Media Center

CRCT Practice

Click on one of the following links to help you get prepared for the CRCT.

Download CRCT Study Guide

Georgia OAS  (You need your login information.)

My Skills Tutor (You need your login information.)

Reading and Math Practice (tv411.org)

Decimals and Percent Practice

Brain Pop on Test Taking Skills (See Mrs. Grimes for login information)

Download Powerwords - These are words that appear frequently in test directions.

USA Test Prep ( You need your login information.)

AAA Math

 7th Grade Social Studies Flashcards  (Once in, click the STUDY tab.)

 

Book Trailers Using Animoto

Directions: Today you will create a book trailer video using Animoto. You must briefly summarize " The Polar Express" and persuade the viewer to want to read the book or ride the train.

You have only 3 days!

Each video must contain the following: 10 or more pictures, 10 power point slides for your writing (see below for directions on how to turn the slides into JPEGs), and music. Be sure to include a title and your name.

Before you begin making the video, go to Microsoft Clip Art. DO NOT USE GOOGLE!!!

First find all of the pictures you would like to use, save them to your number or jump drive, and then upload them to your animoto video. This will save you a lot of time!

The three top videos will be placed on your teacher's blog and played during Read Across America Week!  Be creative!

Download The Polar Express Video Rubric

Book Trailer Example

Animoto is an easy way to create really professional videos using pictures, video, and text.  A special code is necessary to create videos that are longer than 30 seconds in length. You can sign up for a free account on your own, but you will only be able to make 30 second videos. Educational accounts must be renewed every 6 months. You won't lose the videos you have already made, but you will only be able to make 30 second videos once your code expires. If you want to include more text than the title it allows for, make sure you follow the directions below.

Quick Lessons on How to Use Animoto

How to turn an Power Point slide into a picture for your video:

1. Open powerpoint

2. Create slides with or without text.

3. Click on the Office button.

4. Save As.

5. Other Formats.

6. Make sure you Save as Type: JPEG (these tend to work better than PNG and GIF)

7. Save your power point slides as pictures in the folder you created for this specific project under your lunch number.

 

Show What You Know - Ethical Use

Take 2 minutes to complete your Ticket Out the Door.  Have a great day!

Welcome Back!

         Welcome back to school! I am looking forward to meeting many of you and greeting those of you whom I've had the pleasure to know for the past two years!

    Please come in a be sure to greet our new parapro, Mr. David Jones. Mr. Jones is new to public education, but has served our nation in the armed forces for many years and has taught many of our troops about military operations. He is very excited to work with us this year.

    We are opened for business and expect to see many of you come through the media center doors in the morning and throughout the day! Stay tuned for orientation times!

 

        

Bookfair Update

Barber's Winter Bookfair was a complete success!!! At least 400 books were placed into the hands of our Barber students. One bookfair alone constitutes about 100,000 minutes worth of reading! Our top selling book: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Ugly Truth. 51 were sold!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who participated! Because of you, we were able to donate over $200 worth of books to the Barber Giving Tree!

The bookfair will return in the spring. See you then!

Cool Websites

Having trouble choosing the next book to read? Well here's a list of great sites that will help you. As the year goes on and as I find other cool sites, I will update this post. So keep checking back!

Teen Reads

Guys Read

DogEared Book Blog

Classic Books Online

Accelerated Reader Quizzes

Take a look! We have updated our AR quiz list! Now you don't have to be at school to find out if Barber owns a particular AR quiz. Download AR_Quiz_List_2010.

Copyright for Teachers

Check out the Copyright information below.  It will help to answer questions about using copyrighted materials under the Fair Use for Educators guidelines set forth by Congress.  And remember, you CAN ask permission for educational use and it will often be granted.

Click on this link to the Indiana University/Perdue University site about securing permission to use copyrighted works if you would like help in asking permission.

A sample letter asking for permission can be found at this Educational CyberPlayground site.

Information that may be useful to you:

Tech and Learning - Copyright for Educators

University of Texas - Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials

The Book Fair is Coming!!!

The Barber Middle School Media Center will host its first book fair on December 6-10th! The fair will be held in the art room and run from 8:30-4:30 and 6:30-9:30 on the 7-9th.  Parents, we are looking for volunteers to help with the fair. Please contact Mrs. Grimes at Hanna.Barksdale@cobbk12.org or call 770-975-6764 ext 249. Stay tuned for more details!

Awesome Authors

Awesome Authors

There are so many wonderful authors out there!!  Below you will find a list of popular authors, examples of their books, and their web sites.  Check out their websites and maybe you'll find some new books to read and some interesting information about your favorite authors!  Enjoy!

Matt Christopher - Soccer Hero, Slam Dunk   

Andrew Clements - Frindle, Things Not Seen

Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl Books

Sharon Creech - Absolutely Normal Chaos, Walk Two Moons

Sharon Draper - Out of My Mind, Copper Sun

Tim Green - Football Genius, Baseball Great

Margaret Peterson Haddix - Among the Hidden, Found

Anthony Horowitz - Alex Rider Series

Erin Hunter- The Warriors Series

Brian Jacques - Redwall, Doomwyte

Peg Kehret- Abduction!

Lois Lowry - The Birthday Ball, Anastasia Series

Mike Lupica - Million-Dollar Throw, Travel Team

D.J. MacHale - Pendragon Series

Stephenie Meyer - Twilight Series

Walter Dean Myers - Monster, Slam!

Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone Series

Christopher Paolini- Eragon, Eldest

Jmaes Patterson - Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard

Rick Riordan - The Titan's Curse, The Lightning Thief

Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events

Scott Westerfeld - Uglies, Leviathan

Welcome Back!

I'm excited about our new school year! So many books to read and so little time! Currently, we are compiling our new book order and would love to hear from you! Stop on by the Barber Media Center and give us your suggestion today!

Our Language Arts/Reading teachers are using the Lexile Framework to jumpstart reading. Here's a website you can visit to see the lexile level of your favorite book: Lexile Finder.