Well day two of year 30 has been completed. I have great Techsperts who are enthusiastically making our space amazing! Lessons to improve reading , vocabulary, and research will start soon and will go trough the social studies classes. The days that I am not teaching lessons are filling up fast with teachers that use the space to join classes or do projects or group projects. I love the space being filled with students and staff who are eager to utilize the space for learning.
We have added Encore classes first and eighth hours. I am teaching WEB first hour. We will be doing team building and important lessons for success at ESMS. The eighth graders are learning leadership skills as well. This is an important program and we have been participating for over 20 years. This group of leaders came in on summer days to create signs and plan sessions for the meetings with the sixth graders. I am excited to see for them to get started tomorrow. I will try to post often plus post some of the Techspert blogs to keep everyone informed. It is March already! WOW! This year has seemed so long in some aspects while flying by in others.
I am now doing lessons that are about 20 minutes to every team every other week. I have been working on improving them as I want them to be valuable. The topics were dete4rmined by MAP testing data. Our testing is the last week of April and the first week of May. Next year is going to be different. We are going to have 8 periods. 2 will be called Encore. Students will be able to take classes that are different than CORE classes. Teachers will be allowed to teach some classes that will teach problem solving skills or creative thinking. Some courses being offered are drama, forensics, conservation, and many more exciting adventures. I apologize for the long pause in our update of this website. I appreciate your understanding!
We are hosting our first book fair in 3 years. It will be held from November 28 until December 9 in the LC. We will be offering books and more! It will likely be our only fair this year so please plan to stop and support it. The Techsperts have been working super hard this year. They have been doing blogs, book recommendations, bulletin boards, and more! Techsperts are student helpers in the LC that help not only me but teachers with projects and testing of apps. They also help by delivering items, running errands and working on tech. They return books to the shelves and help process books. I really appreciate all they do for me! This year is more interesting with both iPads and Chromebooks being used by students. 6th grade students are piloting the use of Chromebooks. It is likely that all students will be shifted to Chromebooks in secondary over the next year or two. Thanks for reading the blog post! Mrs. Kimsey I know having an online book fair is different. I am well aware. I want kids to have the opportunity to browse books and buy what they want. You can do this online as well...it is the reality of today's circumstances. COVID is nothing to take lightly. We need to protect ourselves. The book fair ends this Sunday, November 21. So if you want to support our school or buy books for the holidays, please visit the shopping site. ihave provided the !R code to make it easier for you. Thanks for your support and we hope to get back to "normal" book fairs soon.
I hope your break for Thanksgiving is a restful and/or productive time. Enjoy your week with your people and enjoy some good food! See you back on Monday, November 29. The LC is very busy most days. We have 8th grade Social Studies classes in here every Tuesday. We have 6th grade ELA coming in on Fridays. Mrs. Staponski has been bringing her math class in on Wednesdays. I am so happy to see the spaces be utilized. All the ELA classes are sending students down or bringing them down to check out books. Sora/Overdrive is also being used on a regular basis. I have ordered the first batch of new books and have a second list started that I would like to get ordered before Winter Break. I am about to place our first Overdrive/Sora order for the year. The budget requires that the money is spend by the middle of February and I like to spend time researching the books before purchasing them so it takes me a little longer. It is hard to order books for middle schools because most of the books either fall elementary or high school. I have to search for books that are appropriate yet interesting for the middle school students.
The Techsperts are working on their podcasts now. The first one has been shared with our students and it was about the book fair. The other groups have some varied topics and will be ready to share soon. I love that my students just jumped in and learned how to create them and then figure out how to share them. Some are not real brave about speaking in front of others but we are working on that. The Techsperts are also sharing treats with the teachers this week to tell them how thankful they are for all the work the teachers do to make each day interesting and engaging. They printed out cards and then wrote a personal note to each teacher and staff member in our building. It means so much to the teachers and it has been nice seeing the teachers enjoy the treats and cards. The Techsperts have also been working hard to keep the books shelved (3rd hour loves shelving books) which makes it easier for students to find new books to read. I know I do not say it enough, but I appreciate all the hard work from our Techsperts and how they help out the students and staff members. Our online book fair started yesterday November 8th and will run through Sunday, November 21st. The QR code provided in the Book Fair tab will take you to the fair. If you purchase $25 in books, they will ship free to your house. I hope to get books into the hands of our students . Books also make really great gifts for the holidays! Thanks for reading and talk to you again soon! This year is so much different from last year. We were not letting students into the LC but rather taking stuff to them in the classrooms upon request by email. This year, students are coming in and finding the books they want to read. We also have some classes that are coming in weekly to do projects together. It is so amazing to see the teachers working together as well as the students.
The second quarter begins soon and the Techsperts are working on planning for their next projects. I get so excited to hear them talk about what they would like to change or create for the space. They have such great ideas. Fall is my favorite time of the year for so many reasons. The leaves changing colors, the temperatures getting cooler, and beautiful weather! The beginning of school has happened and kids are settling into all the learning opportunities that the year holds for them. I love it when kids are enthusiastic about finding books to read. I checked the records today and in Overdrive (eBooks), our students checked out 810 books in the last 30 days. THAT IS AMAZING! I placed an order for more books today and am already starting my order for the next bunch. I love picking out books but it is a process I do not take lightly. I research the books for interest and appropriate content. I appreciate when patrons recommend books I do not have and I can look into purchasing them for our space. Hope your week goes well! It is so hard for me to believe that the first quarter is almost over! Time has flown by and we are getting so much accomplished. We have blogs being posted on our Google Classroom and we will be updating our blog page soon. We have our Techsperts promoting different aspects of the Learning Commons to our students. We have recommended books to our patrons on Google Classroom and we will be posting those out on our blog soon. Bulleting boards are being updated and we are planning our projects for second quarter. Teachers have come to use and we have been helping prepare for lessons and finding books. It has been a productive quarter.
We are in school every day and that is a big change for this year and takes more energy from our teachers and students. We are wearing masks so our cases will remain low. Our students understand why they are wearing masks and do not want to be out of school. We have the best students and staff here at ESMS! We will keep working to make our space inviting and user friendly. Even though we have had a very weird year, we have managed to do a lot more than we thought we would be able to do. This 2020-21 school year has been tough to find what we can do safely without risking anyone of exposure. So far we have still had some difficulties. We have managed to continue with the science Olympiad, both girls and boys basketball, football, cross country, and lego league. Our middle school team has done a magnificent job at keeping their students safe from this pandemic. So far we have not had a spiraling amount of cases at our school.
Looking at our next quarter agenda we have a week long thanksgiving break but we still are doing virtual on Monday and Tuesday, so make sure your kids are getting their work done before 2nd quarter ends. Teachers will still be taking in grades on Monday and Tuesday so please look at it as a normal virtual day. I hope that you guys have a wonderful break and stay safe during these awful times. Your teachers will be looking forward to seeing you all come back safe and healthy. Things have been very busy here at ESMS. We have a hybrid schedule so we do not see all the kids every day plus we have students who are totally virtual of which we Zoom with just to see their faces. We miss school the way it use to be and we hope that we are restored to normal soon! However, we want everyone to be safe so we will do what it takes to educate our students.
We will have an online book fair starting on November 23 and ending on December 6. Whatever you order will be delivered to your house and we will get points towards school items. We really appreciate your support for this. There will be another one in April. Books make really nice gifts for the holidays. Remember that if you child needs books to read that we have an Overdrive/Sora eBook system. I order loads of books each year from this. Have your child get on and check it out. Their library card number is their school username. I want everyone to have happy holidays but please be safe. Please take care of yourself and return to us safe! As I am trying to be the best role model for my students, I am reading articles about wellness, strength and positivity. I read many articles over the weekend but below are the ones that I wanted to share with others. I really learned a lot of information from them that I can share with my students, along with fellow staff members. I really think to develop especially in the current situation we are in, we must develop a growth mindset. Here are the links to the articles if you would like to read them.
http://positivepsychology.org.uk/self-efficacy-definition-bandura-meaning/ https://blog.ace-up.com/5-ways-to-improve-your-self-management-skills https://generalassemb.ly/blog/diversity-inclusion-equity-differences-in-meaning/ https://jamesclear.com/grit https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/develop-a-growth-mindset/ Hope you found them helpful and inspiring. We are in this together and it takes all of us to make it work. I have had my students working on projects to improve our school culture. We found some activities that I posted yesterday, schoolwide hand projects where everyone traced their hand and put a kind word in the middle and we spelled out ESMS with the hands to post in the commons, plus more. I want us to use our platform to help others. We will continue to work on these type of projects to help others get through this time. |
Kathy Kimsey
Library Media Specialist Excelsior Springs Middle School |