Peg from the Heart

New Year, New Media Center Program!

I am so excited about the media center program for this year. We will be focusing on all the wonderful informational text that supports classroom instruction. For the past two years, we have been building up our nonfiction collection, particularly to extend the selections we have the fit our curricular standards. The informational text with bright and beautiful photographs really help to make learning more interesting.

We are encouraging students to check out informational text, not only to make those critical text to text connections, but also to make text to life connections and to build background knowledge.

In addition, we have a wealth of resources that are now available from home! Destiny (our automated catalog program) is now available from home so that you can see what titles we have available. In addition, our Cobb Virtual Library has new links and a new look and is also available 24/7.

To access our CVL, including Destiny, go to http://cvl.cobbk12.org/

Media Matters

April is National Poetry Month. With spring in the air, who can’t help but think of poetry? Our author of the month for April is the beloved children’s poet, Jack Prelutsky. Funny, artsy, and multi-talented, Prelutsky inspires generations of kids to read and enjoy poetry.

Prelutsky was named the first children’s poet laureate and is the author of titles such as Read a Rhyme, Write a Rhyme, The Frog Wore Red Suspenders, Something Big Has Been Here, New Kid on the Block, Good Sports, and a Pizza the Size of the Sun. His website is http://www.jackprelutsky.com/

Are you reading at home with your children? No matter how old they are, children need to hear an adult read to model fluency and expression. It also helps them to comprehend at a higher level than they can read independently. If you do not read regularly with your child, try starting with some Jack Prelutsky poems!

Media Matters for March

 

Media Matters

The Compton Media Center

is a busy place this month. We have been studying the notable and award-winning children’s author, Nikki Grimes. Nikki is the author of Shoe Magic, and Talkin’ about Bessie, among other titles. Check out her website at www.nikkigrimes.com. Multi-talented and artsy, Nikki maintains the site herself.

In honor of Women’s History Month, Kathleen Krull is our featured author for March. She wrote Wilma Unlimited, and Lives of the Athletes, among other great titles.

March 2 is the official birthday of Dr. Seuss, and a great time to celebrate by reading at home with your children. For younger ones, read some favorites like Green Eggs and Ham, or Hooray for Diffendoofer Day. Older students might enjoy some of his lesser-known titles, such as The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.

In mid-March, we will be hosting a spring Book Fair. The Book Fair is a great way to buy low-priced titles that support pleasure reading, comprehension, vocabulary growth, and reading fluency. Be sure to watch for a flyer announcing the Book Fair. The profits from the fair have allowed us to purchase beautiful new tables. Stop by the media center to see them, or visit on Technology Night, February 28, from 6:30-8:30.

January Author of the Month

Welcome back to a brand new year and lots of exciting activities in our media center. Our author of the month for January is the beloved Cynthia Rylant. Cynthia is the award-winning author of more than 60 titles, including the popular Henry and Mudge series. She has written picture books as well as chapter books--something for all readers! As classes have come to the media center for our author study, we shared a secret about Cynthia. Ask you children if they can tell it to you! Speaking of secrets, I hope it is no secret that our school improvement plan focuses on reading and math. Did you know that one of the strategies for reading is author studies? We study a new author each month in the Compton Media Center.

For more on Cynthia, check out:

http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-rylant-cynthia.asp

Media Center Activities

The Media Center is quite busy this time of year. Our Author of the Month for November is Jon Scieszka, known for his Time Warp Trio series and favorites such as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Frog Prince Continued, Science Verse, Cowboy and Octopus, and many more. Ask your child how to pronounce his name! Jon’s books are quite appealing to students and have a direct connection to the study of traditional literature.

Our Author of the Month for December will be the notable and much beloved Patricia Polacco, known for the titles Ginger and Petunia, The Keeping Quilt, The Trees of the Dancing Goats, Thank You, Mr. Falker, and many more. The study of Patricia Polacco’s personal narratives help to meet the writing standards for each grade level with models of exemplary writing. In addition, the subjects of her books relate to the curriculum standards in science and social studies, and more.

We continue to work with our students in using the Cobb Virtual Library databases for high-quality information access. The CVL is available outside of school by logging in to http://cvl.cobbk12.org/. The offsite username is cobbes and the password is dog. The resources are provided for our students through media funds and are the best available for research. Please take a look at these excellent multimedia resources in World Book Online, Grolier Online, Elibrary Elementary, Gale Jr., Galileo for Kids, and Culturegrams.

October Activities

October is a busy month in our media center. We are having our Fall Book Fair by Turtle Books. The dates of the fair will be October 19-26, with Friday, October 19 being a preview day. Our fair will be open each school day from 7:30 AM until 2:30 PM and will remain open until 3 PM on Wednesday and Thursday. Shop early! On Friday, we will be taking down the fair during the day for the folks from Turtle fairs to pick up. We hope to see you there!

Big news!

Our beautiful new computers have finally arrived! We are anticipating many new technology integration projects for our students to fully utilize the potential of this great teaching resource. This is a good time to become familiar with our Cobb Virtual Library and our automation system, Destiny. Check it out!

Our author of the month is Toni Buzzeo. We have two new books by Toni: Our Librarian Won't Tell You Anything and The Sea Chest. In October, our author of the month will be Mark Teague.

Welcome Back!

I hope you are all as excited as I am to be back at school. This year is going to be great. I can't wait to share all that I have learned over the summer at the NECC conference and the Cobb Summer Leadership Conference.

If you are new to Compton, please take a moment to visit our beautiful media center and browse our many resources. This should be your home away from home while you are at Compton.

Also, please check this blog regularly and find out what is happening in the media center. It will be updated at least once a month when I post the author of the month and related activities. I will also post items of interest that are happening in the school. And, I hope to post special announcements for our news team.

Have a great year!

April is Poetry Month

Our Author of the Month for April is Shel Silverstein. He is an author and illustrator extraordinaire. Shel began his career as a cartoonist but used his skill to illustrate the many books he wrote. He was also a songwriter, and many of his songs were recorded by artists such as Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, and Jerry Lee Lewis. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his song "I'm Checkin' Out" used in the movie Postcards from the Edge. Shel's books include Falling Up, A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, A Giraffe and a Half, The Missing Piece, and the "billy sook," Runny Babbit. To learn more about this wonderful author, illustrator, cartoonist, musician, and playwright, check out his website @ http://www.shelsilverstein.com/indexSite.html

Big News!

I am proud to announce that Compton Elementary School was selected to receive a Best Buy Teach Award. The award will be used to purchase laptop computers, digital camcorders, and flash drives for creating student digital video projects. The projects will be featured on the morning news show and will incorporate student research using nonfiction books and online resources, and informational writing.