Last Tuesday and Wednesday, April 15 and 16, students at Boulan Park and Smith Middle School lined up to vote for their favorite 2014 Troybery book. Students who had registered and had read three or more Troybery books were eligible to vote. These students received a pen as a gift for participating. The students who read all 10 will soon be receiving a tote bag and an invitation to a celebratory pizza party! On Thursday, April 24, 32 lucky students from Boulan Park and Smith traveled to the Troy District Services Building to attend the 14th Annual Troybery Awards ceremony. They joined students from Baker and Larson in a student-led ceremony celebrating the 2014 Troyberys. Mr. Mark Washington began the ceremony by introducing the four student emcees: Fatima Naeem, 8th grade (Baker), Ashka Pujara, 8th grade (Larson), Kathy Gu, 8th grade (Smith), and Hemanth Tadepalli, 7th grade (Boulan). Each emcee announced the three winners from each school of the Troybery gift baskets. They also asked trivia questions and introduced the students that presented Troybery projects. Representatives from Smith and Boulan presented poems, essays, and videos. Shown above: Ankita Mahajan, 6th grade (Boulan), Jane Kim, 7th grade (Boulan), Nathan Worrel, 6th grade (Boulan), Anya Welborn, 8th grade (Smith), James Terng, 6th grade (Smith), and Hamza Islam, 7th grade (Smith). And the winner is...The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson! First runner-up: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library Second runner-up: The Boy on the Wooden Box Third runner-up: Twerp Many thanks to the middle school teachers and administrators who have been so supportive of this reading program this year and all of the previous years. We are also grateful to the PTO of each middle school and the Board of Education for their support. The Troy Public Library has been instrumental in getting Troyberys into the hands of our students when the media center's shelves were empty. Finally, we thank the 915 students and staff who participated in the program!
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The Troy Foundation for Education Excellence has awarded Mrs. Chatel a grant of $500 to use toward her Smith Book Bag Project! The purpose of this project is for the media specialist to support classroom teachers at Smith Middle School by encouraging students to check out bags of fiction and nonfiction books over long school breaks and over summer vacation. It has been well-established that summer reading loss is prevalent in the U.S. education system. However, studies have shown that when students have consistent access to books over breaks that are high-interest and appropriate reading level, it led to statistically significant better test scores for students, on top of students reporting that they read more over the summer and enjoyed reading when given easy access to books. Normally, students have three weeks to check out books from the Smith media center, with a maximum of 4 at a time. With this project, students are getting 5 or more books, and they are able to keep the bag of books at home until the end of break or summer vacation! As a follow-up, students will be completing an activity to show what they learned or what they liked about the variety of fiction and nonfiction books that they read. Mrs. Braun's students were the first to pilot this program over Spring Break. More students will be chosen to take home a bag of books over summer vacation. Many thanks to the Troy Foundation for Educational Excellence for giving Smith students this opportunity to keep reading when they're not in school!
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Mrs. Christina Chatel, MLISA teacher librarian at Boulan Park and Smith Middle Schools in Troy, Michigan. Archives
October 2017
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