Tag Archives: Minnesota

Research

Help Mrs. Porter’s 2nd Grade Class!

While not a library survey, this second grade class found lots of willing participants in their online survey.

“Please help our class as we study surveys and graphs. We would love to see how many responses we can get and all of the different places our responses come from. Each student in our class has created one of the questions in this survey.”

Their survey is now closed, but we’re sure they received lots of good data to work with!

Do you work with a group, second graders or not, who need some lovely library responses?? Send it in, and we will post your survey here!

CMLE

The St Paul Snowblower Ballet!

This is my first Minnesota winter, and it’s very exciting to see how much everyone embraces the cold! And I was completely charmed to see this existing as a real thing – not some fevered too-much-cold-weather dream: a snowblower ballet.

Their slogan: The Drudgery of snow removal becomes performance art. Because it’s Minnesota.

“The beauty of falling snow has inspired artists ranging from poet Robert Frost to painter Pieter Bruegel.

But what about the aesthetic value in getting rid of the stuff?
 Continue reading The St Paul Snowblower Ballet! →

School Media Specialist

Share your ideas on ESSA in Minnesota!

Save the date! Public Conversation on Well-Rounded Education Please join us Saturday, February 25 at 10 a.m. at Brooklyn Center High School for a public conversation on well-rounded education with Commissioner Cassellius.

Ensuring all students have access to a well-rounded education is a core principle of the Every Student Succeeds Act. While the law gives us a starting point, we look forward to continuing to engage with parents, educators and students as we shape a vision for what a well-rounded education means in Minnesota. In order to understand what Minnesotans want to see in our schools, we need to hear from you.

Join Commissioner Cassellius for a conversation around these three questions:

1. Thinking about a well-rounded education, what do I want to see change about the student experience of school?

2. Based on that answer, what do I want to see change about the actions of adults closest to the student?

3. Based on both previous answers, what do I want to see change about system actions and policies that affect student experiences and adult actions?

Please register and find more information on the ESSA page of the MDE website: education.state.mn.us/MDE/ESSA

Continue reading Share your ideas on ESSA in Minnesota! →

General, Public, School Media Specialist

Minnesotan winner of Newbery Award!

This week it was announced that Minnesota author Kelly Barnhill won the Newbery Medal for her book The Girl Who Drank The Moon.

This article from the St. Cloud Times describes the plot of the book, in which a village fears a witch that lives in the nearby woods and to keep her happy (so they think) they bring a newborn baby to her forest each year. But the witch is actually good, and brings the babies to be with families on the other side of the woods.

In the article, Barnhill shares how the book can easily translate to real life situations for her young readers: “This notion of rumor spreading and of getting the wrong idea about a person,” she said, “that’s like real stuff for these kids, that’s what their life is like right now.” Barnhill is a teacher in Minneapolis for a nonprofit arts organization, and really enjoys interacting with the kids that read her books, and hearing how they interpret the story.

Fox Animation has acquired the rights to The Girl Who Drank the Moon and Barnhill looks forward to the interpretation into film.

You can read about another of Barnhill’s books, The Witch’s Boy, in this article from MPR, and keep an eye out for her next novel, The Sugar House, which should be released next year.

 

 

 

 

CMLE, General, Resources

Books in the Spotlight: January

Each month CMLE will highlight three books that have some factor in common. We hope they will give you ideas for your collection, or influence an activity, lesson plan, or display. 

This month, we are thinking about camping – and that includes camping in the winter (we’re not scared of a little cold in Minnesota)! It’s always fun to take outdoor adventures, and why not pack a good book or two along with your gear? Read on for some reading suggestions both about camping and also to take along on your adventures:

Continue reading Books in the Spotlight: January →