Welcome to the 2014-2015 School Year!

Welcome back staff and students! We are excited to be busy so early in the school year! Mrs. Bender is getting new books ready as we speak and Mrs. Lott is visiting all Language and Literature classrooms for orientation sessions. If you are absent or have missed the session, don't worry! The Narrable part of the presentation is located HERE and we can catch you up on the rest!

We are making it our goal this year to encourage and reward students for using 2 wonderful information literacy tools--Destiny Quest and Mackin VIA. Destiny Quest is our library collection catalog where you can search our 9,000+ print items that can be checked out and brought home. (There are also links to the ebooks here, but for the most part, these are physical books.)  Mackin VIA is where you will find the eresources that we have purchased or subscribe to. These are 400+ items that you will need to access online--either on a computer, chromebook, or through an app on a mobile device. We have fiction and non-fiction titles, as well as access to the following databases in the Mackin VIA portal: CultureGrams, Inside the NFL, Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society, BrainPOP, and several WorldBook Encyclopedias. And, we are already circulating our 18 Updated Kindles! These were recently updated and now have 29 titles on each of them! Check out this Kindles list for the titles! (Choose Kindles from the lists in the middle of the screen.)

Needless to say, if you are looking for something to read, we have many items to choose from! If you need help figuring out which resources might help you the most, please come see Mrs. Lott or Mrs. Bender...we are here to assist!

Additional Resources:
I use a social bookmarking tool called diigo to gather relevant websites and resources for teachers and students. Here is the link to the school's groups. The International School at Thornton Middle has links relevant for everyone, while the Teacher PD links are more for our teacher audience.

Have you seen Wonderopolis? What an amazing website! It is full of interesting articles and is organized around principles of inquiry. All of the articles begin with questions and inspire us to think of our own questions! Once you have a question in mind, come see us in the learning commons! We can help you find resources and tools to investigate and present your findings!

We are on Facebook! We have 200+ "Likes" and we would love more! We are listed as "The International School at Thornton Middle-Library" I have been posting inspirational quotations, interesting articles, and relevant images to school and learning....and still to come...the Staff Ice Bucket Challenge video! This is a fun way to connect with us online! Hope to see you there!

One last thing! Is there a book you want to read that we don't have? Please let us know and we can check it out! Use this form to give us your input and we will consider your request when making our next purchase!

Until our next update...keep on reading!

Thank you for your support during our Book Fair! And other updates!

Book Fair Success!
Wow! We have such an awesome community of students and families! How do I know this? Well, first of all, it is because we get to work with so many of our students on a daily basis in the learning commons! Secondly, it is definitely due to the incredible amount of parents that came to conferences and also stopped by the learning commons to visit our Book Fair Fiesta!

We were open for 6 days and exceeded our sales goal by far...We were able to sell about $3,300 worth of books and merchandise which translates to about $2,000 in products through Scholastic! Our plan is to use this money to supplement book orders in the coming year for the library collection, and to purchase items that would beautify our space for our patrons--rugs, a new bookshelf for picture books, or other items.

We are also thankful for an in-house "Book Fair-y" who provided over $700 in books to be used in classroom libraries throughout the building. Additionally, we would like to give a shout out to our 8th Grade Ambassadors who worked in several shifts throughout the book fair to make it a success for our families and our school.

A sincere "Thank You" to all who supported the Book Fair and made it a success!

Other Upcoming Events!

• Dr. Seuss' Birthday--On Friday, February 28th, we will have Dr. Seuss goodies to hand out to the students who come and check out books. (Dr. Seuss' Birthday is on Sunday, March 2nd.) Please stop in and see us...only while supplies last! 
• Teen Tech Week is coming up! The "Official" week is March 9-15, but we will celebrate a little early in our learning commons. We will celebrate the week before--March 3-7! Come to the Learning Commons after you eat lunch and explore the theme of DIY (Do It Yourself)! We will have an amazing little gadget called a "MaKey MaKey" to play with, some other gadgets that work because of simple machines, and a few websites you can try out--Create your avatar, a comic in Pixton, or an interactive image using ThingLink! Stop in and see us--and please ask Mrs. Lott if you have any questions!

NEW BOOKS!!!
We have just received a LARGE shipment of brand new books! Nine boxes to be exact! Please be looking for them in the next few weeks! In the mean time, you can check out our Destiny Quest Resource List of the newest titles we have currently. We have recently added lots of new ebooks as well (use Mackin VIA to access) and a few digital audio books too! If you are needing resources for a project or an idea for your next novel for reading in class...please come see us! We have so many to choose from!

Did you know?
Destiny Quest has an app! That's right...you can browse the library collection in the learning commons while you access the app on your smart phone or device! Click here for the link in itunes! Or click here for the app in the Google Play Store for your Android device! Download it and give it a go! It's pretty cool...please see Mrs. Lott if you would like assistance.

New Books!

What a happy day! So fitting for the week of Thanksgiving! In the learning commons, we are so excited that our first LARGE shipment of NEW BOOKS has arrived! We have nearly 180 wonderful new titles for our patrons to check out. Make sure to come visit us in December to see what we have...We bet we have something YOU would like!

You can view some of the newest titles in Destiny and we are working on a resource list as you read this! Yay for reading!

October 21-25 is Digital Citizenship Week!

Next week, October 21-25 is officially, DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP WEEK!Here is a link to Common Sense Media's resource website! There are SO many facets to becoming a responsible digital citizen...this website offers great advice for teachers, parents, and students!

What can YOU do to become a responsible online citizen? There's a great question to reflect on! If you have any questions, please see Mrs. Lott in the Learning Commons!

Banned Books Week September 22-28!

Hi!
Did you know that we celebrate the fREADom to read during one week each year? It is during Banned Books Week, and it is happening right now! :)

Discover what you're missing and check out this link for more information! Banned Books Week Information

We have a great display of books that have been challenged or banned available for check out in the learning commons! Stop by and see us!

Welcome back!

Welcome back to the Learning Commons! If you are a new student or family to our school, we welcome you! This space is busy, shared, and full of learning opportunities for our 21st Century Learners. We assist teachers and students meet the learning goals of their MYP units of study and support the integrated, meaningful use of technology to meet these goals.

These first weeks are busy with orientations! We are meeting with all students through their Language A and ELL teacher's classes to get to know the sections in this space and how to find items (both physical and online) independently. Students will build skills with information literacy, technology literacy, and problem solving/thinking by participating in their orientation session! Plus, we have a couple treats for them if the accomplish the tic-tac-toe task! :)

Here is a link to the Learning Commons website--resources for the orientation are here! Destiny Quest, Mackin VIA, and the Virtual Tour using Thinglink images are on the main webpage.

Here is a direct link to the virtual tour, if you are interested in seeing our space online. :)

Enjoy....And come in and see us soon!  

News for end of the school year library dates!

Please see THIS LINK for a Voki telling you about due dates and an opportunity to visit with someone from the Anythink Library for summer reading information! Happy reading!