New Art Books @ Your Library

What do Picasso, Chagall, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Monet have in common?

Yes, they’re all artists, AND, we now have some awesome new books about each one of them!

Check out these new art books at the HHES Library!

HHES Library: The Master of Disasters!

Thanks to a a suggestion last spring from Ms Crepin for more resources on natural disasters, we recently purchased a set of  books on a wide variety of disasters published by World Book.  They look great and are ready to be checked out.

Check them out and let us know what you think!

Alaska’s First People:Perfect for new Alaska state history!

Judy Ferguson is the author of this series.  Tahita travels with Grampa and little fox meeting the indigenous people of Alaska in 1898 from the Aleutians, through Southeast, into Inuit/Eskimo lands, through 5 Athabascan groups to Prince William Sound.

Maps on every page. Endorsed by Native educators. Striking paintings, full map, glossary.

Lesson plans on state standards available on CD.

A Big Thanks To The Valdez Museum!

The Valdez City School Libraries would like to take this opportunity to thank the Valdez Museum for donating to each school library a copy of the recently produced DVD, “Between the Glacier and the Sea”. “Told through personal accounts of survivors, this movie dispels myths and reveals untold stories that provide answers to why the city of Valdez was built in such a precarious location…”

Thanks Steve for your hard work with the production of this important resource about the history of our community!

Researcher At Work @yourlibrary!

This young 3rd grader loves learning facts about the planets. Over the past 2 months he has checked out almost every one of the books in our newest series of books on the planets and collected interesting facts. This is all on his own time mind you. Yesterday he presented me with a 4 page report on what he has learned. Well done Mr. P! We’ll keep you posted on his next research adventure.

World Book Training For Teachers

During the first three Friday’s of January the Valdez City School Library Staff is doing presentations to staff members at all three schools on World Book Encyclopedia Online. This online service has lots of great things to offer students as well as teachers. Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday’s presentation at the George Gilson Jr. High School. Jr. High School.

Teresa and I took turns showing a variety of services and weblinks available using a computer and a multi-media projector. Teachers each had a computer to follow along with and explore the site on their own as well.

Our jr. high science teacher immediately took this great online service to the next level by plugging facts, graphs, and diagrams from World Book Online into a powerpoint which she plans to use with her classes next week. She had even gone the extra mile and had already cited the source. With copyright being such an important issue, I was pleased to see that!

Kids Learn Tips On Avalanche Safety

The HHES Library turned into an avalanche safety class that involved math, science and even a smattering of career awareness. Sarah Carter of “Snow Safety & Snow Science Avalanche Skills Eduacation”, hooked students in Mrs. Cranor and Mrs. Haase-Bushong’s library classes on Thursday using a nice mix of DVD extreme snowmachine & ski footage, a little hands on demontration, and lots of group discussion.

Carter’s 45 minute presentation is the shortened version of the typical 2 hour hands-on workshops she and her husband instruct for classes. Learn more about avalanche safety at the Valdez Snowmachine Club website and find out about upcoming Valdez events. www.valdezsnow.com

Where In The Library Is…..

Waldo will be playing a big part at our elementary library this year.

First quarter the library focus will be working with students of all grades on how to locate resources in and beyond their library. “Where are those fiction books kept?” “How about the biographies, or atlas’?”

Preschool/Kindergarten kids will begin with tasks as simple as learning where to check out a book. As students get older they will be learning to use the dewey decimal system so they can locate the library materials they want,on their own. Older students will add on to those skills using internet search engines effectively, and becoming familiar with good quality web sites that can help them in their classes.

For me, the big challenge is being able to teach these “life long learning skills” while dove-tailing what they are learning in their classes. I want my lessons to support the classroom curriculum as well as the library’s. So if I can dive in and teach a little about biographies when a class is learning about Thomas Jefferson, that’s the icing on the cake.

Oh! And where in the library IS Waldo?!

Waldo is hiding Somewhere @yourlibrary! Come dive into some great books and who knows, you may find Waldo along the way!

“The Resources To Strike It Rich”

Check out the bulletin board my volunteers wrapped up yesterday. It will be a nice display to kick off the year. “Our Library Has The Resources To “Strike It Rich” In Alaska’s History.

Check Out The Gold Nuggets!

One of the exciting new online Alaska Resources that’s getting lots of publicity right now is the collaborative project between “Learn Alaska” and the “Alaska Digital Archive“. These two organizations joined forces and have created lesson plans for schools to use involving scanned historical photos. Teachers and students will be able to incorporate authentic pictures from Alaska history into research they are doing in their classes. What a great way to bring history alive!

Introduction To Alaska History Standards

Our state has been working on the Alaska History Standards. I’m always looking for ways to support the district goals and teachers lesson plans through our libraries. I decided this will be the year for our library staff to evaluate each library’s Alaska collection, begin updating the collections with input from the teachers, and look for ways the library para-professionals and I can support the Alaska History Curriculum by introducing students, parents and teachers to some of the great Alaska online resources. There are some excellent ones. More about those later…..

To kick off the Alaska History theme, my parent volunteer is creating a fun bulletin board to help make teachers aware of the new Alaska History Standards. Take a peek at how the “Strike It Rich Using Alaska Resources” bulletin board is coming along at our elementary library!