Posted by
Diane Chen on August 31st, 2010
I was so excited to see September’s Nashville Parent magazine. On the front cover was the headline “Why Kids Should Pick Their Own Books.” Excitedly I turned to pages 48-49 to see an article by Lora Shinn (mom and freelance writer) who wrote an article based on Laura Pearle’s pearls of wisdom:
Follow your child’s interests
Model re… Read More
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 30th, 2010
Did you know that Nashville, Tennessee is a major refugee relocation center? We have the largest population of Khurds in the US, a large population of Sudanese families, and currently we are anticipating huge numbers of refugees from Myanmar. I womder if any are Karenni. Along come two timely titles to help me understand.
For fiction we have Mitali Perkins’ Bamboo People (Charlesbridge, 2010) and for nonfiction I’m using the Global Hot Spots series including Burma (Myanmar) from Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2010. Do you have any additional suggestions?
Bamboo People by… Read More
Tags: Burma (Myanmar) immigration
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 29th, 2010
YALSA sent out a letter last spring mentioning they were partnering with the Federal Trade Commission to offer new and exciting resources for your library. Sure… I thought. The FTC is going to be very exciting. Still I ordered one to try out.
When Net Cetera: Chatting with Kids About Being Online (http://onguardonline.gov/netcetera) arrived, I realized right away that this would be very helpful to initate conversations between teachers and students and between students and parents. I was able to order 1000 copies (enough for every student) of the guide and their bookmarks from http://bulkorder.ftc.gov I ordered… Read More
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 28th, 2010
This summer I attended a workshop on Autism called “Structuring the Classroom to Promote Learning.” Structuring the classroom to promote learning doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with autism, does it? Here is the course description:
School teams will learn how to structure a classroom to benefit learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder and will gain an understanding of curricular strategies to assist in appropriate modifications for these learners. Strategies will focus on behavior supports, functional communication, structure teaching, social communication, visual supports and work systems.
In order to attend this three day workshop, my school had… Read More
Tags: autism
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 27th, 2010
Amy Masonis and Shannon Stanton of Davis-Kidd Booksellers (an independent bookstore in Nashville, TN) met with MNPS librarians during our inservice day and shared some of their favorite titles. Here are some they recommended for middle and high school. Enjoy.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness is part of the Chaos Walking Trilogy (MS, HS) with the 3rd one out in Sept.
Leviathan by
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 23rd, 2010
Judy Edwards and Cheryl Jolley presented a series of workshops on ELL Newcomers with Information and Strategies. Part of the S.D.A.I.E. summer workshops held at Trevecca Nazarene University, these workshops were intended to help a broader range of educators work with immigrants who have been in the U.S. less than one year.
S.D.A.I.E. stands for Specifically Designed Academic Instruction in English. The Office of English Language Learners in MNPS offers several 3,5, and 6 day courses for educators. Mr. Littlefield’s page offers an explanation of some of what is covered in these workshops.
Judy… Read More
Tags: ELL, newcomer, workshops
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 22nd, 2010
I’ve been looking at ways school libraries share news with their “customers.” Some have formal newspapers and staff in the schools. Some write just an article for the school newspaper. This summer as I traveled, I gathered Coffee News papers that were placed in “restaurants coffee shops, hotels, hospitals, etc. — anywhere people go to eat or where they have to wait.”
Some libraries take photos of students and run them through digital picture frames. See PC mag’s reviews for Digital photo frames and CNET reviews. Do you wonder who has time to run… Read More
Tags: newsletters
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 21st, 2010
Metropolitan Nashville Public School teachers attended the Swap Symposium this summer. We were able to focus on new skills and earn credit so we could swap two days in the fall and have an entire week off for Fall Break. I attended a session called Book Talks Galore: Entice, Gush, Emote, and More! presented by a third grade teacher Sophia Birdwell.
Sophia shared an article from the International Reading Association by Rachel Fischbaugh called “Using book talks to promote high-level questioning skills.“ While librarians KNOW this information, many classroom teachers seemed surprised by the links to learning through book talks… Read More
Tags: booktalks
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Posted by
Diane Chen on August 17th, 2010
I attended a meeting for leaders of the Tennessee Association of School Librarians last week and received a DVD courtesy of the Tennessee Educational Association and the Green McAdoo Cultural Center. The Clinton 12 is a 
documentary film narrated by James Earl Jones telling the “story of the integration of the FIRST public high school in the South as a result of the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision by the US Supreme Court. The title refers to the 12 black teenagers who, on August 27, 1956, were forced
Tags: Clinton 12
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