And the Winners Are....

Happy Friday! Just when the possibility of a full week is staring us in the face, weather happens again. Good thing we have five day weeks the rest of the month. Here are a few of the pictures using the green screen on the "MAKE" day this week. Talk to me if you'd like to do something similar with your students as part of a research project. I'd love to help you take videos of your students sharing their animal/space/history/etc learning in front a cool picture.

Cedar Ridge Nominees!
Put your hands together for our colleagues who got the nod as our school's nominees for the Columbia Fund for Academic Excellence award:

Outstanding Teacher PreK-2: Lori Huhman
Outstanding Teacher 3-5: Taryn Wall
Outstanding Specialist: Annette Renwick
Outstanding First Year Teacher: Samantha Flowers

The next step is for us to write recommendation letters to show our support. PLEASE consider writing one for at least one of our teachers. You can send them to me in PDF form and I'll put together the packets. Student and parent submissions are encouraged as well. Let's all get behind our nominees!

Book Fair is coming...
We only have a few short weeks until the book fair hits me in the face. Next week will be a normal week in the media center. In two weeks we'll be showing the preview videos to all classes and the students will be able to preview the book fair once it's set up. We'll most likely do wish lists in the same format as in the fall. And the exciting news! Everyone will be getting a huge gift card so you can buy books for your classroom. Look for those in your mailbox in a few weeks.

Maker stuff
I think my devious plan to add maker time to checkout in order to show teachers what we have is working a little. I see many of you looking over your students' shoulders to see what they're doing. Remember that everything we have in the media center is available for classroom use. Including the OSMO (numbers, words, coding, Monster, Pizza (great for fractions and making change), tangrams). Just let me know if you are interested and we'll get it on the calendar.

Bookroom Reminder
I'm excited to say that I'm about 30 titles away from having all the new materials cataloged and in circulation. Remember that the old book room (with all the books all over the floor) needs to be cleaned out by spring break. Bring any books you want me to catalog and I'll handle them. Take any books you want for your room and never show them to me again. 

100 Cup Tower Challenge Winners
Here are the winners from each grade and the teacher challenge. Every winner will receive a coupon for a free book at the book fair:
Kindergarten: Mrs. Hawf's Table 1 at 77 inches
First Grade: Mrs. Gonzalez's students at 75 1/2 inches
Second Grade: Mrs. Heath's Maggie, Evan, and Dante at 80 1/2 inches
Third Grade: Mrs. Mantle's Zac, Robert, and Josiah at 75 inches
Fourth Grade: Mrs. Kunkel's students at 90 inches
Fifth Grade: Mr. Higgin's Cami, Claudia, Madison, and Brenna at 86 1/2 inches

Teacher Winners:

All teachers who played will get a free book! Technically there was a tie between 5th grade and Nikki/Christie at 95 inches. But 2nd grade and rest of 4th will also get a free book. Thanks for playing!!

Valentine's Buttons
Make your reservation now if you'd like to have your class make buttons for Valentine's Day.

Have a great weekend!

You MUST read this post

When it comes to important stuff, this is right up there with a home robot vacuum. I'm going to skip right to it.

Columbia Fund for Academic Excellence
It's time for us to nominate Cardinal teachers for this great recognition. You should find a nomination form in your mailbox. Fill out the nomination form and return it to the ultra secret ballot box in the library behind the circulation desk. The deadline is Monday at 3:30. It's a short turnaround, I know, but we need time to gather recommendation letters to support our people. Once we have our nominations, I'll follow up with an email about the next steps. Let's represent!! 

Bookroom closeout sale!
All books in the old bookroom must be gone by spring break. What's that mean for you? Well, a couple of things. First, we need to get anything we want to move to the permanent bookroom in my hands. Many of you are following directions and bagging up "old" books you are using and bringing them to me for cataloging. Yeah! Keep it up! I'll get in there early next week and grab good-looking books as well. You can also take any books you want to your room. If you go that route, I don't want to see them again. Ever! They are officially your problem. Whichever you choose, have it done before you hit the beaches for spring break.

You may have noticed I've rearranged the books in the bookroom. Now that I'm closer to having everything cataloged, I think we can spread out to make it easier to find resources. The new arrangement should help those of you who are shorter than me. 

100 Cup Challenge
Thanks for your flexibility with the crazy week. I'm sorry I missed the first day of building but really enjoyed watching your students problem-solve to build their towers once I got back. Look for a February challenge soon. 

Teacher 100 Cup Challenge Monday! 
Get a team together and come compete in the 100 Cup Challenge on Monday. No more than 4 staff members per team. The winning team members will be able to pick out a free book from the book fair. And have bragging rights until the next challenge. 

Have a great weekend!