Six parents attended, along
with Holly Weinkauf.
Holly began with a quick tour of the school library and explained how it is organized. Students are allowed to sign out two books at a time, and most classes have a weekly session of about 20 minutes in the library for this purpose. Parents may also check out books through Jill, up to five at a time. In addition, every family may borrow a copy of the Core Knowledge curriculum overview for their child(ren)'s grade(s) and keep it for the entire school year. This allows parents to find out more about the subjects that students are learning, and the books also include supplemental activities.
Holly then demonstrated two very useful online databases for which CVCS has purchased subscriptions that permit home use by CVCS families as well as access at school. Both require login; the account names and passwords can be obtained either from Jill in the office or from Holly.
The first tool is the SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS), from Proquest; the URL is http://www.proquestk12.com. SKS is updated daily, and includes information on science, history, government, the arts and humanities, and social issues. The Discoverer reference database indicates reading levels for the results so that students can choose articles they will be able to understand. Links to Internet sites from the WebFind feature are all vetted by Proquest before inclusion, making this an especially good way for younger students to search the Web while doing school-related research.
The second tool is CultureGrams Online (http://online.culturegrams.com), which focuses on geographic and cultural information from most of the world's countries and all 50 U.S. states. Categories include history, economy, family, current events, religions, and much more. You can easily build your own comparison tables for a broad range of statistical data, and various "editions" include not only kid-friendly reports but also fun topics like recipes, photos, and famous people from all over the world. The subscription includes unlimited printing rights, and has a searchable glossary of more than 4,000 terms.
Both databases will be linked to the CVCS Web site in the near future.
No additional subjects were brought up.
Tuesday, May 2, 2006, at 6:30 p.m. This will be the last meeting until September.