Category Archives: General

Communication, General, Resources, School Media Specialist, Writing

Notable Date to Celebrate: April 10th is Encourage a Young Writer Day!

You probably already know that at CMLE, we offer a service called “Notable Dates for your Noggin” which feature special holidays and birthdays of authors, as well as publications of well-known books. In an effort to help you get more from this service, we’ve decided to select one “Notable Date” each month to feature. We will include a few fun programming and activity ideas too, all for you to use!

April 10th is Encourage a Young Writer Day.

There are lots of ways to encourage a young writer in your classroom, library, or life.  Check out these great gift ideas for young writers or find some neat journals from Amazon. If you’re feeling crafty, work together and make your own book to write in!

Looking for words of wisdom on the subject? This article is written from a homeschool perspective but has great suggestions for encouraging writing in kids of all ages. Check out what author Anne Lamott has to say to aspiring writers, or read this article specifically aimed at helping teen writers.

Of course, the best way to get kids writing is to make sure they read! Going to the library is probably the best encouragement of all! 🙂

CMLE, Communication, General

Cheer on the CMLE Bike Team!

As you may be aware, at CMLE HQ we are huge fans of our bike desks. We appreciate the focus that biking brings us while we work, and they are a healthy addition to our work space!

Since we bike at our desks every day, we thought it would be fun to start tracking the miles to see how far we can travel. That was how we created the idea for our Virtual Library Bike Tour! Each week we will track our mileage and will virtually “visit” libraries along our trip.

We have an in-person map with pins (Orange = Angie, Blue = Mary) for visual tracking and will of course be keeping track online as well. Follow our progress on Google Maps here!

Each library that we “visit” will be linked to and briefly described on our Twitter account @CMLEBikeTeam.

So far, on my way out west, I’ve “visited” St. Cloud Public Library, Clemens Library at St. Ben’s, and Alcuin Library at St. John’s!

Follow along and visit libraries across the country with us as we embark on this biking adventure!

And of course, if you’d like a bike desk of your own, check them out on Amazon.

Books, General, Tech

Cast some Harry Potter spells!

If you are a Harry Potter fan, there are so many opportunities out there to attempt to recreate the magical spells from the book. One of my favorite recent versions is the Google-enabled control of the flashlight on your Android device.

Another new opportunity to try your hand at spell work comes in the form of a free, downloadable game! Designed by a student at Princeton University, this game looks pretty fun. Check out this article to read about the game’s debut at a Harry Potter library event, and don’t forget to watch the video of each spell!

Accio fun!

 

 

Spell Simulation game a Princeton University student designed for our recent Harry Potter event. There’s video of the 6 spells, and also a free download! https://popgoesthepage.princeton.edu/magicus-extremos/

Books, General

Have you read a book you thought was the worst?

Library people generally love books and reading. But, chances are, since you spend a lot of time reading, you are bound to come across a book or two that you dislike…or even hate!

This article from Book Riot describes one man’s strong dislike of a certain book “that many literary critics and book reviewers say is a timeless classic, while I say it is complete garbage and hands down the worst book I have ever read.”

Read the article to find out which book he is talking about! If you also have feelings of strong dislike for a certain book, we are curious to hear about it! Share with us in the comments.

Personally, I tend to abandon books if I develop hateful feelings towards them, unless they are required reading for some reason. In that case, the last book I really didn’t care for was The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.