All posts by cmleguestblogger

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CMLE, Guest Blogger, School Media Specialist

Scott Eskro Extended CMLE Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Scott Eskro, Media Specialist at Elk River High School. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program was only available during the FY21 school year.

In the 2020 – 2021 school year, Elk River High School had a student population of around 1500. Like all schools, that number fluctuated in terms of students in school and students in distant learning situations.

But no matter where the students were, everyone was dealing with the stress and strain of living in a pandemic. Some believe we are on the verge of a social emotional crisis which further impacts the mental health of teens. The pandemic has exacerbated this issue and every school in the country has seen a huge impact on the mental health of their student population.

So we were looking to add contemporary fiction and memoirs that deal with the topic of mental health.

In the classrooms, English teachers have projects where students read contemporary fiction and memoirs. Students examine what the author is trying to address and/or affirm about a problem or issue in society. What issues, concerns or struggles do the characters face? How does the author address the issue and are the characters successful at tackling the issue?

We already had some books on a variety of contemporary issues. However, we were lacking books on the issue of mental illness and were hoping to add books in that area. 

Mental health is an extensive field. We were trying to improve our collection in two areas in particular.

We were looking to add books that look at the role gender plays in mental illness – examining the role that gender identity has on mental health. We were also hoping to buy memoirs and books on the topic of PTSD. Students are very interested in that topic and we have a significant portion of our student population that join the military. 

With this grant from CMLE, we were able to buy over 80 books dealing with a variety of mental health issues. Thank you CMLE for helping our students learn and tackle these issues through literature.

We will use three sets of data to examine success. First, we will look at checkout data on the books. Second, we will be giving the students a Google Form to fill out, gathering their thoughts about the book, and their understanding of the mental health issue. Third, the teacher will be examining the papers the students write.

Thank you once again, CMLE for helping us support our students and community through this grant.

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Amy Cox Extended CMLE Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Amy Cox, Technology and Media Specialist at Meadowvale Elementary School in Elk River. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

Meadowvale Elementary School in Elk River, Minnesota was so excited to receive grant money from CMLE.  We used the funds to purchase $950 worth of new library-bound books, focusing our purchase on recent award-winners. 

Many of these are books that we are unable to purchase through our book fair program, which has also been less profitable than in past years.  With budgets being practically non-existent this year, these funds allowed us to put high-quality, new, and exciting books into the hands of our students, and they were SO excited to preview and check out these new books. 

We feel so fortunate that in this trying year, we were still able to purchase quality literature for our students, thanks to CMLE. 

Fifth graders showing off some of the new books:

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TA Flatland Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from TA Flatland, Media Generalist at Salk Middle School. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

My plan for the CMLE mini grant was to increase the number of nonfiction books that are specifically related to the History Day topics students are interested in and to increase the number of nonfiction books that address and teach current political and social issues, as we have had multiple students requesting these types of materials.

We’ve seen an increase in the number of students asking for books dealing with specific topics including LGBTQ+ issues, Black Lives Matter and Civil Rights. It also became apparent in the last three years that our current collection of history books, specifically the 1950s to the present, are severely lacking or outdated in our nonfiction collection.

When I learned about the CMLE mini grant program, I immediately put in an application in the hopes that we could improve this selection of books in our media center. I was very hopeful that the funding that we would receive from the CMLE mini grant would allow our students to find engaging materials that related to the topics that they had shown high interest in.

Once I received word that I had been approved for the mini grant I consulted with our history teachers, as well as students to determine what books would be of interest and would circulate well. We created a wishlist on Mackin and spent a lot of time creating a list of books that were not only age-appropriate, but highly engaging for our students to learn from.

Once I had the list from Mackin, I started making edits. I also showed the list to our English and Science staff as we often have cross curricular activities and assignments. Another source that we consulted was the Minnesota Historical Society to ensure that we were getting materials that were useful for our Minnesota studies class.

After consulting multiple content areas and students, we were able to find 67 books that met the criteria for this grant and would benefit our students.

The titles we were able to purchase with this grant will have long-term benefits for our school, from research for Science Fair projects to the History Day project and individual interest and learning.

Now that the materials have arrived in our Media Center we are excited to promote these materials for  students to check out and use even before the end of this school year. We are also hoping to be able to highlight and cross-promote these new books with our History Day projects and mini-History Day projects that are completed in 6th grade Minnesota Studies Class.

One of the highlights of being a magnet program is that we have the highest rate of diversity in our school district. This makes it a top priority for us to ensure that we have materials and books in our media center that show windows and mirrors to students of all cultures.

We are proud of the collection that we were able to create using this mini grant. We have already had students show their excitement after seeing these materials in our media center. They were glad to see more books that deal with social and political issues that are relevant in today’s society.

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Wanda Erickson Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Wanda Erickson, Media Specialist at Upsala Area Schools. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

Since receiving news of the grant approval, I have been hard at work getting titles ordered and specifications set with ABDO.  Chad Swiggum has been an excellent partner, thorough and efficient.  The order was placed, waiting ensued, and finally the books CAME!

 Third Grade students helped to unpack the books.  They were thrilled with the appearance and the content of the titles. 

 As I selected titles, I decided on subjects that supported geography and culture.  I also wanted titles that attracted students in primary grades.  In the grant application, I mentioned I firmly support database usage.  However, we know that younger students take a longer time to develop proficiency in the use of databases.  They tend to look at the videos, have the text read to them, and enjoy rather than research.  With a print title, they still enjoy, but the opportunity to read and research seems greater.  There is less to distract.  

 Well, the books are here!  I have cleaned up the integration into our local Destiny catalog, labeled spines with colored AR labels, and am ready to introduce them to students for checkout.  I will also weed those old titles I mentioned in the application and put them either into classrooms or on the free book table. 

Our elementary school, in cooperation with the district’s community education program, offers summer reading.  The new titles will be ready for students to use all summer.  Along with databases, too.

From the reactions of Third Grade alone, I suspect these titles will circulate well. 

CMLE has been around since I started teaching (1977 I began, CMLE in 1979).  Thank you again for supporting libraries and students for 42 years.  

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Kasey Kohler Extended Mini Grant Report

This is a guest post from Kasey Kohler, media specialist at Vandenberge Middle School. Read more about our Extended Mini Grant Program. This program is only available during the FY21 school year.

Vandenberge Middle School sends their sincere thanks to CMLE for their generosity in supporting a grant for updating our makerspace. It has been a fun journey of picking out materials based on student surveys and beginning to distribute them. 

Every step of the way we have had student input in decision making and we wanted to have the reveal be special.  In order to draw up the excitement before revealing all of the new materials we closed the makerspace and gave it a well deserved makeover. It definitely drew interest from our students as they tried to be patient. We have created three zones in our makerspace; play, create, and innovate. 

Creative projects have been the most popular and this is the area which we purchased most of our new supplies. Origami paper stars and the button makers have been two of the most sought after supplies. It is wonderful to see how our students represent themselves and showcase their talents to the world. Every day there are new students coming into the library asking about projects they have seen others create. 

The Sphero Minis have been gaining attention as well in our innovation zone.  Students are using materials we have had (such as the Keva Planks) and creating obstacles for each other. Although we enjoy seeing them expanding their knowledge and problem solving, most of the time we see students simply having fun and we love it. 

Without the help of CMLE, giving these opportunities to our students would have been more difficult. Their button artwork has inspired us, their duct tape fashion has made us smile, and their willingness to try new things and create connections to what they are learning in the classroom is the best. 

Thank you for your contribution. This update in our makerspace is coming at a time where students are just getting back to being able to do things together and we are overjoyed to be able to give them the chance to collaborate in a safe environment.