Librarian Without Walls

We are well into the second year of a making and tinkering program funded and supported by SpectrUM at the University of Montana. The initial program began with 5th graders and they continue to be the focus, and from the start teachers have embraced the STEM labs. New this year are Strawbees - think an updated version of Tinker Toys that use varying shapes of connectors and, as the name suggests, straws. Fifth graders tried out Strawbees for the first time last January, with some whimsical results: On the Friday before spring break, all of the 5th graders participated in a Strawbees challenge that urged them to build as high a freestanding Strawbees structure as they could manage in just 10 minutes. They came up with a wide variety of structures and some even managed to have some fun:   The labs will continue well into May with activities that will include circuitry of various kinds and some work with forced perspective. Many thanks to spectrUM and, especially, to

For the first time, Corvallis Middle School students have participated in the Battle of the Books. This is a competition in which teams of three, grouped by grade level, read a common list of 10-12 books and, during the competition, answer questions about those books. The titles cover several different genres, including history, realistic fiction, humor, and fantasy. About 30 5th and 6th graders and a dozen 7th and 8th graders participated at CMS. The 5/6 and 7/8 winning teams from Corvallis participated in the Montana State Tournament on March 13 at the Missoula Public Library. The Battle of the Books has been around for at least 30 years but is relatively new to Montana. Paige Merriam, a middle school librarian at Target Range School in Missoula brought the program to Montana from Alaska, where the competition is very popular. Paige and her colleague, Lisa Brennan, have been encouraging Montana schools to give BOB a try. Thus far, most of the participating schools are in