Month: November 2018

PTA Book Fair in Media

gwynethj

“Did you know? Reading just 20 minutes a day exposes your child to about 1.8 million words per year. Reading helps students develop a stronger vocabulary, and in addition, students who read for pleasure average higher grades in English, mathematics, science, and history!” Scholastic Promo Material

Of course checking out books from our Library supports this in every way! But having a personal Library at home is also a wonderful thing! It brings to mind, snow days, holidays, & curling up with a good book! (See my personal reminiscence below)

 

Mark your calendar to join us for a celebration of reading and raising funds to help our school!  The PTA Book Fair hours are as follows:

  • Friday, 11/16: 11:00 am – 1:30 pm (lunch)
  • Monday & Tuesday, 11/19-11/20:   9:30am-11:30am (lunch) and 1pm-8pm (conferences)

Check out our Book Fair Videos!

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Mr. C & his daughter Miss S.

 

 

All Book Fair parent volunteers will receive a free Murray Hill Middle School long sleeve t-shirt!  Many volunteer time slots are open during conference times.  Please consider signing up below for slots before, between, and/or after your parent teacher conferences.   

Follow this link to sign up!

Volunteer Sign-Up Genius

Buy Online & Help Murray Hill!

View & Download the MHMS PTA Bookfair PDF Flier!

Bookfair Highlights Video

 “I’ve been inspired by the amazing Jennifer LaGarde who has written such brilliant post about the important people and pivotal moments in your past that made you a lifelong reader.  Jennifer’s post is evocative, thought-provoking, and inspiring! It was so good I wrote a flippin novel of a comment that will make up much of this posting!

Her well written words caused me to smile and fondly recall those individuals, pivot points, and circumstances that made me into a reader. And it wasn’t a book report, diorama, or a standardized text passage that did it. Shocker.

During the blizzard of 1979 we were stuck home for a week and I ran out of books. (Gasp!) The picture above shows me curled up sitting on the heating vent in the living room (note the ORANGE shag carpet!) with Grandma’s afghan reading The Laird of Tariff Hall, a well-worn and taped-together Gothic paperback.

After that, I guess I was whining about nothing to read so my Mom gave me her Gone With the Wind paperback – that shut me up! I don’t know if it was totally appropriate for a 14 year old to read that – but it kept me quiet for many many days!

I also had a collection of Nancy Drew books, boy I loved those! Being a daughter of an English Teacher and Reading Specialist meant that at a very early age, I had books around the house and my own little library in my room. The Scholastic Book Fair coming to our school an help some of our kids build their own personal libraries!

Read the rest:

Reading: A Passionate Love Affair

10 Things to Think About Before You Post

gwynethj

This is a much needed update to a 2014 post. Over the years we’ve had a great educational partnership with our NYC friends at Flocabulary. I’m even an MC Educator or Flocabulary #HipHopEd Ambassador.

We’ve been using their Week in Rap news feature in our school since they landed on the hip hop education or #HipHopEd scene in 2008! Murray Hill even earned a video shout out in 2013! W00t! (We were SO proud!)

10 Things to Think About Before You Post video stands up to the test of time.

It’s just practical advice and one we like to play on our #MHTVNews at least once a year!

So, when I heard that they were teaming up with the awesome Common Sense Media people, to put out a music video about Digital Citizenship, – I was SO there!

Common Sense Media has added some handy extras! You can view the Video Discussion Guide and Download the Lyrics Poster, Top 10 List Poster, and Fill in Your Own Top 10 Poster.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 (professionally – not personally)  and Instagram since 2015, and I have an AMAZING & generous personal learning network of students, teachers, & followers – so being careful, upbeat, positive and mindful of what I post is important to me, too!

I don’t use Facebook – we just never got along and I never warmed up to Snapchat. But it’s not about what kind of social media or App you use but HOW you use it!

I think you’ll like the video – let me know in the comments!

 


We all want our kiddos to make good choices online! We share this video on our daily #MHTV News show every year & we just wanted to share it with you!

Cheers!

~Gwyneth Jones – Your Daring Librarian!

UPDATE:

And for Teachers & Librarians…here’s this thought!

And a blog post for you on this topic.

Flocabulary: Hip-Hop Learning That is Out of this World!

6 Ways to Avoid Those Social Media Landmines