The month of October is wild in the libary with the annual Books and Pumpkins. Students decorate pumpkins as their favorite book characters. The books and pumpkins are showcased in the library for the month of October. Prizes and certificates are given for all who enter.
This is a before school fundraiser. Each month we share a themed treat and read new books in the library. The money generated from this event is used to purchase new books for the libraries.
We have two Book Fairs per year. One at each school and students from both schools are invited to shop at both fairs. Our fall Book Fair is the number one fair in the country. We sold $22,000 in 5 days. Our March Book Fair will fund raise to replace home libraries of victems of the Louisville fires.
The Mountain Area Young Writers Conference is a free conference that brings together student writers from many of our mountain area schools. Parents and children attend writing workships and hear a presentation by a published children's book author.
Children write and publish a short book of their own to present to other students and facilitators the night of the conference. The books are generally worked on in the library and I have been a facilitator at the conference for 10 years.
This group of 5th graders meets one day a week over their lunch and recess. They give a full year committment to include training the next years crew. They learn how to reset Chromebooks, fix AV equipement, produce and edit the Bergen Broadcast, and run virtual meets for staff meetings, Spelling Bee, Oral Interpretation, and Continuation. Their end of year goal is to interview to be on the 8th grade Evergreen Middle School Cyber Crew.
Each month the Cyber Crew produces a short news video for the whole school. 5th Grade news anchors work with Cyber Crew members to write, produce, and edit their segment in the video. Classroom teachers play the video as part of their morning meeting.
Click on the cute dog to watch the video.
Robotics are done both as library curriculumn and as a club at the Bergens.
Current robotics and coding being used are code.org, ScratchJR, Scratch, Botley, Bitley, Cublets, BeeBots, Dash, Dot, Sphero, and Ozobot.
Maker Space is a club that meets for 6 weeks at a time before school. This club focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math concepts. Force, motion, and building are fan favorites!! This club is available for all students. Click on the above space to see photos.
A group of Bergen teachers completed the Jeffco Teaching Linguistically and Diverse students cohort at Regis. This cohort created the Cultural Committee/Student Committee/PBIS Committee. One of the many events this committee puts on is Cultural Day. We invite presenters in and turn the school into a globe and students travel from country to country with their passports. Students learn about countries, languages, traditions, food, and games from around the world. All cultural backgrounds are celebrated. The library becomes a country filled with books and photos from that country. This is an eciting event that has grown into a day long festival.
We are furtunate enough to have two greenhouses at the Bergens. Our PTA purchased one greehouse per school. The Greenhouse Masters program has grown exponentially in the past four years. Each grade level has a club and meets once a week. The clubs are teacher and parent led. We now have a large bank of lessons each grade level focuses on.
Kindergarten- Feeding the fish in the water tank and growing in pots.
1st Grade- Feeding and growing worms for the soil maintenance and growing in beds.
2nd Grade- Growing flowers, vegetables, and fruit and building maintenance
3rd Grade- Feeding the fish and growing flowers.
4th Grade- Feeding the worms and growing vegetables.
5th Grade- Growing veining fruits, trees, and building maintenance.
To coinside with lifecycles in many grade levels, the library hatches chickens. Yes, chickens spend some time in the library before they are donated to families as pets. I team teach the lifecycle stages with Kindergarten teachers.
The Bergens Cyber Crew will be presented at Get Your Tech On 2022! They presented on how to run an elementary level Cyber Crew and produce a monthly news shows.