Learning through Books, Media and Technology

ARTICLES THIS ISSUE:

Information literate? These Students have information power!

"We're learning, but we don't mind!"

Lots of little kids --- lots of things going on!

Building a collaborative network --- from university to local community

Shared vision, shared teaching

Budget crunch? Teamwork makes resources do double duty

Collaboration, participation, and technology

Partners for change

Redefining the library media center

Happy collaborations based on research as a process

Success through independence, integration, and interruptions

A Good Ideas encore!

Good Ideas! Home Page

Good Ideas! is published by CSLA

1499 Old Bayshore Hwy.

Burlingame

California

94010

(415) 692-2350

Lots of little kids --- lots of things going on!

J.C. Crumpton Elementary School

Students at J.C. Crumpton Elementary love the library media program! There are lots of them to do the loving: nine kindergarten classes, nine first grade classes, and seven second grade classes. Library media teacher Marsha Leadingham tells wonderful stories, creates exciting projects, and sets up multimedia stations --- all connected to curriculum goals and planned and shared with class room teachers.

More good things happen within the classrooms because of the special partnerships that have been developed. For instance, Marsha and science teacher Mary Beth Clark have created science/literature boxes of resources and activities, have organized a system to manage the boxes and related science equipment, and have demonstrated science activities both in classrooms and in the library. A special rain forest unit for first graders includes a butterfly net, a game, books, a flower press, and a stuffed tree frog, circulated attractively in a basket and enhanced by cooperatively planned lesson plans.

Each month, Marsha places a survey in every teacher's box with information about suggested units and activities. As she and the teachers plan together they can solve one of the major problems of a school with such a concentration of students in only a few grade levels: the "everybody does it at the same time" tendency. By working out flexible schedules for sharing time and materials, Marsha is able to spread her services broadly and to stretch the dollars available for library media materials. This approach avoids the necessity to purchase multiple copies and can thus make it possible to address more areas of need in various formats.

Last spring, two teams, consisting of Marsha and a Crumpton teacher together with a similar pair from another school, worked with first and fourth graders to create masks and do a choral reading of Where the Wild Things Are. It was a great success. This is collaboration carried to the nth degree!

• J.C. Crumpton Elementary (Grades K-2, enrollment 640)
  P.O. Box 1031, Monterey 93940; (418) 384-5204
  Gayle Paul, Principal
  Marsha Leadingham, Library Media Teacher
  Monterey Peninsula Unified School system