Library Media Center

Welcome to the Murphy Library Media Center!

April is School Library Month

 

The American Association of School Librarians' celebration of school libraries and school librarians began on April 1, 1985. “The theme of the first national observance of School Library Month was "Where Learning Never Ends: The School Library Media Center."  This year at Murphy School we started early with the Scholastic Book Fair. We wish to thank Mrs. Pedroso and the parent volunteers that made it possible. Ms.Barta book talked selections that were available at the fair the week before to get the students excited about the fair.  A big thank you for the books that the PTO graciously purchased for the library collection.

 

The library is not for just checking out books. Perhaps you have heard of STEM. It is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math. These four fields share an emphasis on innovation, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The library media program provides the foundation skills for students to become critical users of information, and readers for lifelong learning. The library curriculum consists of teaching digital citizenship, coding, spring break they will begin using the engineering design process to solve problems.

 

The fifth graders have been working with Sphero robots.  Ms. Barta has 10 mazes on the library rug for the children to create a coding program to navigate Sphero through a maze. Two of our fifth graders have completed the library skills challenge.  The challenge begins with a treasure hunt where the student has to find specific call numbers throughout the library.  Then they are tested on how to do searches on Destiny (online patron catalog) and evaluating the information they look up.  The final part of the challenge is to use the catalog to create a resource list of books that can be cited for a report or listed with a summary for their own personal use.  

 

Our fourth graders are creating robots with Legos.  This week they have been building and coding for  Milo, the science rove.  They have built a movable object-detector arm which senses a plant specimen. Then they created a coding arm using a tilt sensor. Finally, they are collaborating with another team to move the specimen to another location.

 

The third graders are working on 13 puzzle units programming with their robot named Dash.  Using blockly code, the units introduce advanced concepts of coding through playful projects and puzzles. The children work with variables, events, conditionals and more.  They make Dash sing, dance, make eye expressions and move and turn its head using blockly code. 

 

Second graders are color coding for their Ozobot Evo and Bit robots. Ozobots use sensors to follow lines and read color codes that you make with markers.  The children code their bots to go different speeds, directions, and make special moves. The bots make sounds as they follow the color code programs.

 

The kindergarteners and first graders are using Code & Go Mouse robots.  They use coding cards and program their code into the robot mouse.  There are 20 mazes to code.  Just this week two of our first graders have completed all 20 mazes!  

 

At the beginning of the year we promoted getting a public library card for every student.  Once you have your public library card you can borrow materials from any public library in the State of Connecticut and you don’t have to actually go to another library.  You can order it online and it is sent to your home library for free. They email you and you can go pick it up.  Students that bring in their Raymond library card get their picture taken with one of the dinosaurs on the library bulletin board.