Ebooks have arrived!!

The Williams Library now has ebooks available from our card catalog, which can be accessed at home. Our ebooks are mostly nonfiction titles with an emphasis on subjects studied in our curriculum units. Currently we have 28 ebooks available for students. We will be adding more titles to our ebook collection. Please go to our catalog and read one with your child.

Here are two of our students enjoying an ebook together.

 At our March all school meeting we read an ebook to celebrate Chinese New Year.

Community Book drive beginning soon at Williams

Please watch for this letter coming to your home in the Williams Weekly on April 10th.

Dear Williams Community,

We are pleased to announce a special fundraiser to assist two very needy Massachusetts schools. The schools are located in Worcester and Springfield. We plan to provide each school with 26 books each for their libraries. This drive is part of the ongoing effort to honor and remember the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School Tragedy.

            Since the December 14^th event occurred, organizations and individuals from all over the country have reached out to the Sandy Hook School families and the Newtown, CT community in many ways.   Our goal is to take action in a way that strengthens education for all.    We hope to continue and extend the Williams tradition of helping others by giving the gift of reading to fellow students and educators in Massachusetts.

You can contribute to this initiative by purchasing a book.  Please see the instructions below to help. The cost is $16 per book. Our goal is to donate 26 books to each of the 2 selected schools. If we exceed our goal, we will expand our giving on a wider scale by helping a third or possibly even a fourth school in need.  In addition, we are initiating our first book swap to create enthusiasm for reading at Williams, and to add books to the libraries of other needy schools. We plan to send out a flyer soon that will explain this literacy event in detail.

As always, thank you for your support and we look forward to the Williams School community coming together for this worthy cause!

Sincerely,

Robert Beaudet, Principal

Christine Lacey, PTO president

Nancy Sweatt, PTO co-president

Sarah White, PTO co-president

Michael Lorant, PTO co-president

Cheryl Kosmo, Library teacher

To honor a victim of the Sandy Hook tragedy, please:

1. Send a check payable to the Williams PTO for $16.00 per book, in an envelope addressed to "Schools in need book fundraiser," via your child's folder.

2. Teachers will collect the checks and get them to Ms. Kosmo.

3. You will get a confirmation email from Ms. Kosmo that we have received your check.

Thank you for supporting this worthy initiative!

Fourth graders creating slideshows on ipads using Explain Everything App

Thanks to the Williams PTO we have been able to purchase some excellent creativity apps for our ipads. One of these apps is called Explain Everything. Students can show their learning by creating slideshows that allow them to type, record, use pictures and videos, and draw. It is easy to use and allows students to export their projects in a variety of formats for sharing.

Watch for them soon on this blog and the Williams School website. The subject of our projects is the Underground Railroad. Learn all about it from Grade 4!!

Third graders at Williams are now using their Newton Public Schools Google accounts! They used the drawing tool to write and illustrate information about trees.  You can check them out at these links:


Ms. Reardon's and Ms. Dee's class

Ms. Matrisciano's class

Ms. McKenna's class

Check out the book trailers created by Grade 5 students using imovie. The students collaborated to create trailers of their book group reading titles. Teachers also collaborated on this. Mr. Lavigne, Mr. Garlick, and Ms. Kosmo created the lesson, but the kids did all the work!  We are really pleased with how they turned out.

Grade 5 book trailers

Here is a wonderful interview with author Shana Corey. The interview highlights titles to feature for Williams History month. We have her books in our library and many of the books featured in the interview. Watch for more coming soon.


Mr. Schu interviews Shana Corey for Women's History month.

Author Grace Lin visits Williams School

Today we had a wonderful visit from author Grace Lin. She spoke to students in Grades 1-4. Grace talked about how she became an author and illustrator, where she gets her ideas, and how her childhood helped her develop ideas for stories. She signed copies of books for students and everybody got a bookmark! It was a wonderful day at Williams. Here are some of the books she discussed in her presentation:

We have a total of 17 books in our library that Grace Lin has authored and/or illustrated. We are expecting her newest, Starry River of the sky soon!