ELM Stories

ELM stands for Electronic Library for Minnesota. It is a collection of databases funded by the state of Minnesota which can be used by public library patrons and in the schools. These databases are particularly important for schools with limited budgets who cannot provide subscriptions to databases. I'm sure we have all used databases for projects in our own education, and we have used them while teaching our students how to perform research. We know students have become accustomed to using Google, Bing, and Yahoo as search engines. We also know that the websites they find can be inappropriate or inaccurate. This is why it is so important to have databases available to students. We must do everything we can to help them succeed. This means providing accurate and reliable resources such as databases.
So we know that databases are important, and that ELM provides them for free. I want to make sure that you also know the current status of these databases. They may become unfunded, and no longer be available to use in our schools! In order to ensure that they remain available we simply need to advocate to our state representatives and to our governor. But an even simpler help is to go to elm4you.org and click on the link to share your ELM stories. I have also provided a link to the ELM Stories form on the left side of my blog. ELM stories simply tell the people who fund ELM the various ways that you have used ELM. Share the best stories you can remember!
Have you shared an ELM story? What was it?

Weeding: The Same in Libraries and Gardens

 Occasionally libraries need to weed their collection. I was recently working on weeding the collection at one of the elementary schools I am student teaching at. My cooperating teacher was trying to get the teacher resource rooms cleaned out a bit. We got rid of all the VHS tapes since they have become an obsolete format and we got rid of the professional books that the teachers never come to check out. The picture you see on the left is the cover of a book we discovered. The book was from 1984, and if you view the page below, you will realize how much this book needed to be weeded. This book was outdated, it really only addressed the female side of this issue, and it was much too wordy for any child to be expected to sit through. It may be a worthy topic of discussion, but there has to be a better book out there. I shared this book with my boyfriends mom and with my own mom. They both said that there needed to be a more child friendly book available, and a book for little boys. If you would like to view more of this book check it out on Google Books.

Beverly Cleary- Introduction into Chapter Books.

My second graders are ready to move on to more complicated chapter books. We want to begin reading books that are harder than Junie B. Jones and Magic Tree House Books. My cooperating teacher suggested Beverly Cleary books. I suggest not using them. After reading the beginning of a number of her books we realized they were very dull because they were written in the 50's. I have decided to finish the Beverly Cleary author study with some Beverly Cleary games on her website and a booktalk about the Ramona books. I still want these books to circulate after all! The book talk will involve viewing the trailer for Ramona and Beezus movie. I will talk about the Ramona books and read a short section to them. After this, I will introduce the students to the Laura Ingalls books. I might do a book talk like the Ramona books, or  I may just begin reading the books to them. I need to look the books over before I decide. I think the Little House books will work out nicely because there are also easy Laura Ingalls books which I can put in their book baskets, and there is an online extension for computer lab time.