📚The Library Lowdown

Teacher librarians at Howard, Holt, and Chavez celebrated Computer Science Week in early December by participating in an Hour of Code. The Hour of Code provides an opportunity for all students to learn to code by solving puzzles themed around movies and characters kids love. Minecraft, Frozen, Star Wars, and Angry Birds are among the many puzzles to choose from. Once students get going it's hard for them to stop. They love the challenge of the puzzles and the Hour of Code is set up to make it easy for anyone to get started, no matter their coding experience. It's a great way to get students started learning a skill that over 85% of the jobs available to them in the future will require.

Check out all the resources and puzzles here. You can participate in an Hour of Code at any time. Give it a try! You'll be hooked before you know it!

Each Year the ALA honors books, videos, and other outstanding materials for children and teens. Recognized worldwide for the high quality they represent, the ALA Youth Media Awards including the prestigious Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, Pura Belpré, and Coretta Scott King book awards guide parents, educators, librarians, and others in selecting the best materials for youth!

• Check out a list of the 2022 winners here!
• 2023 YMAs will take place Monday, January 30th - stay tuned! They will also include the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature, Sydney Taylor Book Award, and the American Indian Youth Literature Award.

Beanstack is a reading promotion tool for elementary and is a super easy and fun way to encourage independent reading! Throw out all those paper reading logs and easily track independent reading with Beanstack!

Beanstack's Winter Reading Challenge theme is All the Feels. Students read and log as many minutes as possible in the month of January to qualify their school to win up to $1000 for their school library! If your school would like to participate you can contact Amy Page and she will get your school up and running.

Beanstack is easy! If you haven't tried it, now is the time to get students engaged in independent reading! Click on the Beanstack icon in Clever and students can start logging reading minutes right away. This guide will help. Teachers, here is a guide for you too!

Amy Page is always available to visit your class or staff meeting to help get teachers and students started. Email her to schedule a visit (page_a@4j.lane.edu).

With Mote, add voice comments and audio content to documents, assignments, emails, and forms with ease. Mote is integrated into Google Docs, Drive, Slides, Sheets, Forms, and Gmail - for easy recording and playback. Once the Chrome extension is installed, click on the browser icon to access the "Motepad" recorder to create voice notes for any website or application. You can embed your mote recordings into apps like Google Sites, or Slides to share your voice notes as a QR code. It's a fantastic, easy tool to use.

Students can speak in their native language and teachers can translate the message with Mote. Learn more here and install the extension here. Have fun!

Check out the Martin Luther King Jr. titles available in Sora! There are multiple copies of some titles. Keep checking back as more and more titles are being added to Sora. If you need assistance accessing Sora, contact Amy Page.

Check out these awesome book lists from 2022! There's something for everyone!

Globally competent digital citizens know how to access reliable and credible information as they explore the world around them. All 4J students have access to the databases below. If teachers need assistance accessing or teaching students to how to use these resources and cite sources, schedule a time for Amy Page to visit your class here.

• Britannica School
• PebbleGo (accessible via Clever)
• Gale (Links available via Destiny)

Don't forget the Eugene Public Library has even more databases and resources kicking off research.

The Oregon Battle of the Books committee announced the OBOB state tournament is scheduled for Saturday, April 15th, 2023 at Chemeketa Community College in Salem! It's been a long time folks! Eugene School District is hosting the 3rd-5th grade regional tournament in person! More information to come. School champions will need to be named no later than February 24th. Regionals are tentatively scheduled for March 11th. Have fun!

In this month's choice board you'll find choice boards for New Year's Day (a little late), Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Chinese New Year, along with January's You've Been Virtually Book'd choice board and the usual fun.

Email: page_a@4j.lane.edu
Website: https://wakelet.com/@AmyPage5788
Location: 200 North Monroe Street, Eugene, OR, USA
Phone: 541-790-7765
Twitter: @Libraryhupla