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THIS JUST IN: New Book @ Education Library
Books as bridges : using text to connect home and school learning / Jane Baskwill
Based on research that shows that parents play a vital role in raising a reader, Books as Bridges offers an effective and efficient way to use touchstone texts, including children’s picture books, to help create a common reading experience for the class that can be extended to the home. This practical book introduces four guiding principles—predictable structures, nonfiction, comprehension, and imagination and language play—describing each principle in terms of a series of strategies, which are highlighted by their use with specific touchstone books, and supported by lists of related books to consider. (via Google Books)
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THIS JUST IN: New Book @ Education Library
Literacy Lessons to Help Kids Get Fit & Healthy
In this inspiring, breakthrough book, nationally respected educator and fitness expert Michael F. Opitz together with veteran teacher Jennifer Davis-Duerr share their secrets for combining literacy-rich, ready-to-use lessons with easy-to-implement fitness exercises. You’ll discover how to weave fitness (physical, nutritional, social, and emotional) into your existing classroom literacy routines—guided reading, read-aloud, independent reading, readers and writers workshop —for the invigorating workout today’s students urgently need. For use with Grades 1–6. via Google Books
Click here to go directly to this item in the UBC Library Catalogue
Should Chess Be Taught in School?
The 120 elementary school children sat so quietly and intently that you might have assumed this was a mass detention period.
But it was chess, not confinement, in an Oak Brook hotel ballroom on Columbus Day. And the lessons learned might assist school leaders everywhere, including those attempting a systemwide resuscitation for Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s very disciplined, if impatient, mayor.
“My dream is to get in front of education decision makers and convince them to make chess part of the curriculum for K through second grade,” said Susan Polgar, the star of the show. “That’s when thinking patterns and habits are formed. It should be mandatory, like physical education.”
To read the rest of the New York Times article please click here
Food For Fines returns October 17 – 31
For the ninth consecutive year, UBC Library and the Alma Mater Student Society of UBC are once again running their Food for Fines Campaign.
Reduce your library fines by donating non-perishable food items. Each food item donated counts toward $2 in fines, up to a maximum of $30. Donated items will be distributed to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and the AMS Food Bank. The program takes place from October 17 – 31 inclusive.
Help us raise exceed our goal of raising more than $5,000 in donations to helping those who need it the most in our communities. Review the list of most-needed items by the Food Banks. Find out more about this program by visiting the Food for Fines Facebook page or emailing the AMS Food Bank.
Donations received at UBC’s Okanagan campus will go to the UBC Okanagan Student Food Bank.
By Jessica Woolman on October 3, 2011 For original link click here
Wi-Fi service coming to Vancouver schools
The Vancouver School District plans to start installing wireless internet service in some schools, despite a warning by the World Health Organization that the signals could be a possible carcinogen.
School Board Chair Patti Bacchus said the service is being installed because the district is out of step with an educational technology that is increasingly conducted online and with students armed with laptops and smartphones.
“We’re looking at making sure that there is a reasonable access to Wi-Fi so that we can enable students to access all of those educational resources,” said Bacchus.
The initial focus will be on secondary schools Bacchus says, but a request for proposals issued last month shows the school district is seeking a contractor to provide service for 100 sites.