Happy Vacation!!!!

 

We have made it to the last day before vacation!!! It has been a busy week but we are all ready for vacation and celebrating with our friends and family!!

Wishing everyone a most happy and healthy holiday, vacation and new year!!!

Jingle All The Way

 What Can You Do With Biology

This week has been incredibly busy in the library! We have begun the Biology Annotated Bibliography Project which is the first step in the honors biology classes year long research paper. This is a content rich project that really allows students to dig deep into a topic of their choice. It teaches them to not only find the research but how to analyze, interpret and use the data. In order to jump start the research process and teach how to distinguish quality resources,
I created this Biology LibGuide.

Sassy is Celebrating

Crusing Through December

Of a Civic Nature!

We have had some great classes in the library this week. In particular the new Civics class is providing some great opportunities for rich research! Ms. Hale's classes are presenting Landmark Court Cases. Using many books that detail the historic cases as well as our Criminal Justice Collection Database, students could really dig in and analyze how the case has affected our lives today! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't Blink!

The preschoolers are full of life this time of year! They really are the highlight of our day. This week we read two great books and the littles were super enthusiastic in their reaction to them! I love watching them make connections between what we read and real life! Picture books are a great tool for starting discussions for all ages!

 

Back in the Swing of Things

 The Gift of Giving

The feeling of giving thanks continues well after the holiday for the students and staff at Natick High. Four year old Ruby Mae Millea is in the hospital fighting stage 4 neuroblastoma. She will be there over the holidays and her wish is to receive holiday cards. The library has taken up the challenge for #TeamRuby and students and staff are helping to make her wish come true! So proud of our students
at Natick High!

Life of a Working Dog

Sassy was excited to come back to school after the Thanksgiving Break! She was so happy to see the students and to be sporting her new jean jacket! Thank you to Network Engineer Rae Becerra for the gift!

Check Out Our New Book Cases

We did some rearranging in the library a few months ago. In order to accommodate larger groups we moved a long solid bookcase and put in these moveable bookcases. This enables us to open up the space when we need to but also still preserve the teaching area! 

SHOW YOUR SPIRIT!

Spirit Week

It's spirit week at NHS and the first two days were quite a success! Student Council put a lot of thought into each day to make a creative and exciting week for our students and staff!

Eva Canino sporting the groufit!

Julia Mariano and Annie Gee in Redhawk Pride!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Preschool Musings

 This week we are reading the book This Beautiful Day / Richard Jackson in preschool. A beautifully illustrated story about how to create fun on a rainy day. It was an appropriate story given our week of weather.
Prior to the story, one preschooler walked in the library and said, "Miss Tara, the library looks beautiful!" It's the little things that keep you coming back every day!

Moving into November

With the end of the term students are getting in last assignments and studying for tests! The library has been a busy place!!
 

Sassy!

Sassy has been working hard! She loves visiting North Star and hanging out in the conference room there! She has made some great new friends!

Get on the Bus with John Green!

Hugely popular author John Green has a new book out! Turtles All the Way Down flew off the shelf the minute it came into the library and the wait list is growing! In honor of the popularity of his books and to enter a contest to have John Green skype in a visit to our school, Ms. Williams and Ms. Carrick created this display! Check it out!

Halloween Happenings!!

Halloween was a creative and festive day this year!!! Seniors pulled out all the stops and came up with some fun entertaining costumes! Here is a sample of some of the highlights! Would love to show you the video of our "dominoes" but Blogger will not upload it properly!! But you can check it out on Twitter! Follow @Taralmcd

Pumpkin Madness!

3rd Annual Dept Pumpkin Decorating Contest

Thanks to the ACCESS program for organizing the 3rd annual department pumpkin decorating contest. What a great way to bring the staff together. This year the pumpkins were amazing and though we were sure we had a winner, the math department took home the honors! All pumpkins on display in the library for the next week!!

Library's Pumpkin

Math Dept's Porcupine Winner!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preschool Fall Forest

 Last week in preschool we read the book: Full of Fall / April Pulley Sayre. A beautiful picture book about the transition leaves go through from the beginning of fall to winter. To bring the book "to life", we made our own "preschool fall forest" Our littles made leaves for our tree and we will watch them as they begin to "fall" and eventually move into winter where we will replace the leaves with snowflakes!
 

Libraries: Where Learning Happens!

 Loving Libraries

Studies are showing more and more the importance of libraries and their role in navigating through the vast field of information and tools available. While this article focuses on the public library, it can be applied to the school library as well! Thank you to Ms. Rotkiewicz for sharing!

Libraries Help Find Trustworthy Information!

 Sitting with Sassy!

Sassy has been having a great time coming to school during her training. She is most happy when she is surrounded by our students! And the students have been wonderful to her. They are gentle, caring and excited to see her! And what is best is she comes home and is so exhausted from her day at work she puts herself right to bed! We continue to train and look forward to her time at school!

Check the Tag

Check the Tag Project

What a great week of teaching with the freshmen Global Awareness classes. Mr. Russo and Ms. Hale's Check the Tag project challenges students to look at a clothing brand and determine the company's philosophy and practice regarding social/environmental/civic responsibility. This is one of my favorite projects to work on with the freshmen!

Carve Out Time for Reading

Another creative and brilliant bulletin board put together by Ms. Williams and Ms. Carrick!

Teacher Conferencing

We love to see the library used in a variety of ways and one of our favorite uses is when classroom teachers "conference" with students during the day! 

Redhawk History

What has become the most popular display in the library, the yearbooks continue to fascinate and entertain our students AND community! We are rotating all of our yearbooks in so students can see the lineage of Natick High students! And it was great to see parents browsing through the yearbooks during Open House!

 

 

 

Sassy's Picks

Check out some of Sassy's favorite books in the library! You can tell where her interests lie, she has a one track mind!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Out!

Seniors are showing their spirit with their new shirts! Love seeing all their excitement this school year.

 Sassy is Here!

Sassy has arrived at Natick High. While she is still in training she will be coming to school a few days a week as part of her training regimen. She was here for an hour today and the students were overjoyed to see Sassy!
Overheard in the library!
"This is my therapy!"
"I have homework to do but this just made my day and now I can actually do my work!"
"Oh my I am SO happy she is here!"
"This is the best thing to happen at school!"

Banned Book Week!

From the American Library Association: "Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Typically held during the last week of September, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers — in shared support of the freedom to seek and express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular."

Check out our very cool display in honor of Banned Book Week and check out a book!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preschool is in the House!

This week marks the first week of preschool story time! We were so excited to have our favorite littles in the library! We will be reading to eight classes each week as well as introduce the preschoolers to a library curriculum focusing on books, authors and illustrators! 

preschool classes start

Summer Reading Sessions!

 Summer Reading!

One of the 11th/12th grade choices

Today we had some great group discussions for summer reading! Students had a choice between three books to read. Discussion groups were randomly assigned based on your book choice, and discussion leaders and assistants lead some great talks! Ms. Carrick is part of the Summer Reading Committee and was instrumental in choosing some great reads this year. Students seemed happy with the choices!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Library is in Full Swing!

We love how the library is used in so many different ways! Whether it is a class coming down for instruction and work time, teachers one on one conferencing or students working together, it is always an active place!!