Summer Reading Celebration

Last Monday I had the privilege of honoring all the students who turned in proof of summer reading to me. Almost 150 students took the time to tell me about their efforts--either by turning in a reading log, chart, Durham County Library certificate, or hand-written letter.  I am so proud of these students who made reading a priority over the summer!! As our assistant principal told the students, reading can open our minds to new worlds, new perspectives, and it's fun!

The students were fortunate to be entertained by UNC professor and storyteller, Dr. Brian Sturm. Dr. Sturm is head of the Story Squad, a story-telling group at the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Story Squad's mission is to "re-integrate storytelling into the early learning experiences of all children to help them develop pre literacy skills..." The 1st-3rd graders enjoyed hearing folktales while the 4th-5th graders heard an urban legend and New Zealand folktale. We are so grateful to Dr. Sturm for donating his time to our special event! 

After the storytelling entertainment, students self-selected a new book and book mark to keep. Thank you to all our parent volunteers who helped make these events possible for our students. Hopefully we'll have even more summer readers join us at next year's celebration! Great job, manatees! 

Chromebooks!

An exciting addition to our technology equipment this year is the purchase of 2 Chromebooks carts. Students in 4th and 5th grade have already been trained on the use of these carts and 2nd/3rd grades will be trained soon. These trainings provided a good opportunity for me to discuss what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. I began the discussion by stressing the importance of protecting ones private information online. We are so grateful for these new devices and the learning that will take place because of them!

Welcome back, Learners!

All students visited the Media Center for an orientation in the past few weeks. A few of the activities included a scavenger hunt, digital citizenship review, book care talks, and creating skits to show our Manatee Manners. Check out a few pictures from those visits!

Open House

It was wonderful to see so many families at our Open House the week before school started. It's going to be an exciting year of learning in the Media Center!

Help is always appreciated in the Media Center. If you are interested in volunteering your time to reshelve books, help with morning check out, or assist with other library tasks, please contact me:

Elizabeth Husketh

Emily.husketh@dpsnc.net

Summer Reading!

Even though the school year is ending, it's not time to close the books! It is imperative for students' learning development to read throughout the long summer months. This 3 month period can be a time of learning loss for students who return to school unprepared to begin the next grade. We call this loss the 'summer slide' (read more here) and students at Club Boulevard can prevent this by simply reading!

I asked families to take the Summer Reading Pledge to combat this summer slide. So many families pledged to read this summer and visit the Durham County Library.

To encourage students to read throughout the summer, I also host a Book Swap for Summer Reading. Students in grades K-5 visited the swap to hear about my summer reading incentives, the Durham County Library Summer Reading program, and to select gently used books to kickstart their summer reading. Each student also received a bag and bookmark. Thanks to the generous donations of Club Blvd. families, I'm happy to report we gave away over 2,500 gently used books to our happy readers!

And a new addition to my summer reading incentives this year is a pilot program for select students to check out books from our Media Center collection, With parent approval, students could check out up to 8 books with the promise to read and return them by the first week of school in August. Families will have several opportunities to exchange the books over the summer if they choose. 

All students who turn in proof of summer reading to me will be invited to our September Summer Reading Celebration! Have fun reading this summer!! 

2nd Semester Reflection

We are nearing the end of another year full of learning and growing in the Club Blvd. Media Center! The second semester was filled with meaningful collaboration lessons, reading encouragement activities, and lots of fun! You can see some of the highlights in the data report below. Also, to help me reflect on the year and plan for next year, I'm gathering feedback from parents about the Media Center program. The survey can be accessed at the links below:

English survey: http://tinyurl.com/clublibrary

Spanish survey: http://tinyurl.com/clublibro

And just in case you missed it, the 1st semester report can be seen here: http://clubmediacenter.blogspot.com/2015/01/1st-semester-reflection.html