A New School Year

I'm always excited about the start of school, and this year there are many new additions to our library to be excited about. Our new SmartBoard was installed just a few weeks ago. It was part of our library lessons this first week. The SmartBoard was a new experience for the children in pre-k and kindergarten. Their eyes danced as images and words appeared and disappeared. I'll be exploring different ways to use this incredible tool.

Last spring I noticed an article in the New York Times describing the renovation of some children's libraries in the Bronx. The talented artist, Christoph Niemann's creation of a "Book-Toothed Dinosaur" captured my attention. When I wrote to him to tell him how much I loved his mural, he generously offered to allow us to make a print so that we could enjoy his work in our library, too. Long time Parish teacher, Marilyn Calwell, provided for the printing and framing as a retirement gift to the library. You'll smile when you see it...look closely!

Back to School Display

In her book, The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller wrote about our reading roots. She included a quote from William Wordsworth.
What we have loved
Others will love.
We will teach them how.
Our back to school display in the library includes pictures of teachers and staff reading books that were important to them as beginning readers. It is fun to see what books led to the book lovers that we all became.

Flip Video Camera

The Flip video camera is going to be fun to use! It seems to be very easy to maneuver, and the picture is pretty good quality. I love how quickly the videos can be saved and shared. The Flip will get a lot of use this year!

Animoto

I am finally experimenting with actually making a video with Animoto. This tool has been so easy to use. I need to make sure to take more pictures this year. I took a webinar class offered by Discover Education this week. They have a huge library of pictures that would be great for classroom teachers to include in Animoto videos to go with units of study.

Doug Valentine's Videos

When I first found this site, I didn't bookmark it (I mean Delicious it), and then I couldn't find it again. I raved about it over lunch with my friend, Barbara, and she found it. She was as excited as I was about the creative and motivating possibilities that this technology could provide. After I commented on his blog, Doug wrote back to me with information about the tools that he uses for animation. I'm hoping to keep in touch with him. He's close by (in Melissa ISD) and is obviously an exciting, talented, and fun elementary librarian.


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