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

Bring your Books Back, Please....

Today is THE DAY for all student library books to be returned to the Media Center. In light of this request, I wanted to share this video that a very creative NC librarian, Mary Evelyn Smith, made to encourage her students to return their books! :)

Severe Weather Research with 2nd grade!

Tornadoes, blizzards, drought, thunder and lightning!!
Mr. Wallace's 2nd graders visited the Media Center yesterday to work on independent research about severe weather. Students had a choice of 2 websites to utilize: PebbleGo which they frequently use and MyCapstoneLibrary, an interactive Ebook site I introduced them to.  Both of these websites provide effective methods for differentiating learning and addressing multiple learning styles. Plus, they are engaging and fun! Students love them!

Each student filled out a KWL chart in the classroom and then arrived in the Media Center with further questions to answer such as: How does your severe weather form? What damage does it cause? How do you stay safe during the severe weather?

After recording what they learned on their pre-planning sheet, students used both charts to write a final draft in paragraph form. Great job, manatee learners! 

National Library Week

We celebrated National Library Week (April 13-17) at Club Blvd. with a variety of fun contests and giveaways!

Students could enter 6 different contests:
• Write a poem about the library or reading.

• Answer this question: How has the Media Center helped you this year?

• Draw a color picture of your favorite book character and write a few sentences telling us why it is your favorite.

• Invent a comic superhero and draw your superhero self-portrait! (Big Nate style :))

• Estimate how many books we have in our Media Center collection.

• Draw the book cover for the next Junie B. Jones book—you choose the title!


We had several hundred creative entries from kids in grades K-5. Stop by the Media Center to see a sampling on display. Random books were also marked as prize winners throughout the library. The lucky kid who checked one out won a bookmark on the spot!! :)

Contest winners were announced every day last week--over 50 students won! Prizes included gift certificates to our Bedford Falls Book Fair, posters, book packs, t-shirts, and more. Check out the pictures below of some of our prize winners!

We had so much fun celebrating reading together and look forward to next year's celebration!

5th grade Washington, D.C. slideshows

The 5th graders went on their annual trip to Washington, D.C. in March and learned so much! Ms. Lord's class wrote narrative and non-fiction pieces about their experiences and I worked with them to turn their writing into a Google Slide presentation. First the students learned how to access their Durham Public Schools Googledocs account and then we learned how to create a slide presentation.

Below are a few of the students' presentations. Enjoy!