Gerstein to my classes this week on Monday and Tuesday. I explained that this book was nonfiction even though the pictures were drawn. They liked watching M. Petit walk between the towers but decided that they didn't want to do that themselves. 

On Wednesday, I read I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen. We discussed the implied fate of the rabbit who stole the hat. The students also did a dot to dot worksheet to confirm that they all knew alphabetical order. 

On Thursday and Friday in the lab, students navigated their way to the First Grade folder where they clicked the link to explore Super Why at PBS kids.