Media Center

Merrick-Moore will be having their Fall Book Fair the first week of December.  Please save a few hard-earned dollars to buy books that week.  It will pay off in the long run!  Did you know that an adult with poor literacy skills earns about $550 less per week than an adult with excellent literacy skills? Studies by the National Assessment of Educational Progress have consistently found that the more reading material available in the home, the better students’ reading levels are likely to be.   At the Fall Book Fair, for just a few dollars, families will be able to purchase popular, good quality literature.

The Book Fair runs from Monday December 1st to Friday December 5th.  Please come out to visit us and spend a few dollars for the future.  See you there!

Fifth graders are VERY enthusiastic about the Elementary Battle of the Books (EBOB) competition this year! Forty-five eager students showed up for the first meeting! Only 12 students are allowed to compete on the team, so the competition will be stiff. Good luck to all Merrick-Moore tigers!

This year’s list of books is:

To celebrate School Library Week this year, the students and staff dressed up like book characters and came to school.  We had characters from The Wizard of Oz, On Top of Spaghetti, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude, The Cat in the Hat, Caps for Sale, and many, many more.  To see photos of our fun, click here!

     Tuesday and Thursday mornings, during Open Circulation time in the Media Center, you will find a special program going on.  Leading to Read is a Reading is Fundamental (RIF) program organized by Ann See, one of our Merrick-Moore Guidance Counselors.  Second grade “Master readers” come in to read to first grade “Star readers”, and now first graders are reading to the second graders too!  Several other members of the staff have volunteered to assist in the program as well from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program (DHH), the English as a Second Language Program (ESL), and the Exceptional Children’s program (EC).      As part of this RIF program, the children will be given 2 books to take home with them.  This program has also received grants from Donor’s choose for books for the program, and from Adopt-A-Classroom.     

     The entire third grade, 5 classrooms of children, sat on the floor in the Media Center Friday afternoon, November 9th, eagerly awaiting the visit of a local celebrity.   Suddenly the doors opened and in walked Joe Surgan, kicker for the Duke Football Team, along with Leslie Barnes, Director of Student-Athlete Development at Duke.  The room exploded with cheers as the third graders gave these Blue Devils a very warm Merrick-Moore welcome! 

     As part of the Read with the Blue Devilsreading program, Duke athletes will come out twice this year to read with our third graders.  Joe spoke to the children about the importance of reading in his life and theirs, then he read them A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon which they greatly enjoyed.  After the story, Joe and the children discussed the book, then the third graders were able to ask Joe questions.   He left an autographed message to be shared with them which brought on the cheers again.

     Many third graders are up to level 3 already in the Read with the Blue Devils program and have received bookmarks, Duke temporary tattoos, and Duke Football posters.  Keep reading, third graders!  See you at level 4!

     “I just finished reading Island of the Blue Dolphins!  Now I only have 1 more book to go!”  These are the kinds of comments heard when the fifth graders come to the Media Center to check out their books.  Our Merrick-Moore Elementary Battle of the Books team has been reading hard since the first of the year to prepare for the competition to come.   They got motivated watching last year’s team compete.  Merrick-Moore was one of only three  DPS schools who competed in the Elementary Battle of the Books (EBOB, as we call it!) last year.  This year there are several more schools on board. 

     EBOB allows teams of fifth grade students at participating DPS schools to read 12 books from the list created by the state EBOB committee.  The team then competes in quiz-bowl-style tournaments to test their knowledge of these books.

     The next meeting of the Merrick-Moore EBOB team will be held on Wednesday, November 7th. 

     To see a list of the books we’re reading for this year’s competition, click here.

Attention third graders! The Read with the Blue Devils prizes are starting to arrive! Be sure you are reading every night, getting your parents to sign your reading logs, and turning your reading logs in.

What good book have you read lately?