TDSB Votes to Cut TL's

“BOARD VOTES FOR JOB CUT PLAN”

The TDSB will cut 36 Teacher Librarian jobs for the 2009/2010 school year. While they won’t completely get rid of the TL’s job, their workday will be cut from 0.6 to 0.5. Some trustees argued against the cuts saying, “in these hard economic times, when we know 60 per cent of children are growing up poor and will get poorer, we can’t pull teachers out of the most impoverished schools.” Trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher rejected all the suggested cuts and said, “forty years of research shows us teacher-librarians make a difference.” While I agree that cuts will have to be made (if we don’t want a provincial supervisor coming in and making cuts), I fully disagree with the boards decision to cut TL’s to 0.5. Our students deserve more!

Webquests in the School Library

I have used webquests in the past with elementary aged students. They are engaging and fun for students and encourage higher thinking skills. Here are some ideas for elementary school children.

I have been exploring Webquests that can be used with elementary aged students. The first awesome site I found was called “Technology Integration” and had an amazing quest for third grade students to look at “Gila Monsters”. I had a lot of fun exploring this quest. There was also one called “Who wants to be a rock star?” which challenged students to try-out for an imaginary tv show and learn, write, present and cooperate while planning their performance. What fun! The link to these webquests is:
http://web.laramie2w1.k12.wy.us/integration/WebQuest/webquest.htm
The second really fun site was called “Elementary Webquests” that had sections on “Tornadoes”, “Cinderella”, and “Career Choices”, etc. There were some really fun activities here as well, although a few of the ones didn’t work, 90% did and they entertained me for a long time! There were Olympic activities, such as “The Olympic Games of Ancient Greece”. This would be a good place for students to explore before the winter games here in Canada next year.
The link is :
http://www.owen.k12.ky.us/trt/elementarywebquests.htm
The last one that I explored was called “Webquest Collection”, which came from the Yukon and explored countries of the world, bears, chocolate, Medieval Times etc. Another awesome place for kids (and teachers!) to explore:
http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/wes/webquest_collection.html

Magazine Selection for Children

Does anyone have any good suggestions for magazines for children? I know the standard ones: Owl/Chickadee/National Geographic for Kids, but was wondering if there are any new and hip ones that would especially appeal to boys. I am trying to set up a new reading area in my library and think that I would like to incorporate magazines and perhaps comics. Any suggestions as to how to do this? Would be really helpful
thanks!

Children's Favourite Picks!

The grade six students at my school have been creating powerpoint presentations about their favourite books. What amazing and diverse choices! The children showed an amazing passion and love for reading in their choices. They amazed me! Here is an example of one of the students powerpoints! Be amazed!

Library Superconference!

What an amazing experience! The presenters and displays were phenomenal. I had the pleasure to convene a session on Social Justice and World Issues in the Elementary School. Picture books and novels were presented to help Teacher Librarians incorporate social justice and equity teachings into our program. Some of the books suggested were Child of Dandelions, Give a Goat, I Will Make Miracles, The Jacket, Jericho Walls, March On!, Rickshaw Girl, Running Shoes, Wangari's Trees of Peace, When I Grow Up, I Will Win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Welcome to the Library!

The school library needs to be a positive learning environment for all. Creating a motivating, caring environment is paramount for student learning. Incorporating character education into the programming will also promote a positve environment and having students post and present their poems, writings and character flowers at an assembly were also ways to promote the library.

Genre teaching is another unique way to promote the love of reading. Please post ideas here as to how we can incorporate the teaching of various genres into our library programs.

Forest of Reading

Here are some ideas for activities to go with some of the Blue Spruce nominated titles. Please feel free to add other ideas.

1. Making Grizzle Grow: give students a dinosaur template (I had a number of generic templates for students to choose from). Then I gave them scraps of fabric and they made a colourful dinosaur collage. I reminded them that throughout the story Grizzle grew and changed colours as she became a different dinosaur.

2. My New Shirt: give students a template for a white shirt. Have them write their name in the centre of the shirt using grafitti style art and then draw objects of things that have meaning to them as they create their own "new shirt". Conversely, if you can get your hands on some cheap white t-shirts, students can tye-dye a new shirt.

3. Eliot Jones Superhero: Students can create a new superhero to promote the library. They will make a new superhero and create a poster to advertise the library and the love of reading.

4. Chester: Have students select one of the three characters (mouse, dog, cat) that they relate to the most. Students will draw and make one of these characters and then using a popsicle stick turn them into stick puppets to reenact the story.

Please feel free to comment on these activities and post any ideas that you have for these and the other Blue Spruce books! Thank you.