Archive for the 'Newsletter Articles' Category
April 26th, 2010 by vslainfo
by Donna Sullivan-McDonald, Orchard School, South Burlington
Since the Vancouver Winter Olympics were happening at the same time as Orchard School’s I Love to Read Week, we decided to give our celebration a distinctive Olympics twist.
The I Love to Read Week "flame" remained "lit" in the library during the entire week's celebration.
The I Love to Read Week – Olympics Style “flame” remained “lit” in the library during the entire week’s celebration.
To begin the special week, students paraded to the gym for a whole school morning meeting, which would be the “Opening Ceremonies” for I Love to Read Week-Olympics Style. Students followed a banner they created for their class’s favorite author. The Olympics theme music was playing and the Olympics flag was waving as each group entered the gym. Class representatives carrying the banners formed a circle around the entire student body. Continue reading ‘I Love to Read Week – Olympics Style’
April 7th, 2010 by vslainfo
by Linda Wooster, St. Johnsbury Academy Library Director
On the afternoon of March 26, St. Johnsbury Academy Library, the Academy English Department, and Kingdom Books jointly sponsored a live jazz improvisation and poetry reading by award-winning poet F.D. Reeve, father of the late actor Christopher Reeve. This spring program of the Fireside Literary series was held in the Academy’s library and was free and open to the public.
Joe Deleault provided a setting of live jazz improvisation for a reading by Reeve from his poetry volume The Blue Cat Walks the Earth (2008). Deleault’s recording credits include Bon Jovi, as well as Zydeco master Clifton Chenier among others. He performs internationally, composes, and works as a session pianist. Together, F.D. Reeve and Joe Deleault have performed The Blue Cat series of programs at the Jazzmouth Festival as well as Off-Broadway. Continue reading ‘Bluecat Jazz & Poetry at St. Johnsbury Academy’
April 7th, 2010 by vslainfo
at Bristol Elementary School Library
Listening to a scary story
On Friday night, March 19th, the Bristol Elementary School Library was transformed into Read Fest: The Night of the Living Books. Thirty-six BES students in grades 4-6 and a few guests enjoyed an evening filled with fun, snacks, and creepy stories. Students used their skills and imagination in a scavenger hunt. They played Readers’ Jeopardy games, and gave dramatic and silly performances in readers’ theater skits. Continue reading ‘Read Fest: The Night of the Living Books 2010′
April 7th, 2010 by vslainfo
At the Materials Review session at Kurn Hattin on March 25, 2010, a mix of public and school librarians came together for an enjoyable day with Grace Greene presenting live reviews.
Grace Greene with author Karen Hesse at Materials Review
April 5th, 2010 by vslainfo
Dear VSLA Members,
As I looked over my 2003 IPDP in preparation for writing my reflection narratives, I had to smile when I saw what I had written for the Standard of Colleagueship: “I will continue to actively participate in VEMA . . . .” When I wrote those words, I imagine I was just planning to attend regional meetings, but shortly after my plan was approved, I became the VEMA secretary — I can’t remember now if I was asked or if I volunteered — and thus began a wonderful adventure.
VSLA President Marsha Middleton attended the SLJ Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., in October.
VSLA President-Elect Claire Buckley attended the SLJ Leadership Summit in Washington, D.C., in October.
In the spring of 2004, the Legislative Affairs Rep was unable to go to Washington, DC for “Legislative Day,” so along with State Librarian Sybil McShane, I met with Senators Jeffords and Leahy and attended a reception honoring Representative Sanders for his support of libraries in the face of the requirements of the Patriot Act.
Continue reading ‘Message from VSLA Past-President Marsha Middleton’
April 5th, 2010 by vslainfo
by Judith Kaplan
Registration is now open for the first of a new series of courses available for school librarians in practice. Anna Bolognani, VSLA member, will be offering Powerful Web Tools for the School Library Media Center: Changing the Way We Teach and Learn, an online course from May 24 to June 25, 2010. Here is an opportunity to get up to speed on some Web 2.0 tools that you could incorporate into next year’s teaching. Summer is a great time to think about how you can improve your lessons. Perhaps a teacher in your school would take the course with you and you can work on some curriculum planning collaboratively.
Here is the Course description: Continue reading ‘Professional Development Opportunities Through UVM’s School Library Media Studies’
April 5th, 2010 by vslainfo
by Kathy Lawrence, Hiawatha Elementary School
Advocacy. It’s on everyone’s minds these days. How do we communicate what we do to our biggest stakeholders? What can we do to assure that our role in the school is seen as vital? I began thinking about these questions right after the spring Vermont Library Conference last year. One of the keynote speakers talked about marketing our libraries, and cautioned that if our administrators, colleagues and parents don’t know what we do it’s nobody’s fault but our own. So for this school year I decided to do something about it! I’d be proactive and hope that by continually putting my program out there I wouldn’t be forced in the future to re-act and scramble to put the ALA Advocacy Toolkit to use!
Continue reading ‘A Lot Can Happen Over a Cup of Coffee: Reaching Out to Parents on “Third Thursdays”’
March 31st, 2010 by vslainfo
Funny thing about Vermont Librarians: A few months ago, Rebecca Brown, former librarian at People’s Academy in Morrisville, came to Cairo from Warsaw and interviewed for the position of business manager at Cairo American College, where I work.
Beth Phillips and Rebecca Brown at Cairo American College
Continue reading ‘Librarians in Cairo’
March 31st, 2010 by vslainfo
Leda Schubert is ever so happy to announce the release of her new book, FEEDING THE SHEEP (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), with illustrations by the amazing Andrea U’Ren. Continue reading ‘Leda’s Latest Book’
March 4th, 2010 by vslainfo
With spring just around the corner, it’s time to think about writing an article for the Spring edition of the VSLA News. VSLA members would like to hear about what’s happening in your library. New technology? Ideas for promoting DCF, Red Clover, or reading in general? Or, in this time of budget cuts, perhaps you have some ideas for recruiting and training volunteers?
The deadline for articles this time is March 31, and you can expect to see them up on the VSLA website early in April.
Please see the Newsletter Guidelines before submitting.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Marcia Peterson, M.S.
Library Media Specialist
Ottauquechee School
304 Dody Lane, P.O. Box 353
Quechee, VT 05059-0353
(802)295-8654
petersonm@hartfordschools.net
January 25th, 2010 by vslainfo
November 25, 2009
I am a long-time Vermont librarian now working at Cairo American College in Cairo, Egypt. As part of my job, I sometimes travel with students on school trips. Below is a description of one such trip. (My husband John and I had spent an October weekend relaxing at a glamorous resort hotel in Sharm El Sheikh on the Sinai.)
I was back in Sinai a few weeks later under different conditions. My companions were a dozen teachers and 150 middle school kids studying reef ecology. Continue reading ‘Letter from a Vermont Librarian in Cairo’
January 19th, 2010 by vslainfo
The VSLA Fall, 2009, conference was held at Brattleboro High School in October. Our morning speaker was J’aime Foust, author of Dewey Need to Get Organized (my answer to that question would be “yes!”). J’aime encouraged us to make a pie graph showing the most important things in our life, then make another pie graph showing what we are really doing. She suggested that we repeat the exercise in 6 months to 1 year to see if anything has changed. I admit that I tucked my conference notes away, and did not come across this idea until just now as I sat down to write. I did manage to borrow J’aime’s book from a friend, though, so now I am encouraged to try this exercise and look for more ideas in the book. My favorite piece of advice from J’aime? “The trash can is your friend.”
A chance to gather and chat before the first session of the day
Amy Howlett of the DOL talking about Readers Advisory Basics
Workshops continued throughout the day. I attended Amy Howlett’s session on Readers’ Advisory Basics. Amy works for the DOL and does Rapid Reviews for the VLA. She reminded us that turning kids into readers is the key thing that we do. She presented many tools, from books to websites to her own handouts. My favorite was her approach to “reading” a book in 10 minutes. There are many features that give us clues about a book, and if we are willing to skim through and skip ahead (yikes!) to the ending and epilogue, we really can learn a lot about that book in just 10 minutes.
J’aime Foust inspires us to get organized
New member Chris Putnam-Poulliot talks with VSLA President Marsha Middleton
The semi-annual VSLA membership meeting was held after lunch. Minutes of the meeting are available on the VSLA website.
The day concluded with a presentation by artist John Steven Gurney, who has illustrated all of the A-Z Mystery books. There is also a new series of Calendar Mysteries, which is an off-shoot of the A to Z series. Mr. Gurney also wrote and illustrated a book called Dinosaur Train, which has been made into a TV series.
As usual, I came away from the conference thinking that it is one of my most valuable professional development activities of the year. So much is packed into one day, but at a comfortable pace. And it all relates directly to many aspects of our jobs as School Librarians.
by Marcia Peterson, Librarian at the Ottauquechee School (Hartford School District)
January 19th, 2010 by vslainfo
This year, for the first time, our Art Teacher Kate Townsend and I sat down with the Red Clover books to select one for a collaborative approach. Our goal was to reach 4th and 5th graders in a more meaningful way. At Dothan Brook I do the Red Clover program with the 4th graders. This year I decided to include the 5th graders with some of them. One reason for this was our school district’s approach to bolstering reading with Fountas and Pinnell. At recent discussions, the picture book has been emphasized for use with older students.
Student begins to work with wire.
The Red Clover book we selected was Sandy’s Circus by Tanya Stone. I did research on the internet to find two You Tube sites to show students after reading the book to them. The first was an old black and white video of Alexander Calder actually performing his circus and the other was a kids’ Art Display made by K-5 students in Calder style with wire circus figures and mobiles after Tanya Stone had come to their school. My students found it totally fascinating.
Continue reading ‘A Collaborative Approach to a Red Clover Book’
January 18th, 2010 by vslainfo
Young writers and readers at St. Francis Xavier School in Winooski were recently treated to a visit from children’s book writer Jamie Gilson, author of twenty funny and nationally acclaimed books for elementary school age students. The visit was organized by School Librarian Kathleen Finn.
Students in grades 2 to 5 at St. Francis Xavier have been reading Mrs. Gilson’s books since school began. On the day of her visit, Mrs. Gilson spoke to these students about how her ideas develop and how the book process works, from manuscript to finished product. The importance of the back-and-forth process between editor and writer – and many, many rewrites – was emphasized. She showed the students samples of her original, edited manuscripts; some illustration drafts; and what her books look like when translated into German, Dutch and Braille. After the presentation, there was time for questions that students had formulated prior to the author’s visit. Continue reading ‘Award-Winning Children’s Book Author Jamie Gilson Visits St. Francis Xavier School’
January 18th, 2010 by vslainfo
Greetings from the Essex High School Library Media Center!
Interested in some new ideas to help promote the Green Mountain Book Award? It’s difficult to get students to read beyond what’s required of them for class. We have been trying to get increased participation for years and came up with a new plan. We created a new promotion to encourage our students to read more GMBA books.
It all began with offering the sweet incentive of ice cream!
Our Plan:
Continue reading ‘Ice Cream and GMBA’
