Dip Day Extravaganza

Dip day was a great way to end the week! Thanks to Kendra and Julie for putting that together. I hope everyone had a chance to sample both Kendra's buffalo chicken dip and the "Better than Kendra's buffalo chicken dip". We should do that more often. Here are some updates from the media center...

Team Planning
The data team meetings have completely thrown off my schedule after I was doing so well with getting to your meetings. I'd like to get back on track next week. You don't need to change anything you are doing when I'm there because sometimes it's just best for me to listen. I'd like to get more focused with our checkout read alouds and have books available to support your units of study. And I'm always up for sharing something new. Please let me know if your meeting times have changed from the beginning of the year. Thanks!

MACH
I am bummed that nobody took me up on the offer to make bookmarks with your class. And then Stephanie caved and made more copies. But I don't give up that easy! I have Abbey's class on Tuesday and would be happy to host anyone else if it fits your schedule. Let me know! I will be working on a menu of maker activities that I can do with your students. Look for that next week.

Library Assistants

Next week we're starting the new Library Assistant Program. These boys and girls applied for the position a few weeks ago and are ready to assist with shelving books, making displays, pulling books, helping our kindergarten friends, and straightening shelves. Here's a look at our classroom captains who are responsible for setting their class schedule and communicating shift assignments. Should be a good time!

Early Bird
We are moving on to fourth grade next week. I'm still weighing what this opportunity will look like for the lower grades. I'm leaning towards an incentive program. If you have suggestions, please let me know. Here's the upcoming Early Bird schedule:

• Geha - next week
• Kunkel - week of 10-8
• Wall - week of 10-15

Finally, if you happen to have an IEP or other meeting in the library conference room, please don't let attending students hang out unsupervised in the media center. I try to keep it locked up because of the iPads, equipment, and books (of course) that we use each day. Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

The MACH is open!

It's been a busy week with #CREmedia. Here are the highlights!

3rd Grade iPads
We got all third graders enrolled with their 1:1 iPads. Thanks to Regina, Julie, and Trisha for their help and patience to get those rolled out. It's exciting to have 1:1 devices in all our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes. 

Attention 3rd, 4th, 5th grade teachers
Or anyone else interested. Starting on Thursday, I'll be hosting an iPad vertical team collaboration group, otherwise known as the IVTCG. We'll meet at 3:30 in the computer lab. The session will be no more than 30 minutes (unless you want to stay longer) and will consist of two parts: sharing what you're loving and learning a new tool. There won't be inservice credit but there will be more intrinsic value than you can handle. We'll figure out how often we want to meet at the first IVTCG session on the 27th. Heck, we might even make some cute t-shirts that are exclusive to IVTCG members. Because I don't have a fancy t-shirt and I'm feeling left out.

The MACH is open!
The MACH is open for business. It's the hub for Makers, Artists, and Coders. We hosted two breakouts in the room this week for Ms. Wall and Ms. Kunkel. The room is open for you to use as well. I will get a calendar created and posted to the media center webpage next week. Starting next week (I have to get something going or I'll keep finding other things to do) we'll start with some creating. If you are interested in having your students come to the MACH to make bookmarks, let me know. It will be super fun and enable me to stop running off bookmarks to give away in the library. 


Early Bird
Ms. Hickcox's students enjoyed Early Bird time this week. We saw lots of duct tape creations, checkers played with chess pieces, and quite a bit of Angry Birds. I'm impressed with how many students can work a Rubik's cube. I need to get some practice in. Next week we'll be hosting Mr. Higgins' students. 

New Books!
We've started to get more of the new materials out for checkout. Our replacement bookcase arrived last week and we were able to keep the old one. So now we have more space to showcase new materials, award books, and popular series. I'm most excited about the addition of about a dozen "choose your own adventure" books. Creating their own versions would be pretty cool. If you are interested in trying it out, I have quite a few tools we could use to create, publish, and share "choose your own adventure" stories. As I've been told many times, I'm smarter than I look. 

Poster Printer
Now I have Amber's attention. In order to curb the inadvertent printing of giant tacos, the poster printer has been taken offline. But there's good news! We found a cable that you can use to connect your laptop to the printer when you actually need to print giant tacos. It's not quite as easy as just plugging it in and printing, but nothing good comes easy. Let me know if you are interested. Bring snickerdoodles.

Have a great weekend!

Alec Baldwin gets the early bird...

If you have an Amazon Echo, you might understand the title of this post. If not, I apologize. Thanks to everyone who is adding activities to the Pineapple board. You could have popped in to see Team Geha students dominate a breakout. We were focusing on collaboration and persistence. They were impressive! 

Coming Soon: The MACH 
I'm transforming room 212 to our dedicated MakerSpace, the MACH (Makers, Artists, and Coders Hub). At some point, we'll start working up activities for each grade level. I will talk to you at your grade level meetings about scheduling.

Computer Labs
I changed up locations on the mobile labs. R2D2 is now housed at the end of the 3/4/5 hallway. C3PO is at the end of the 1/2 hallway. Hopefully the new locations make it easier for you to access. Leanna has been lobbying to get teacher access to add events to the lab calendar. I have trust issues, but I'm considering it...

A Book A Day
Keep tweeting out pictures of books you are reading to #CREreads. I'll continue to add those titles to the bulletin board outside the media center. 

Early Bird Time
We started Early Bird this week in the media center and mini-MACH. Starting at 8:00 on Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays, students in a chosen class can come to the media center. There are games, crafts, electronics, puzzles, coloring, etc to work on. At the 8:15 bell, we clean up and head to class. Fifth grade is piloting it and we'll move to lower grades throughout the year. Here's the current schedule:

• Upton - this past week
• Hickcox - week of September 17
• Higgins - week of September 24
• Geha - week of October 1
• Kunkel - week of October 8
• Wall - week of October 15

New Books!

We got a shipment of nearly 500 titles on Thursday. Some were from the original order but a lot were special orders for students and teachers. Keep adding requests to the clipboard on the back counter and you might end up with a surprise book coming your way. 

#CREteach

Congrats to Lori Huhman for taking the #CREteach award of the week! That title will earn her an unsweetened ice tea. Because in her words, "I'm already sweet enough".

Have a great weekend!

If you want to keep your teacher iPad...

Time to renew your iPad!
If you have been issued an iPad from school (your previous school or Cedar Ridge), I need to get it renewed. Please bring it in to the media center so I can make sure it's in one piece and check out to you for the year. If you don't come in next week to get in renewed, I'll have to come repossess it from you while you are in the middle of teaching.

Pineapple Chart
The chart was looking pretty bare this week. Hopefully pineapple will be more in season next week. I see fun things happening in your classes all the time. Add those to the chart so others can see what you're up to. Teachers who post events will be added to the book drawing at the end of September. Join in! 

Computer lab checkouts
See the entertaining video below for a refresher on how to see what labs are available for checkout. 

Minecraft Education
You probably know that many of your students are obsessed with Minecraft. But did you know that we have access to Minecraft Education on our computers and now iPads? You're probably thinking "Minecraft and school doesn't mix". Well, you're wrong! I'd be happy to share ways we could use Minecraft in different content areas. I facilitated a pretty cool Egyptian project last year where students recreated Ancient Egyptian culture and landmarks using Minecraft and then created "travel" videos about their worlds. Ask me about it at your next team meeting or stop me in the halls! 

BreakoutEDU
We had a fun week in kindergarten completing a Breakout scavenger hunt. Maybe you saw us in the halls finding different locations around the school. I'd be happy to create a custom Breakout for your class or find one that fits the content you are teaching. 

#CREteach
Congratulations to Nikki Kunkel for winning the #CREteach award for the week! Awesome job sharing your class's story Let me know what drink I can bring you next week!

Have a great weekend!