Click the Comics Plus button HERE to connect your account and explore. Point your students to the same link on our LLC homepage.

This is a new reading resource to GET KIDS READING. Help us uncover all the great ways we can use it for the next year + (should we renew in June, 2027?)

Graphic Novels are Vehicles for Accessibility: Graphic novels may be more effective at encouraging reading for pleasure because they can be less intimidating to a student. This intimidation and fear of reading is often exacerbated if the student struggles with large paragraphs of text.

Highlights:

Easily access (SSO) from our homepage on any device!

Unlimited, simultaneous users - your whole class or team can read the same title

Over 7,000 titles curated for middle schoolers by the Comics Plus staff of teachers and librarians

Amazing resources in the Resource Center including Make Your Own Comic template

Literary Classics - graphic adaptations

STEAM Reading - "Get Creative, Get Inspired" list

GNovels as mentor texts for personal narratives

Classroom Connections - integrate comics, graphic novels and manga into curriculum-aligned instruction

Funny!

Renowned authors Kelly Yang & Kate DiCamillo have launched @storykindpod podcast and, in this episode, discuss how they ideate and plan - or don't! Never longer than fifteen minutes, Yang and DeCamillo share their writing process, answer silly questions, and celebrate teachers and librarians. Email us if you want to submit a question!

For the next few weeks we'll be sharing Olympic-ish resources. Radio Garden is a website that provides free access to live radio broadcasts around the world. It mirrors 'traveling' in GoogleEarth. From Okinawan Japanese Radio in Hawaii to Punjabi Radio in England, check it out!

Here's Radio Popolare in Milan, Italy

Bring our mobile bookcheck to your team during Learning Lab this month! Use this calendar to book in advance for the 1st or 2nd half of the period. (Link also available on our homepage. Bookmark it!)

Questions? Just email us!

Looking for new year reading ideas for you or your students? CLICK HERE for the Top New Books @SRMSLLC 2025.

Modify this template so that students can work through the same steps a TikTok/social media creator would to make a video. They'll be planning like a creator about content they're learning in your class!

Let’s Go Viral Writing Template

Check out this AI periodic table from one of our overseas tech friends - scroll down for a month's worth of the best resources and short descriptions.

December has always been when we recognize the Hour of Code. This year the campaign has been repackaged to include the Hour of AI, a new learning experience designed to introduce teachers and students to the foundations of AI in a fun and approachable way. Our students can stick with the code.org page for now, but teachers can explore these ideas by content area.

Our new, streamlined LLC website is LIVE! Be sure to bookmark it and encourage your students to do the same. From the SRMS homepage, you'll find us under Helpful Links and the Students tab.

Good morning. We've secured a trial for 1 month for any teachers who are interested in exploring Comics Plus, a robust library of graphic novels accessible from any device FOR UNLIMITED USERS.

Comics Plus may be a great option for:

reluctant or picky readers (7,000 middle grade titles!)
World Language students (Spanish)
ELL students
Tier 2 & 3 instruction
independent, paired or whole class reading
SEL titles ("All the Feels")
core curriculum companion reading/support (Exs: Amer Revolution, Libros de Historietas, Secret Garden, Shakespeare Mashup, STEM/STEAM, INDIEGAMES: the history, art, sound design of independent video games)
discreet reading at lower levels

Features we like:

Simultaneous, unlimited users from any device (your whole class can read the same book at the same time)
SSO (post to GClassroom)
Titles can be downloaded and read offline
Former librarians vet the collection
Middle grade collection is now over 7,000 titles
New titles added every month (we approve these before they're accessible)
"My Shelf" function - students can add to their shelf
Searchable in SO ways: by topic, interests, age, genre, fav series, history connections, graphic adaptations of classics, manga and manga-inspired read-alikes, holidays, gaming connections, graphic non-fiction, fav series and so much more!

PLEASE USE THIS FORM TO INDICATE YOUR INTEREST. WE'RE HAPPY TO DEMO IN PERSON! (see form)

Get everyone talking with this participating spinner!

Google Vids creates videos with audio from your slides. Imagine posting both the slides from today's lesson along with a video summary (without having to record your voice...)

Here's a 4-slide example that took minutes to create. (Note: Vids is not available to middle school students, only gr 9-12).

Did a chihuahua join a wolf pack? It only takes a minute to reverse image search and debunk the junk!

Last Tuesday OpenAI released its new Atlas browser, blending web and chatbot capabilities in one browser. Read here for information on privacy and security risks. Atlas is currently only available to macOS users, but will roll out to Windows, iOS and Android next.

Click here for a link to Retro Report and a free subscription to their vast library of videos and lesson plans.

The (well-earned IOHO) Cry for "Young Teen Lit": Two school librarians are heading a campaign targeting publishers and authors asking them to fill the gap that's evolved in middle grade books.

They're asking for appropriate, engaging reading content that isn't too young or too mature, involving main characters who aren't in third grade or entering college. Sample books and the criteria they describe are at https://youngteenlit.com.

The only CT showing of a new highly-rated documentary produced by Sarah Jessica Parker titled The Librarians will be shown on Wednesday, Oct 29th at 7 pm at the Avon Theatre in downtown Stamford. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January and released October 3rd, the film is described as follows:

"As an unprecedented wave of book banning is sparked in Texas, Florida, and beyond, librarians under siege join forces as unlikely defenders fighting for intellectual freedom on the front lines of democracy."

Check out The Librarians Trailer

The Librarians website

Domestic and international screenings

Avon Theatre ticket link (Stamford)

Google has added six new features and upgrades to its NotebookLM platform including new audio formats, quizzes and flashcards, personalized learning guides and more. More info here.

Process Feedback - a free chrome extension (with no limits) that shows revision history.

Wikipedia: Signs of AI Writing - How much of what we (and our students) are reading on Wikipedia is AI generated? Wiki editors began studying this in 2023 and devised the site linked here.

Further thoughts here and here.

AI chatbots tend to attribute opinions or claims to some vague authority—a practice called weasel wording—while citing only one or two sources that may or may not actually express such a view. They also tend to overgeneralize a perspective of one or few sources into that of a wider group.

Whether or not you're a podcast listener, this AI resource is impressive, converting images or text (from websites, PDFs and more) into a podcast. Info and an example HERE and HERE (using only images.) Upload a resource and check it out!

IT'S AWARD SEASON!🏆Literary awards, that is! This year's Caldecott, Newbery, Printz and other awards were announced this morning by the American Library Association. See front covers of the top award-getters here and the entire list here.

Follow me on Wakelet for the latest on AI For Educators! Swing by the LLC to discuss further.

The CT Digital Newspaper Project has been part of the Library Of Congress Chronicling America database since 2013 and has digitized many historic Connecticut newspapers to date through this program. Each grant allows the Connecticut State Library to add 100,000 pages, digitized from microfilm of newspapers published in Connecticut between 1690-1963, to the database.

List of CT newspapers digitized and freely available through Chronicling America, including Ridgefield titles.

List of CT newspaper titles currently being digitized during this grant round.

Looking to change up a lesson or unit this year?

Give GooseChase a try! GooseChase scavenger hunts work a bit like Breakouts, gamifying learning or assessment. Talk to us about adapting from the GooseChase Library or talk to a colleague who has tried it (Trish Dowd, Marisa Thamm, Kathy Beall, Carly Timpson, Kelly Hall, Charlsie Vanderrest, Meryl Polak.)

About Goosechase:

https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=jHdesfVz778&t=2s

If you enjoyed our virtual Stick Together

Stop by and help complete the live one!

The 2022 Nutmeg Award winners appear below and on our homepage. Each year, students across Connecticut vote from the list of nominees for each category. The nominees are selected by a committee of teachers, librarians and students.

Calling all book nerds! If you missed Indie Bookstore Day last week, you can take all summer to earn book bucks through the 2022 Connecticut Bookstore Passport Program. Visit all 17 participating book shops in Connecticut by Monday, September 5 (Labor Day) and you'll be entered to win the Slow & Steady prize - one (1) prize of a $20 gift card to EACH participating bookstore.

What Fandom is today?

Sharing a project-based learning germ of an idea here for any discipline... Next Level Middle Grade Fandom, or, What Erin Hunter's Warriors Series Hath Wrought took me to Fandom.com...Have your students creatively collaborate (Google Site) in fan discussions/creations where assessment centers on content and reasoning. Here's an example based on The Hunger Games.

USING SUPER BOWL ADS IN THE CLASSROOM

Here's a great media literacy site with loads of ideas for "Using Super Bowl Ads In The Classroom."

What Makes a Good Ad (deconstruct a Bud ad)

Who are they trying to reach? worksheet

Close Reading of Media Texts

Older article, great ideas - Teaching w Super Bowl Ads

Math - students calculate the total advertising revenue going to the TV network if each 30 second ad costs an estimated $5 million. Older students do more sophisticated calculations (remember the Doritos goat commercial? LOL)

It's News Literacy Week

Today marks the first day of News Literacy Week, calling attention to how we can all protect our democracy by becoming more news literate. The News Literacy Project provides a wealth of tools and resources that we can uncover for you. Click above for their PSA and website.

The BookTok Phenomena!!!!

YA category and BookToks (like ours!):

"2021 is shaping up to be a very good year for Young Adult fiction" and #BookToks are driving a publishing industry surge. “This is the first time we’ve seen an organic, social-media phenomenon push backlist books spontaneously back onto the bestseller lists without any kind of marketing or sales push from publishers."
The BookTok phenomenon also closely coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic...people craving an emotional connection with others that they satisfied through reading

The new "IT" genre - Magical Realism/Historical Fiction

"Ultimately magical realism uses magical elements to make a point about reality. This is as opposed to stories that are solidly in the fantasy or sci-fi genres which are often separate from our own reality. There is a distortion effect in the very fiber of the prose that forces the reader to question what is real and often opens up avenues of reality we may not have thought possible before reading the story. The realities being questioned can be societal, familial, mental, and emotional, just to name a few,"

October 2021

Help our students feel 'seen' in a book, sometimes for the first time.

This MS Monday, our focus is on books! The website A Novel Mind features a database that you can use to search for books about neurodiversity and mental/emotional health. It features plenty of ways to filter, as well as blog posts by therapists and authors, profiling books and the stories behind them. We have many of these books in our collection.

Couple this with our You Can Do This! list, or just ask us for a recommendation!

February 2021

#DisruptTexts is a crowd-sourced teacher effort to provide resources and lesson ideas that are restorative and inclusive. Take a look at their robust resources relative to our SRMS Community Read-Aloud What Lane? and to a collection for all grade levels, including Jacqueline Woodson's Before the Ever After.

December 2020

One keystroke converts YouTube videos to full screen with no ads!

You can remove the ads, comments, suggested videos - all the things - to SAFELY share videos w/students in 1 click! Just add a " - " in the URL after the T

Type a "-" (minus sign) after the letter t in the word youtube as in yout-ube and watch the magic. (Converts to "youtube-nocookies")

October 2020

As Media Literacy Week winds down and Election Day looms, we wanted to pass on this week's NLP examination of disinformation, a link to their site and our RPS Information Literacy site.

September 2020

Hi all. Pernille Ripp runs the annual Global Read Aloud and I thought this (adaptable) digital reader's notebook she created was worth sharing!

https://theglobalreadaloud.com/2020/05/19/global-read-aloud-information-2020-gra20/

June 2020

Normally this time of year we dig deeply into the year's data, reflect on collaborative learning, make plans for the new year, and share out our Annual Report. Since there is nothing normal about this year, we'd like to instead share our Summer Reading links, our "Reading About Race" recommended books for youth, the Discussion Guide to "Stamped : Racism, Antiracism, and You," the Stamped Educator's Guide and this podcast where Jason Reynolds takes questions from kids about racism and the protests. We plan to dig into these resources over the summer and invite you to consider them and converse with us as well.

We look forward to new opportunities to grow, create, and imagine with you in the new school year. Please feel free to email us over the summer with random thoughts or hellos.

This has been an unprecedented year and we are so amazed by what you all have accomplished seemingly overnight. Our students may not recall much of what they learned from these last few months but they will indeed remember how we made them feel.

We hope you get the much-needed rest and time for reading and reflecting that we hope for. We will see you in August, in whatever form that may be!

Fondly,

Janine & Emily

May 26, 2020

Hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Our Remote Learning page has been updated to include new resources, including:

Our Remote Learning Free Resources Collection, which includes One-click access to Lightbox interactive unlimited-user eBooks (once logged in, choose Databases), Science News for Students (with vocab/sentence structure for 9-14 yrs old,) and Free Netflix documentaries. If required, user/passwords are listed.
Infobase’s World News Digest has been added to our World News Collection.

To help reduce the spread of misinformation, YouTube has announced a new fact check function.

Lastly, in case you missed it, our Literacy newsletter is all about eBooks and SORA is here!

April 13, 2020

With hundreds of students voting in our highest participation rate ever, we're proud of our SRMS students for embracing diversity in this year's book madness competition. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas beat out Ghost by Jason Reynolds in the championship round. Scroll down for the journey through our last few rounds.

March 23, 2020

Google Classroom is how we will continue to offer socially and emotionally important connections with our students and their reading lives. On that note - bibliotherapy and the REAL March Madness are on our homepage. Your vote counts too! Help determine the final 4!

As is the case with Resources, many vendors are offering free eBook, interactive eBook and audio book options. I will continually update this info found HERE and HERE.

Championship synopsis

February 2020

Fact...Propaganda...Spin... and Bias...All concepts that have existed for centuries, but in today's polarized environment, we need to encourage students to recognize and consider the information they encounter. With that in mind, we've introduced a new "Bias" tab on our district's Information Literacy website.

For future reference, the Information Literacy website is accessible from our SRMS LLC Information Literacy link. Happy to discuss weaving a mini-lesson into your plans!

January 2020

Today marks day one of National News Literacy Week, an initiative resulting from a partnership between News Literacy Project and the E.W. Scripps Company aiming "to educate the public about the importance of news literacy and the role of the free press in America." Access to News Literacy Project's impressive resources are free all week, and each day centers on a different life skill aligned to NLP's platform. Today's focus: InfoZones - Opinion, Propaganda, News, Entertainment - What's the point of this?

NLP's resources are impressive but normally require a substantial fee for access. We'll capture as much as we can throughout the week and gather it for future reference and sharing.

Monday, Jan. 27: Navigating the information landscape (“InfoZones”).
Tuesday, Jan. 28: Identifying standards-based journalism (“Practicing Quality Journalism”).
Wednesday, Jan. 29: Understanding bias — your own and others’ (“Understanding Bias”).
Thursday, Jan. 30: Celebrating the role of a free press (“Democracy’s Watchdog”).
Friday, Jan. 31: Recognizing misinformation (“Misinformation”).

November 18, 2019

While we are all aware of the benefits of reading, this revised statement from NCTE is worth noting - it's not called leisure reading anymore!

"The NCTE Position Statement on Independent Reading is a revision of the previous statement on leisure reading. We believe leisure implies that this reading is solely for entertainment and does not impact long-term reading success."

November 4, 2019

Google Earth Engine's TIMELAPSE was launched in 2013. Recent updates include:

new satellite imagery spanning 35 years of Earth's images
mobile support (now searchable on a phone or tablet)
a new look

Search their YouTube channel here.

October 28, 2019

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics in Schools (SIS) program provides free activities and resources for teachers to help bring statistics to life in the classroom and prepare students for a data-driven world.

October 21, 2019

It's Media Literacy Week! How will you participate? To find out more or access resources, go to https://medialiteracyweek.us/ or our

RPS Info Lit site bit.ly/RPSInfoLit.

October 7, 2019

Don't let the young kids on their landing page sway you - GoNoodle is the resource for kids who need a break, a stretch, a basketball challenge, a Spanish singalong or some mindfulness. Find them on YouTube or create an account to search by category (below.) Some examples:

Banana Banana Meatball (math light)

Take a Breath (before/after a test)

Boom Chicka Boom in the City (brain break/repeat after me)

Shake it Off (stress relief)

Cerebro Disco (Espanol)

September 23, 2019

Some impressive authors and an educator track series are all part of a free September literary festival organized through a partnership between the Westport Public Schools and Westport Library. Read below for a message from two Staples HS English teachers who are involved, Rebecca Marsick and Kim Herzog.

**********************

Good afternoon,

We are Kim Herzog and Rebecca Marsick, English teacher and Literacy Coach at Staples High School in Westport, and two of the organizers of the Saugatuck StoryFest, a literary festival on the banks of the Saugatuck River in downtown Westport. We are writing with the hope that you will share the information written below with your members as the festival is FREE to the public, features a number of incredible authors, and has an Educator Track this year.

Please join us September 26-28 for the second annual Saugatuck StoryFest, a literary festival on the banks of the Saugatuck River in downtown Westport, CT. We are so excited to announce that R.L. Stine will be our keynote speaker at 1 pm on Saturday, September 28.

In addition to a variety of panels encompassing authors from many different genres, this year 2019 Saugatuck StoryFest will feature an Educator Track and is FREE to the public.

We will also be featuring the following YA and middle grade authors on panels:

Sona Charaipotra, Jerry Craft, Susan Hood, Tiffany Jackson, L.L. McKinney, Geoff Rodkey, Nic Stone

Ibi Zoboi, and Jared Amato, founder of Project Lit.

In addition, we have a multitude of children's book authors, horror writers, nonfiction authors, graphic novelists, and many more.

There are events on both Thursday (9/26) and Friday (9/27) nights and the entire day of September 28. For the full schedule and list of all of our authors, please visit our website: https://www.ssfteenboard.com/

If you have any questions, please email saugatuckstoryfest@gmail.com and please share this information with families, students, and friends!

Thank you!

Kim and Rebecca

September 9, 2019

From the NYT Learning Network: Mentor Texts Have Arrived!

Each entry will spotlight a Times text, then offer guided practice to help students both identify effective “writer’s moves” and emulate them in their own work. Find examples of mentor texts HERE. Info on the NYT annual personal narrative essay contest HERE.

PBS Learning Media's "CLIMATE CHANGE Impacts and Solutions: Drought" features activities and resources to engage students as they learn about the impacts of drought and strategies to build resilience. Includes video about communities facing serious water shortages, drought data, models and other research materials. Here's the collection of resources at a glance.

6/3/19

More and more students are discovering podcasts and studies show that when kids listen to podcasts, they listen to them over and over again.

Not familiar with podcasts and wondering where to start? Check out ListenNotes, a search engine for podcasts.

In the above link, we see a sample collection of podcasts supporting our SRMS/Ridgefield Library Summer Reading theme, "A Universe of Stories," celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon Landing. This collection includes some of our fav podcasts (like "Brains On! Science Podcast for Kids" and "Book Club for Kids" ) and gathers podcasts from science, storytelling, history, literature, music and more.

4/29/19

New to the SRMS LLC collection - An entertaining picture book to remind us that in-person beats virtual any day!

4/22/19

De-stressing in the Classroom

Here are a few websites and apps for de-stressing in the classroom (from School Library Journal):

headspace.com

Gr 7 Up

The good: Headspace offers adjustable meditations from three to 20 minutes, addressing topics such as health, happiness, stress, work, and feeling overwhelmed. It has a different featured headspace each day. There are also short, insightful animations to help students visualize and understand mindfulness. Headspace is available as a website and as an app.

The bad: Headspace isn't free, but it does have some unlocked meditations to try out. Educators can purchase for $12 a year by going to headspace.com/educators.

Stop, Breathe & Think

stopbreathethink.com

Gr 5 Up

The good: Stop, Breathe & Think is free for educators, with a wide variety of sessions to choose from. The app will recommend sessions based on an “emotional check-in,” but you can also sort all the sessions, which cover a large variety of topics for every emotional state. Sessions vary in length, with the average around six minutes. There is also a Stop, Breathe & Think Kids for K–Grade 5 with the same features and functionality.

The bad: It's an app, not a website, so if you are using it with a class, it requires connecting a phone or iPad to speakers for students to follow along. Also, Stop, Breathe and Think is mostly auditory, so students may have trouble focusing without something to look at.

Go Noodle

gonoodle.com

K–Gr 8

The good: Go Noodle is free for everyone, not just educators. The videos are bright, fun, and catchy, and they make you want to move. This tool includes multiple types of categories, including curricular, mindfulness, sensory and motor skills, and different movement types.

The bad: Getting additional content requires upgrading to GoNoodle Plus, which offers interactive learning games, additional curricular videos, and printable learning extensions for $10 a month or $1,500 a year for a school license.

4/8/19

Britannica School Insights chrome extension (for schools with Britannica subscriptions) provides Britannica search results at the right side of a user's desktop following a Google search. Tapping the link to 'read more' will take users directly to their results (should not require password when in school.) User/passwords outside of school can be accessed from our Resources tab here.

For more information click HERE.

3/25/19

Celebrating all things Tolkien!

Today marks the annual celebration of all things Tolkien. Here are some ideas for celebrating and information on two upcoming movie deals. Fox will release a film about J.R.R. Tolkien's life on May 10th and Amazon Prime is planning a new "Lord of the Rings" prequel series!

2/11/19

KQED Learn offers free cross-curricular lesson plans and resources built around discussion topics, allowing students to discover and analyze issues, respond to claims, and use sources to argue from evidence. KQED Learn offers research and data for students to explore, interactive maps, timelines and a YouTube series, Above the Noise.

Teachers can use this platform across the curriculum for everything from simple assignments to complex, collaborative inquiries and will find standards-aligned media content designed to engage students in asking and answering important questions.

2/5/19

Looking forward to "STEM in the sandbox" with our Science teachers!!!! Here is a sneak peek of what we're exploring!

1/28/19

We're on the edge of our seats waiting to hear this year's literary award winners, streaming live in the LLC starting at 11:00 a.m. today.

Read any of these predicted contenders?

http://blogs.slj.com/heavymedal/2019/01/28/live-from-the-ymas-2/

1/14/19

Though written for marketers, this article can be used to look inside social media platform algorithms to develop students' (and our) media literacy and critical thinking skills.

Keeping Up with the Algorithms: What You Need to Know About Each Platform's Sorting System

1/8/19

ScienceFriday is a STEM resource that features articles, award-winning audio and video and searchable lessons by type and topic.

Have students:

solve congressional redistricting puzzles using their math skills
determine who will get away fastest from an erupting volcano or
simulate generational changes in bird beaks

ScienceFriday was named one of the 2018 Best Websites for Teaching & Learning by the American Association of School Librarians.

Covering the outer reaches of space to the tiniest microbes in our bodies, Science Friday provides free STEM activities, lessons, and resources (including audio and video) for all learners, making science fun for everyone! Science Friday will spark students’ curiosity at a visceral level, on topics from Frankenstein to the La Brea Tar Pits, and from shrinking polar bears to an online rock collection (#neatrocks). Science Friday connects digital STEM resources to hands on learning. Some activities in Spanish. Grades 3 and up.

11/19/18

Get inside the world's largest STEAM project: Step inside the Macy's design studio in virtual reality to see how the balloons go from sketch to model to floating down the parade route with proper steering and/or watch the parade live from 360 degree cameras placed along the parade route! Happy Thanksgiving!

Design and production in VR

Watch the parade in VR

10/29/18

With mid-term elections and civil discourse in mind, we’re updating our news literacy mini lessons and sharing this week’s powerful news resource: NewseumED, the online companion to the physical museum in Washington D.C. NewseumED contains primary sources, historical videos, curated collections, artifacts and more. Here's the ESCAPE acronym for escaping junk news.

9/24/18

Biointeractive provides multimedia science resources for secondary and college educators as well as students. Materials include short films, lectures, virtual labs, tutorials, apps, click-and-learns, and teacher guides. This easy-to-use site is filled with an abundance of materials for Chemistry, Ecology, Organisms, Biology, Genetics, Scientific Process, Evolution, and more.

Ex: Lo-frequency elephant sounds travel further… why?

9/17/18

Want to know more about a topic? Considering the topic your student has chosen for a paper or project? Monitor searches by setting a Google Alert. Google will deliver pertinent searches (web pages, news articles, blogs or scientific research) to your inbox until you tell it not to.

Page updated

Report abuse