Here are some students talking to "regular Joe", our baseball and bus-driving celebrity visiting the book fair and giving out many, many baseballs! Students loved it!

Remember our Fair is Going On!

The little box in the middle is for making donations to our school for new books. Please help!

We hope you will join us this week at the hotdog dinner on Tuesday night at 5:00 before the dance! We would love to see you and help you find your favorite books at the Scholastic Book Fair!

The link to our online fair is also a great place to shop. It ends on 11/13/12.

Inside Out and Back Again Book Club

We had a great discussion this morning on Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhhai Lai, a story told completely in verse form about a Vietnamese girl's 4th grade experience in Alabama. Students in all grades came and really enjoyed the book. It was a "quick read" and one of my favorites!

Our next book is Brand-New Emily by Ginger Rue. Rue lives in Alabama. We hope you will join us in Irondale Middle School's library!

Taylor Swift Live Webcast Day!

Today a 6th grade reading class came in for Taylor Swift's Live webcast offered through Scholastic. It was a ton of fun! She's been wearing red everyday for two reasons: The acronym can stand for Read, EveryDay and also the name of her new album is Red. Awesome! More pictures in a second!

Here are a few of the students watching the webcast and writing questions for Taylor Swift. We hope to do it again soon.

Our Online Bookfair Starts Tomorrow!

Remember, shop our online Scholastic Book Fair by clicking here: http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/irondalemiddleschool This link will take you directly to the fair page! It starts October 24th and runs through November 13th.

Promotional Materials are Bagged Up and Ready for Students!

Pictures speak a thousand words, don't they? Our teachers will receive these "caught reading" and "golden tickets" to give to students next week. They can drop them off at the Scholastic Book Fair and win a baseball, book, pencil or other small prizes. Our goal is to keep students reading and offer fresh reading materials all of the time!

Student Promotions for Scholastic Book Fair!

One of the best things about the Scholastic Book Fairs are the drawings! If a teacher gives a student a golden ticket, a bookmark or a special message for entering a contest, he/she may drop it off in the library to try to win a book or a pencil! Here are some of the promos that teachers will be giving to students:
 Tickets, bookmarks and "You've been caught reading" placards for teachers to give to students or students to give to students!

Student Projects on Display ~

In world of slick advertising campaigns on every corner, don't you just love to see authentic student work? It warms my heart when teachers share student work in the library. I wanted to share these, so take a look! Which is your favorite?

Check in tomorrow for information on a free e-book website!

Some of our All Stars!

All Star Crew Members Hard at Work on Promotions!

Our Scholastic Book Fair arrives October 29th with special events, baseball contests, teacher events, and "Shoeless Joe" here to tell stories around the pot-bellied stove! We invite our parents and students to come for our special events. We hope to see you there!

Nooks in P.E.?

Our 30 Nooks are pretty popular in the library, but the girls' PE coach? Yes! Coach Cudmore is a technology dynamo! She downloaded health articles onto the Nooks for her students to read the day's lesson. They loved it! I sneaked in for a quick picture and students were quietly reading or checking in with Coach Cudmore.

Students quietly reading the health article assigned by Coach Cudmore.
 

Our Wonderful Tutors at IMS...or The WT's!

The WTs!

Did you know that IMS offers tutoring sessions from 7:25 to 7:50 every Tuesday and Thursday morning? I like to call them the WTs! They are the Wonderful Tutors! That's all because they do so much. Here's a quick list:

• Tutor in Math, English, Social Studies, Science
• Help organize notebooks
• Help students with essays
• Help students study for a test
• Give students confidence in a subject by "talking it out"

Thank you, WTs, our friends and mentors from next door!

It's Scholastic Book Fair Time!

 Our Scholastic Book Fair is still two weeks out, but we are working away on our events and promotions!

You can help buy books for the IMS library by donating $$ in the box!

Come in and join in the fun!

Over 70 students have signed up to help with the Book Fair. Students can set up, break down, re-arrange books after classes have been in and help students find books. They also help serve some dogs with our ball park theme for Family Night!

Teachers will be given pins to wear to promote the Book Fair. One of our library aides cut out the circles with a special machine and Mrs. Barker designed the pin in Word. Thank you for all of your help guys!

Study Blue & Homework Alabama

Study Blue is an awesome way to create and study flashcards for any subject online. Just create an account with an e-mail address and get to work! Title your deck of flashcards, add cards, and save the deck.

Homework Alabama is an online tutoring service offered for Alabama's students who need help in math, English, Social Studies, and science. Live tutors are available after school until 9:30 p.m. A public library card number is needed to access the site. This service is provided by Alabama public libraries.

Students hard at work on projects.

Our Best Online Resource - The Alabama Virtual Library

One of the best resources an Alabama student can access through a library or their own Internet at home is The Alabama Virtual Library. Have you seen the Encyclopedia's new E-Book Collection? Pictured below are just some of the E-Books available for middle schoolers. The best thing about them is that they are free! Just click them and read them online!

www.avl.lib.al.us - Brittanica Discover America

www.avl.lib.al.us - Illustrated Science Library

   www.avl.lib.al.us - New Views of the Solar System

www.avl.lib.al.us - Inside Sports

Be A Champion! Read!

I hope all students are participating in the Be A Champion and Read! Contest sponsored by AEA. The contest ends October 19th. Student winners receive a grand prize of tickets to the Iron Bowl along with two guests. They also get to visit the hospitality room and go on the field before the game!

Teachers can win $1,500 for their classroom and one library will win $5,000! The best decorated door wins $250 in cash. Let's get reading students! Just read six books by the deadline and YOU might be headed to a great football rivalry game!

Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

October's Breakfast over Books features Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai. One Alabama connection to this book is that the author lived here for a while. She moved here from Vietnam. Now, come check one out!

This picture came from www.harpercollins.com

The book is written completely in verse!

Website Restrictions

Have there ever been some websites that you wanted to use, but could not because they were restricted? Which ones? Banned Websites Awareness Day's purpose is to bring the issue of website restrictions to light for the world of education.

Banned Websites Awareness Day

 This picture was copied from The American Association of School Librarians Webpage, a division of the American Library Association page on October 3, 2012.

 

A Year Down Yonder

One of my promises to myself this year is to read A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck. Librarians always have books on their bucket list that they have yet to read and this one is mine. What's on your bucket list?

Richard Peck has won many writing awards, so his books have to be good, right?

Before School Begins...

The IMS library is a busy place before the first bell even rings! Teachers dash in to get this and that - butcher paper, movies, books - and students come in to print, work on online assignments, book clubs and checking out books.

This is the end of one of our book talks.