The Famous TCE Pout-Pout Fish

Recently, classrooms at Taylors Creek decorated pumpkins to illustrate students' favorite books. The author of the Pout-Pout Fish happened upon a presentation of the pumpkins!

Dear Ansley,

A Google alert on The Pout-Pout Fish brought me over to your blog, where I discovered your Pout-Pout Fish pumpkin photo and the video of all the Fall Festival pumpkins. The contest is such a cool idea! I loved seeing all the book-related pumpkins. So creative, and such a nice way to integrate books and reading into the season. Very wonderful.

(Admittedly, I'm biased, but I think your class should have won first place! :)

If you'd like, if your students are still enjoying The Pout-Pout Fish, I could send you some signed bookmarks for them, to help encourage them to keep reading and exploring with books. Just email me back with an address if you'd like me to do that, and I'd be glad to send them along.

Best Fishes!

Debbie Diesen (author of The Pout-Pout Fish)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Deborah L. DiesenGrand Ledge, MIWeb: http://www.deborahdiesen.com/Blog: http://www.jumpingthecandlestick.blogspot.com/

Storytime at Waldo Pafford

The media center is full of students eager to hear Mrs. Roxanne Lee, the media specialist, read Fall favorites like Sheep Trick or Treat, Hallo-Weiner, Heckedy Peg, and Tallypo. Mrs. Lee has a bag of tricks to accompany her storytime treats! Students love to see the fun costumes, hats, and props she uses to make each story special. Each story that she reads also has an Accelerated Reader quiz. Students are encouraged to take the quizzes that are in their reading zone of proximal development.

Chef Dewey

Was it a trick or a treat? October 28th was the last monthly media meeting. The meeting began with the media specailists getting into character as resturant patrons, chefs, waiters/waitresses, and chef assistants. The group role played a resturant senario as they worked as teams to define keywords, locate books, and finish a graphic organizer. The lesson was based on a posting to LM_Net by Jennie Scott-McKenzie and Adame (2008).

Bright Ideas in the Media Centers!

The word is out! You can find two middle school media centers in Liberty County that have been awarded Bright Idea Grants! Sharon Dunham of Lewis Frasier Middle School and Cristina Dover of Midway Middle School won Coastal Electric Cooperative Bright Ideas Grants.

Students at Lewis Frasier Middle School will be able to check out a Kindle, a wireless reading device, in the near future. Mrs. Dunham was awarded $598 to purchase two Kindles. She plans to load popular student requests on the devices. Each Kindle can hold up to 1,500 books! The Kindle will enable students to get dictionary definitions for unknown words and, it can also read to students, making it a great tool for special needs or struggling students! Mrs. Dunham will use some of the proceeds from book fairs to purchase popular student requests to load on the Kindles. Lewis Frasier will be on the cutting edge of digital reading technology thanks to the vision of Mrs. Sharon Dunham!

Gifted students at Midway Middle School will soon become "Kings and Queens of the Green Screen", the title of Mrs. Dover's project title. Student will be learning how to produce digital videos using green screen technology thanks, to Mrs. Cristina Dover! She was awarded $1486.10 to purchase 5 Flip video cameras, ten licenses of Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0, and 1 volume of royalty free music from Soundzabound. With instruction from the media center and the new equipment, the gifted students will produce videos that illustrate the GPS Standards!

Mrs. Dover, Mrs. Frazier, and Ms. Kennedy

are pictured above.

Did anyone say Media Festival projects?

Way to go Mrs. Dunham and Mrs. Dover!

netTrekker- How are You Using It?

Describe how you have used netTrekker in a lesson recently with students.

Bradwell Institute Scared Up a Few Good Reads

October is the perfect month to remind students of the horror collection in your media center. Bradwell Institute took the opportunity to remind students using their book display. The display highlighted fiction and story collection works that promised to have students going to sleep with the lights on!

Popping into Home Connect

Students at Lewis Frasier Middle School learned how to use Home Connect recently during their visit to the media center. Media specialist, Sharon Dunham, lead students in a lesson on how to log in, review goal information, and browse previous taken quizzes.

Students that achieved three stars, by meeting their percentage, point, and book level goal were given a special treat!

During the lesson, students were also instructed on how to use Destiny, the online catalog, to search for books within individual zones of proximal development. Students left the lesson with a clear understanding of how to use Home Connect and find books that are just right for their reading level!

AR- A New Way a New Day

Recently, teachers at Joseph Martin gathered in their learning communities to learn how Accelerated Reader can be used to increase student comprehension performance. Media specialist, Elaine Walker, shared how to set individualized student goals in the program, why 85% is a goal to strive for, and the new features of Star Reading. Teachers were excited to learn how to set goals and felt the sessions was very worthwhile! Liberty County is embracing a new day and a new way for Accelerated Reader!

Liberty Elementary and the Book Fair

Liberty Elementary recently concluded the first book fair of the school year! Students, teachers, and parents were excited to shop at the fair. The fair was also available during the school fall festival. The theme was Destination: Book Fair! Students could win a prize if they where able to guess the number of vehicles in the jar! Plus, students and parents were also interested to learn the favorite picks of Mr. Anderson, Mrs. Craven, and Mandy the dog!

Accelerated Reader- Enabling and Celebrating Success!

As the new nine weeks begins, we take time to celebrate the success of our students. Some students in Liberty County achieved grade level goals, while others celebrated individual goals. As Liberty County makes the transition to encouraging students to reach for their own percentage, point, and reading level goals, we look forward to students catching the wave of motivation in excitement. Reach for your personal best and become a better reader! That is our challenge to our students!