October+23,+2007

=ISLU Minutes=

October 23, 2007
1. Welcome 2. John Bryner - UEN 3. Leveled Reading a. Suppliers for Good level 1-2 b. Fountas - Pinnell 4. Meeting dates 5. Welcoming atmosphere 6. Last year a. Scope and sequence lessons - b. Any more (topic from last year)

= = =Independent School Librarians of Utah=

Meeting notes: October 23, 2007
1. John Bryner, from UEN, brought us all a copy of the resource book from NetSafe Utah. This notebook is full of information about safety on the internet. Speak with Jan or call Rick Cline if you would like one and missed the meeting. John also spoke to us about the changes that have occurred on Pioneer. In EBSCO we now have the capacity for a federated search through Web Feet. This means that all of the available databases can be searched at one time. A. World Book Online: Kids has activities that are tied to the Core Curriculum up to fifth grade. It looks excellent. B. World Book Online: Advanced: "My Research" allows your students to set up an account with username and password to save their research work for up to a year. C. Pathfinder: It has a limited number of projects at the moment but promises to grow and is an excellent resource that will save you a lot of time. D. Citation Builder: John feels that it is the best one available. E. Timeline. Another useful tool that can be adapted to your classroom needs.

2.UEN will come to your school to train teachers/go over the sites for free if 10 teachers will come.

3.Next ISLU meeting dates: January 15, April 8. We decided to meet once each trimester. Also UELMA will be on THURSDAY THE 6th. Go to the website for the information. http://www.uelma.org/

4.HOMEWORK!! At UELMA Jan Duane and Pam Stone will give a presentation on making your library a welcoming place. They have asked that we send them some of our ideas. Simple or grand, all ideas are helpful. Their emails janduane@jdchs.org and pamstone@rhsm.org

Some ideas that were presented: A. Lynn Lonsdale at Waterford has put up photos of the faculty holding their favorite books. It was so popular that now she is considering putting up student pictures with favorite books also. B. At Rowland Hall- St. Marks School Becky Hall had a celebration of the United States. The children were invited to decorate a state hat. Some came with state animals or monuments on their heads. There were various states related games such as "Twister" with large US map for the game board. A United States shaped cake was a big hit too. C. Pirates Week was big last fall in the elementary school library at RHSM. There were many pirate related books and games and the youngest students had to walk the gang plank(A wooden board) to enter the library. Then they donned eye patches for story hour. The older students had research assignments related to pirates throughout history. D. To celebrate Halloween this year and to encourage the use of the catalog, Becky Hall scanned the covers of Halloween-related book covers. The bulletin board has been decorated with these colorful covers. The children wanted to check out the books but in order to do so they had to look up the titles in the catalog. It was a sneaky way to get them to do their own searches.

These are a few ideas for Jan and Pam. Please send them your ideas also. If you have pictures, that might help with their presentation also.

5. Leveled Reading: Becky Hall brought up the question because at Rowland Hall the library is not leveled but the kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms have their own teaching trade books and those are all leveled. She and the teachers and her administration are discussing the topic and Becky wanted input from our group

Cindy Ahern from Christian Heritage uses Accelerated Reader. Her library is leveled all the way to eighth grade. She mentioned that Renaissance Corporation has grants to help librarians set up the program.

Giselle Airiess at St. Vincents and Kathleen Kilby at St.Francis Xavier School uses Lexile scores. They consult the standardized testing scores to find the correct starting place for students through eight grade.

Something to consider: Becky Hall will not be the co-chair next year for she has had this position for a number of years. I will do it for one more year and then I will “retire” from this position. We do need someone who will take Becky’s place next year. It would be helpful if the person would commit to two years so there is continuity. It’s not a difficult job, especially with two people.