DEAL MS LIBRARY NEWS!
Special Edition: March 2026 - PART 2!
What's going on in the library?
Greetings Families,
There is so much going on at Deal that I decided to push a second newsletter out to families for the month of March! See below for this month's special announcements! Read this edition to find out more about:
- The upcoming Battle of the Books competition update and links!
- A special TinkerCAD challenge for the Beauty and the Beast production!
- A Spring writing contest with cash prizes!
Battle of the Books UPDATE!
Deal students now have the opportunity to sign up for our Deal Battle of the Books school-wide competition on May 12th! Students have until the 12th to read the books! It is recommended that students try to read between 3-5 of the books to be competitive. Below is a link to the sign-up form for the competition. This will officially register students to compete for the team spots.
Please fill out this form if you are interested in competing in our Deal MS school-wide Battle of the Books Competition this year! By filling out this form, you are signing up to compete in our team competition on Tuesday, May 12th during advisory. This will be a team event where interested competitors can form their own team with friends or join an existing team. This event will help to decide which students will go on to the district level competition on May 29th which will include 5 students and two alternates from each grade.
In addition to the team event, students will also be able to take individual Kahoots to score more points towards qualifying for the district level teams. These will be available to students the week prior to Spring Break. Students will be able to take these individually. A combination of all scores will be considered to qualify for the district competition. The individual book Kahoot links will be available next week!
Sign-up form link:
Battle of the Books Competition Sign-Up! – Fill out form
Link to more info about Battle of the Books:
Calling all CAD and costume designers!
For this year's Spring theater production of Beauty and the Beast, Deal students will have the opportunity to design one of the most important elements of the production! We are hosting a design challenge to make horns for the Beast's costume!
To qualify for the challenge student designs MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING CRITERIA:
1) The design must be an original, no copies of other people's designs!
2) 3D printable designs are preferred, but you can also make horns with paper mache, clay, or other materials. The design must be durable, wearable, and able to be duplicated easily.
2) Be able to be attached to a hat or wig. The design does not have to include snaps, hooks, or holes, but it has to be easily attachable to a hat or wig that our performer will be wearing throughout the show.
3) Designs should look similar to one of the designs below. They can cover the ears in a spiral, protrude from the top backside of the head and lean forward or back. The horns should be similar to a ram or goat. No "devil" horns, please!
4) Submissions should be made using the form below. Students do not need to print designs. Students submit a digital file or image. All submissions are due by Friday, April 24th.
Submission Form:
backward pointing
spiral style
craft idea (paper mache + crochet)
Our LibGuide features resources for Women's History Month with featured articles and resources. The LibGuide also links to our SORA and library collections' featured titles to celebrate the month. The LibGuide is also featuring links to resources at the public library, Library of Congress, and other local institutions celebrating WHM! Check it out here:
https://dcps.libguides.com/c.php?g=1333065&p=9875036
In addition to our LibGuide, our library is full of rotating displays of recommended books.
The Deal Archive's mission is to document the student experience and provide an access point for these resources to current and former students!
Starting in 2025, Mr. Reichlen began to organize and catalog old yearbooks that were located in Deal storage. This year, student volunteers and and community projects have helped to get these resources out in the public once again! The work will be slow and tedious, but we are hoping to have most of the Yearbooks scanned and uploaded to a web space by 2027!
Please reach out to Mr. Reichlen if you have or know someone who wants to donate any Deal memorabilia. We are missing yearbooks from the 1930s - early 2000's. We are also looking for any materials and documents related to the old Reno school which is now part of our 7th grade wing at Deal! In the picture, you can see a display for Black History Month combining excerpts from Deal Yearbooks with library books and local newspaper clippings from the past 100 years to celebrate and contextualize Black History from a Deal perspective!
If you are interested in learning more about the archive or seeing what we have stored, reach out to Mr. Reichlen through his contact information at the bottom of the newsletter. We hope to digitize this collection over the next few years. Please reach out if this is a project that interests you or if you have a son or daughter still deciding on their 8th grade community project!
Book Recommendations and LibGuide
Mr. Reichlen creates a new display of book recommendations each month. Also, students and families have the opportunity to make featured recommendations for the library displays by filling the linked form: https://bit.ly/DealMSLibraryRecommend
More information about the Must Read lists and digital resources on the web at the Library's LibGuide Page: https://bit.ly/DealMSLibGuide
- A libguide is a public facing website that provides additional information for the library, reading recommendations, monthly news and themes, ELA resources, and research help and tips! The libguide is curated and managed by Mr. Reichlen. Please reach out if you have additional questions or comments.
Give additional feedback using the Deal Library Survey Form:
https://bit.ly/deal_library_survey_2024
This month, our Must Reads features books for Women's History Month! We are celebrating books by female authors and stories featuring diverse and empowering female characters. Both of these lists are linked below! Some of our titles from the February lists are featured this month in the new archival display in the library also celebrating 100 years of Black History!
The SORA app is located in Clever, the DCPS hub for digital learning. Students have access to thousands of e-books, audiobooks, interactive readers, and magazines! New titles are added on a regular basis. Students can access SORA through the app available for iOS, Kindle, and Android platforms in addition to accessing through the web. Click on the image to learn more.
Library Checkout Policies
Students at Deal will be checking out books during the month of September during our beginning of the year library orientation. Students are allowed to have up to 5 books out at a time and will begin to receive overdue notices after 30 days. Mr. Reichlen sends out two emails to families per year. One will go out before the winter break and one goes out at the end of May or early June. There are no fines for lost or damaged books but books that do not get returned will end up on the student's record through high school unless the student or family communicates with Mr. Reichlen. The library will also accept donations of new or gently used hard cover books published within the last 5 years and age-appropriate for 6th grade students. Students will never be disciplined for lost materials and it will not affect future checkouts as long as Mr. Reichlen is notified. To read the full library policy document, click on the image.