Newest Update Oct 2019

It has been a really long time since I have posted to this blog but I believe it is time to start it up again. There is always something to share each year. Since this is my 4th year now at McGuire I am excited to talk about what we have been doing. I have been partnering with the 8th grade teachers to start a new initiative to get kids reading. So far so good everyone said it would start out slow but I am seeing lots of excitement around books and kids talking about books and that is exciting. We all attended a workshop this summer put on by Donalynn Miller based on her book called "The Book Whisperer" and her newest title called "Game Changers"

I felt like Donalynn was preaching to the choir and  we instantly had a bestie/best friend connection!  Ok so maybe I got a little ahead of myself but I really enjoyed her presentation and it made me excited about this school year and getting kids to read and love it!

I LOVE TO READ

February is "I Love to Read" month and we are celebrating!  We have decorated in our theme which is "Roll out the Red Carpet for Books."  We have some  contests going on this month and even local author "Abby Cooper" is coming to share about the publishing process with our 7th graders. 

It has been a fun month so far and it has given us a little boost to get us through our cold winter

Abby Cooper

This year we are doing something new and fun for the cold month of February here at McGuire Middle School!  We are having an I love to Read Month Celebration.  Our theme is to "Roll Out the Red Carpet on Reading!  "As Part of that celebration we have invited a local author name "Abby Cooper."  She writes books that are at a middle school level and she is young and bubbly so we thought this would be a great opportunity to have her come in to our school.
She will be working with 7th grade students on the publication of a book and the importance of using flashbacks in our writing. We are really excited to have her come to our building. 
Our MMS Book Club is reading one of her books right now called "Sticks & Stones."

Noodletools???!!!

This year we have started using a new research tool called "Noodletools." It is replacing Easybib for our school district. Easybib had some major changes and no longer offered some of the nice features we liked
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 The transition has been a little bumpy like it always is with new things but we are getting used to it.  This research tool allows students to create citation lists, notecard piles and a paper.  The option to create the paper dovetails with google apps for education. This allows students the ease and flexibility of having all of these things work together. Below is an example of the notecard feature

There are also special sharing and collaboration features.  The teacher can create a class inbox for students so the teacher can see their pace of work, comment on all parts of the project and even create a to do list.

We have been learning alot on the difference between a database and a website and how to effectively evaluate information or at the very least look at it more critically.  We have been citing books, databases, websites and images.  It is important to have students learn that we need to give credit to those people who have originated the information.

Fall Book Fair

A New Year

The beginning of this year has come and gone so quickly. We have made a few changes in our media center.  Just a little rearranging but it seems like it is a hit!

First of all we moved our paperbacks from our circular racks to some more traditional shelving.  It seems to be easier for  students to find books this way.

We also moved our magazines to a more accessible spot. This has really increased their circulation.

At the beginning of the school year I always do an orientation to the media center and this year since I have highlighted the nooks we have available.  Our circulation of ebooks has increased as well.

Here is a quick video so you can see some of our changes!

Spring book fair

Well the time has come around again for our spring bookfair!  We are so lucky to have such supportive parents who help with this great event twice a year.  The theme for this spring's fair is Camp read-a-lot with a camping theme.  As usual our volunteers Georgetta Olson and Kathy Nida did a great job decorating, having contests and of course promoting our bookfair.  Now if we could have only raised enough money to get Dr. A on the roof.

We had alot of foot traffic through our fair and it was great seeing everyone coming through the doors.  Some students from LSHS Honor Society came to vuolunteer.   We even had  our mayor  Doug Anderson stop by to say hello.  Well we didn't quite make our goal but we sure had fun and lots of kids purchased some really great books!!!