Create a Catapult

Today was our 22nd Maker Space Friday at Mt. Carmel Elementary.  It started off with a scheduling challenge because of the winter weather early dismissal work-around, but the volunteers were ready and willing and students were eager to get started.  Our first group split into two different challenges: one of our 2nd grade student created a "how-to-video" to show fellow students how he so easily draws Captain Underpants.  That video will be placed on our blog soon.  Other students were given a bag of Mystery Materials and each student was instructed to create a device to project a pom-pom through the air.  The students quickly learned to trade materials to create their design, pushed forward with their 20 time limit to accomplish goals, and came up with many different methods of working out this challenge.  Here are a few pictures of their work in action.

Update on MakerSpace

Here at Mt. Carmel Elementary, our MakerSpace efforts were funded by a small percentage of our Scholastic Book Fair in Spring, 2015.  That said, we have been supplementing A LOT with recycled materials and donations from volunteers.  We are excited to have Sphero, Green Screen set up, our STEM Station recording booths and an OSMO.  If you know of a grant the librarian might apply for to help fund an expansion of our MakerSpace program, please email Mrs. Dunning at cdunning@madison.k12.al.us

New Books Chosen by Librarian

As a librarian, I get to know our students and their interest, issues and challenges. Here are the books from #Capstone that we received that I selected for the students

#PPG Grant Books

We were so lucky to have received a grant for $1,000 from PPG so we could have Heather L. Montgomery, children's nonfiction author visit. We included the purchase of her books we didn't have in the grant

More New Titles

New Titles!

Sharing New Stories

Ever wonder how your school librarian decides how to spend the money earned from our one fundraiser, #Scholastic Book Fair? @MTCES last fall we had our most successful book fair in eight years so we had $2,000 to work with; sounds like an awful lot but with so many books choices and reasons for choosing, it's quite a challenge to begin selection. 

In our library we have a well loved and worn Wish List 3-ring binder. Throughout the year, student and teacher request are added to the notebook. Sometimes the request might be just one title, author or subject, sometimes it may be several pages of books an entire grade level it working with for a new focus on sharing literature in their curriculum, and of course favorite titles wear out and awesome new books are published. Weighing the needs of our teachers and students is very important and the Wish List notebook is never empty. 

This week in the library we expect a couple of very important shipments from two of our favorite vendors, #Capstone and #BoundtoStayBound. Because our books are used by so many children, library binding is our preferred binding. This increases the cost of the book, but the number of circulations per book make this a worthwhile trade.  As these books are processed and ready to shelve you will  see lots of happy faces in the school library!