Clarke County School District Library Media Specialists Hanging Out Live with LibraryGirl

Clarke County School District Media Specialists Hanging Out Live with LibraryGirl @jenniferlagarde

Live Google Hanout: Careers and Education in STEM with Rebecca Byler from Georgia Tech

The 6th Grade Math Research ELT is studying careers in STEM and today we had a guest from Georgia Tech.  Rebecca Byler is a senior studying biomedical engineering and will continue her studies in graduate school at Yale after the first of the year.  Rebceea spoke with us about the many fields of study at Georgia Tech and all of the exciting carrers in STEM that may result from these studies.  These students will research a career, create a presentation and we will publish our presentations to share with the world.

A Reflection on Literacy Events for Families

We had a nice turn out for our Family Literacy Night again this year.  I have had many different variations of our family night: a reading carnival, a reading pep rally, and the the current version: an evening of many literacies.  During the last two years, in the spirit of participatory learning, (which got me all excited when I learned about it from Henry Jenkins) students have led sessions for parents on several different #literacies  (which is one of my passions brought on from the teaching of great Donna Alvermann at UGA and all of my PLN friends in the area of  #literacies  Anna Smith, Emily Pendegrass and Buffy Hamilton just to name a few).  Parents rotate among the classes to experience all of the student-led sessions.  Probably my favorite part about this year's fam lit night was our collaboration with the teen services librarian at Athens Regional Library.  Lauren came and provided activities for the middle schoolers while the parents were in the sessions.  We have done quite a bit of collaboration with Lauren from the library this year, and I'm super excited to share more about that....in another blog post soon.

I found our current lit night model to be pretty successful, and the parents seem to be impressed with the student experts and many literacies for learning, but I wonder how we could get more parents to attend.  I've used the trick of having kids perform or be involved to get more participation with orchestra and step team performances as well as student presenters, but sometimes the parents come begrudgingly to the literacy sessions b/c their only real motivation for coming is to watch their kid perform in the orchestra/step team, etc.  With the 600 students in our school, I guess I'm an overachiever to hope we could pull more than the 50 or 60 parents that show for the evening.  Do you think this is a reasonable turnout?  Do most schools have a family literacy night or event to promote literacy with parents?  How do you get more parents to participate?

CMS Family Literacy Night is this Tuesday!

Please join us for the CMS Family Literacy Night this Tuesday from 6-7 p.m.  We will have the book fair open for your shopping pleasure and will have literacy sessions for parents, middle school students, as well as the younger siblings. 

Students will lead sessions for parents on Digital Literacy, Writing 6 Word Memoirs, Book Talks, and Information Literacy. CMS Middle Schoolers will be able to participate in exciting activities provided by Mrs. Lauren, Teen Services Librarian, who will be visiting CMS from next door at the Athens Regional Library.  AND the elementary and preschool age children will be have a chance to participate in foreign language literacy activities with the CMS Foreign Language Staff, so bring the whole family for this ultra engaging night of learning and fun! 

For our entertainment during Family Literacy Night, we will have performances by the fantastic CMS Orchestra Ensembles and the world famous CMS Step Team.  The Books for Keeps Staff will be at CMS collecting donations of new or used books to support this very important local charity.  Students who bring in books to donate will be rewarded with one OWLS Read Talon for each book they donate up to five (of course we will take as many books as you bring).  Books for Keeps will take book donations of any type.  

Tuesday will be an OWLS Read t-shirt day at CMS, so if your child has earned an OWLS Read shirt, they may wear it to school with uniform bottoms this Tuesday to help us celebrate literacy. If your child hasn't earned their OWLS Read shirt yet, encourage them to read at school and home to earn the 35 Owls Read Talons soon!

We can’t wait to see you on Tuesday night, so grab the whole family, and maybe a stack of books to donate, and come on out to the CMS Family Literacy Night!      

OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap Chief Technology Officer for Information Technology at NASA in Silcon Valley

At 3:00 today CMS 6th Graders will be participating in a Google OnAir Hangout with Ray Gilstrap from NASA to discuss jobs in STEM.