InFlow Inquiry Process Gets a New Look

Whether it’s Social Studies research, information writing or a Science investigation, ASD students and teachers continue to apply the Information Flow Inquiry Process to their learning experiences. Over the past year, we have been developing our common language and practice of inquiry using InFlow as a school.

ASD K-12 Libraries are excited to reveal our new InFlow logo and poster design. The puzzle pieces represent the interconnected nature of the InFlow elements. Each piece of the puzzle can be connected in any order and can be repeated. Students build the big picture of their individual process. They are discovering that the picture of their learning process look different depending on the task.

Building on the original work of Sarah McNicol who developed the InFlow model, our library team saw the need to add a new element, “connect,” to the process to capture the way students synthesize information and connect to prior knowledge to create new understanding. 

Special thanks go to Ms. Margaret, our ES Library instructional assistant, who designed the new look for InFlow. The library team is proud to report that we now have a Creative Commons Attribution License for InFlow. Under the license, other schools can use, adapt and share further work with InFlow.

Students Librarians: Leading and Learning

The first semester set a record for our Student Librarian numbers - 43 students from Grades Four and Five volunteered their time to work in the Elementary Library. Their total work came to 250 hours over the semester!

After a series of training sessions, the Student Librarians worked on a wide range of jobs. The responsibilities included learning to shelve, front facing books, cleaning returned books, deleting unwanted books from the circulation system and helping to manage the circulation desk. Some small groups started special projects such as developing an interactive read aloud and puppet show for our younger students and creating signs for book displays.

The Student Librarians are engaged in their library work before school, during recess times and after school at a time that works with each individual's schedule. In many cases their work as Student Librarians offers them the real world experiences of responding to requests, solving problems, assisting others and providing a service to a larger community.

Their service to the school sets an example for all of our students and truly embodies the ideals of our student profile by offering students an opportunity to build their skills as both leaders and contributors. Not to mention thinkers, communicators and learners.

Many of our Student Librarians have taken on leadership roles during their library class time as well. They assist students in finding books and lead by example by treating the library with respect and sharing their passion for books with their classmates. Their enthusiasm is contagious! Often our student librarians are excellent sources for recommending the next great book to read to their friends.

We are proud of the service that these students have given to ASD and to their library. During the second semester, we are excited to continue with many retuning students and some new recruits! Keep up the amazing work, team!

Annual Bookworm Book Fair: Dec. 14-17

Bookworm Book Shop will host its annual book fair in the ASD main reception from December 14-17. Elementary students will visit the fair with their classroom teachers at a convenient time. Older students and families are welcome to browse throughout the day.

The ASD Elementary Library benefits by receiving 10 percent of total purchases in store credit at Bookworm Book Shop. Faculty and staff receive a 15 percent discount with their ASD ID card.

Timings for the fair are:

• Monday, December 14: 10:30 am - 4:00 pm 
• Tuesday, December 15: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm 
• Wednesday, December 16: 8:00 am - 4:00 pm 
• Thursday, December 17: 8:00 am - 12:00 noon 
• Faculty, staff and parents are welcome any time
  
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Brownies and Books: New Book Preview for Teachers

Earlier this month, we gave our Elementary School teachers a sneak preview of our new books. We created featured displays of various genres, authors and themes to encourage browsing. New Social Studies books were also highlighted.

Teachers were invited to peruse throughout the day in search of new teaching tools or suggestions for their students to read independently. We had a steady stream of visitors all day long. Dozens of books were checked out by our excited teacher readers!

Our teachers gave us lots of positive feedback about the event so we will definitely be hosting another similar opportunity this year. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to enjoy a reading treat and a sweet treat.

New Books, New Adventures

New books are here! We have more than 500 new titles of all kinds ready for check out. Come take a look at our new junior fiction, picture books, nonfiction, poetry, biographies, comic books and more.

Don't miss out on our new National Geographic Kids series and Time for Kids series featuring a variety of exciting nonfiction topics from horses to snakes to earthquakes and tornadoes.
Our new junior fiction includes the latest installments of some of our popular series such as Spirit Animals, Heroes in Training, Horrid Henry, Ivy and Bean, The Penderwicks and Mermaid Tales.

We also have several much anticipated sequels to some hot books including: Scumble, the sequel to Savvy by Ingrid Law; The Key that Swallow Joey, the final installment of the Joey Pigza series by Jack Gantos; the third book of Wondla, The Battle for Wondla, by Tony DiTerlizzi; and, Mr. Terrupt Falls Again by Rob Buyea, the companion to Because of Mr. Terupt.

We have some beautiful new biography picture books to inspire our readers and dreamers. Check out Girl Wonder: A Baseball Story in Nine Innings by Deborah Hopkinson, Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prevot and Enormous Smallness: A Story of E.E. Cummings by Matthew Burgess.

New graphic novels are sure to excite our readers. We have the latest hilarious adventures of Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires; Binky Under Pressure, Binky Takes Charge and Binky: License to Scratch. The popular Adventures in Cartooning, by James Sturm and team, also continues with Sleepless Knight. And, our silly friend returns in the latest Toon Book by Phillip Coudray, Bejamin Bear in Brain Storms!

Come on over a take a browse! We know you'll find something new to love. Here's a slideshow with just a snippet of our new books: