The beginning of the school year will find students eager to read new library books. We take this time to remind students about book care- turning pages properly, not walking around with their fingers in the spine of the book, putting their books in a safe place at home, turning pages properly etc. Kindergarten students will be checking out books for the first time ever, even though the books are kept in the classroom. First graders will be allowed to take their library books home. The general rule is that students may have two books checked out at any given time, more if they are working on a special project. Second grade students will be practicing and honing their reading skills. For every book they read independently, they will add a circle to a butterfly and a caterpillar. Grandparent's Day is a highlight of the September curriculum for students, faculty and of course grandparents. Upper grade students do not have regularly scheduled library periods but they are always welcome to exchange books at any time. Teachers will also schedule class periods for students to check out books for book reports as needed. Mrs. Beauchene is actively seeking parent volunteers to help man the Media Center this year. In the Computer Lab third grade students will be working with their classroom teachers to learn keyboarding skills. This is a lifelong learning activity which will benefit them in all their future endeavors. In the Media Center they will be working with Mrs. Beauchene on such basic research skills as locating books in the Media Center, using the online catalog, using basic reference tools such as the phone book and the encyclopedia, and notetaking and research skills. They will also begin a unit on using a word processing program, Microsoft Word. This unit, combined with Type to Learn,should give them a solid foundation for writing reports during the rest of their school career. Fourth grade students concentrate on integrating their newly found computer skills into the social studies, language arts, and science curriculums. They will learn about online research, producing various types of documents, and hone their research skills in general. Fifth grade students will be working on assignments primarily correlated with their study of American history. Sixth grade students will be doing extensive research for their "decades" project and other research and language arts projects as needed. The artist powerpoint presentation is an integrated project with the art teacher, the classroom teachers, and the media specialist/computer educator working together with the students to present a polished, finished product that they can be proud of.