January 2022

Kyle Mohlman came up with the idea of having a weekly segment where students can recommend books to one another. They invited me to come down and kick off the new segment in early January. What a pleasure it was to see Mr. Altieri's hard-working crew in action!

Barrington Middle School and Park View Middle School in Cranston are engaging in a fun and friendly reading competition. Students who read a book or magazine on Sora are encouraged to fill out a Google form to recommend their reading material and enter to win a weekly and/or grand prize. The contest runs from January 10 to February 28th.

Weekly winners so far are Tilly Smirnov, Parker Hennings, and Fatimah Diallo. Their names stay entered in the grand prize sent from Sora: a tablet! Sora also sent t-shirts and the BMS Student Council has donated some Barrington Books gift cards as weekly prizes. Details on the competition can be found here. Check out the peer recommendations slide show here. Special thanks to Mrs. Van Leer for curating all of the recommendations!

Grade 8 started an application and research unit and we have been working closely to integrate library lessons whenever possible. During the week of January 10th, we explored our resources and how to effectively use Google search strategies. We used this guide and our databases to explore ideas.

During the week of January 18th, eighth-graders came to the library to break down the Potential Sources tool. This tool looks at seven key elements to determine if they should use potential sources:

• date
• publisher
• author
• type (purpose)
• accessibility & interest
• relevance & richness
• credibility & accuracy

We use this guide to think it through.