Beaufort County Reading Council

2012 Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:25:00 +0000

It's been a while. We are all stretched thin as we know a lot of you are! The board has been meeting and trying to reenergize the council. Unfortunately, there will not be a mini-conference this year. We just have not been able to coordinate it this year. We are working on a March meeting and a May meeting at this time so watch for more information on those.

We need you! Even our board is dwindling and we need some of you to get involved and bring you ideas! If you're interested in joining our board, please email Susan Seckinger at Susan.seckinger@Beaufort.k12.sc.us. We will be holding elections at our March meeting!

Springtime Celebrations and A Ticket to the Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 15:51:00 +0000

On Thursday, March 24th, Beaufort County Reading Council held it's final formal meeting of the 2010-2011 school year. It was A Ticket to the Fair complete with pizza, cotton candy and balloons. As the highlight of this meeting, the council recognized the school level winners of the SC State Superintendent Writing Awards. The district winners were also announced. The council started recognizing the school level winners in this way last school year. So often, the district winner gets all of the recognition and we wanted to celebrate each of the school winners as well.

As a part of the writing celebration, two local authors shared their stories of becoming published authors. Both MaryBeth Roulston and Mildred Glover are employees of the school district as well as published authors. Parents, students and council members delighted in hearing them tell of their stories and journeys.

After students and parents exited the celebration, council members discussed upcoming community events as well as council business. There are two vacant board positions for this coming school year. The council needs to fill a vice president and president elect position. If you are interested in one of these, please contact Cynthia Laizer at cynthia.laizer@beaufort.k12.sc.us.

Upcoming community events include a new partnership with the Beaufort County Library System. To kick off this partnership, BCRC will be co-hosting a booth at Kids Fest at the Cross Creek Shopping Center in Beaufort from 10-2 on April 2nd. We hope to see you there!

Our Ticket to the North Pole

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:00:00 +0000

A good time was had by all at our last meeting. Carol McMillan did a fabulous presentation on tips for grant writing. Jan Sparks shared many good holiday book titles. Tech tips were shared. All enjoyed hot cocoa and baked treats!

New T-shirt colors are just in!

A TICKET TO THE NORTH POLE!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 18:06:00 +0000

Please join us at the DESC in Beaufort on Thursday, Deccember 9th at 4:15 for refreshements and good conversation. The meeting will begin at 4:30. We will have a guest speaker, Carol McMillan, who will share with us some interesting information about getting grants for our classrooms. We will also have a Holiday Book talk about some titles you may want to look into the season.

So, come join us for some hot cocoa and cookies and take a ride on our Polar Express! We hope to see you there!

Need directions or more information? Email Cynthia at cynthia.laizer@beaufort.k12.sc.us

Looking Ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:59:00 +0000

BCRC has many great things planned this year. We shared many of them at our first meeting of the year on September 2nd at Pritchardville.

Meetings
We originally had another meeting scheduled for October 28th, but it has been postponed to December 9th. We try very hard not to conflict with other major meetings and it came to our attention that we were once again going to be conflicting with the mentor meeting. We'd like to involve all of our newest teachers in the council, so we made the decision to reschedule. At this meeting, we will have a special guest sharing many grant opportunities that are out there for teachers. With funding as tight as it is, this is the time to be creative in where we look.

Community Service
This year, we will be starting a new event we'd like to call Books and Blankets. It is in the planning stages and we need you to get involved. Our goal is to host one event on the Beaufort River and one on the May River. Please contact us if you'd like to be a part of these activities.

Literacy Mini-Conference
We received so much positive feedback from the first one, we are already working hard at getting our next mini-conference planned. We have confirmed that USCB will again be working with us this year and we thank them for hosting us. The conference will be held on the first Saturday in February from 8:00-3:00.

Membership
This year, we are working very hard to confirm a representative at each building including private and public schools. We are offering a wonderful incentive. The building rep whose school has the highest percentage of members, will win a complimentary registration to SCIRA's Literacy Conference, A Ticket to Adventure, on February 24-26th.

If that isn't exciting enough, we are also going to give another registration to the SCIRA conference to one lucky member. On November 1st, we will randomly choose one person who has either become a new member or renewed their membership. That member will also receive a complimentary registration.

So, plan to join, renew and get involved!

A TICKET TO THE MOVIES!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:00:00 +0000

SCIRA's theme this year is fun: A Ticket to Adventure. We all know literacy is such a ticket. We're going to try to make our BCRC meetings all related to a ticket somewhere...this time to the movies. So let's pop some corn, grab a snack and get started!

We welcome you to a whole new school year! We'll be sharing so much with you this year . So, our first meeing will be held on Thursday, September 2nd at 4:15 at the new Pritchardville Elementary. We thought you'd appreciate getting a peek at the beautiful new school and Principal Charles Johnson was excited to have us! There will be tons of plans for the new year shared, great refreshments and doorprizes. Come and join us! We hope to see you there.

The End of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 22:30:00 +0000

The end of the school year is in sight and we're all under a lot of demands! Hang in there. :)

Thank you to everyone for all of your support this year. We've enjoyed all of our meetings and especially the Mini-conference.

We'd like to call for all books collected as a part of our community outreach this year. If you have any books to donate to our book drive, please send them to us. You can either forward them to a literacy coach if you're a part of a BCRC elementary or middle school or email me and I will arrange to get them from you. We'll be cutting off donations on May 1st so we can sort and assemble our gift to CAPA and hopefully some graduating seniors from USCB Beaufort.

In the next few weeks the BCRC officers will be attending a leadership workshop at the state level and the BCRC board will be meeting in the weeks that follow to develop a long range plan for next year. If you have any input, please email. It's your council....make it yours!

Thank you everyone!
Cynthia Laizer, BCRC President

March 18th - Our Next BCRC Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:25:00 +0000

Our next Beaufort County Reading Council meeting will be held at Robert Smalls Middle School on Thursday, March 18th at 4:15. We have many wonderful things planned for the evening.

We will begin with a celebration of students' writing. All school-level winners of the state superintendent's writing award have been invited to be honored with certificates.

Following those awards, we will have featured guests to include a local author and a local bookstore. Then, for our member's idea share "Hooking Kids on Books," effective book talks will be presented.

As always there will be fun, fellowship, door-prizes and refreshments. We hope to see you there!

Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 02:12:00 +0000

Getting a first-ever conference up and running took a lot of work, energy and dedication. The board and I want to thank everyone who attended and all of the wonderful feedback we've received. With over 100 participants, it was a huge success. Thank you to USCB and Belinda Eggen, Dr. Truesdale, Kay Newsome, and everyone who worked so hard on this endeavor.

As you can imagine, we're all a little bit wiped out and will be refreshing our minds and souls with a little bit of R&R and a LOT of learning at the SCIRA conference this week. If you haven't already registered, consider attending. It is really a wonderful opportunity to learn and meet collegues with like interests. As always, thank you for your support or the Beaufort County Reading Council.

A Sign of Good Things to Come!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:53:00 +0000

Well, folks...here it is. This is our new car magnet. We'll be giving these to each person registered to attend our Mini-Conference on Saturday, January 30th. We have some big names planned, such as Dr. Valerie Truesdale and Natalie Daise. If you'd like more information and a registration form, please send an email to
cynthia.laizer@beaufort.k12.sc.us or cynd1234@hotmail.com.

Gearing Up for a Miniconference!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:25:00 +0000

Plans are well underway for our first ever BCRC Miniconference. We're still confirming our keynote speaker, but we have many confirmed session presenters that range from preschool through middle and high school areas. They include reading, writing, technology integration and so much more!

We still have a few open slots, so if you're thinking about presenting, we're extending the deadline until December 15th. Email for a form: cynthia.laizer@beaufort.k12.sc.us

Our First Meeting of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Membership was the focus of our first meeting. In fact, if you haven't renewed your membership, please continue to support our organization. We need you.

For membership information, please email suelyn.brooks@beaufort.k12.sc.us

In addition to membership, we had a wonderful presentation by Robin Cox. Robin works with literacy coaches in Beaufort County. She spoke on the topic of assessment of writing. She asked, “How can we help our students become critical readers and writers?” Robin related how to use the state standards and support documents to inform instruction in writing. She showed a kindergarten teacher and her students conferencing about writing. Robin shared supportive handouts on the topic of writing assessment for grades k-5.

More than 50 were in attendance. Door prizes, refreshments, great information and lots of good conversation among colleagues was shared by all. We look forward to more great meetings, as well as community projects and one sure-to-be fantastic conference this year. We hope you'll jump in and "dig into literacy" with us.

Fall Meeting and Membership

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Things are finalized...sorry it took so long!

Our first meeting of the year will be held at Robert Smalls Middle School at 4:15 on Thursday, October 8th. This will be an important meeting for the council and all of our members.

We'll have an excellent guest speaker, Robin Cox. She is a national presenter, Heinemann author and inspiring speaker.

Plans for the school year will be discussed. Now that we're established as a chartered council of the IRA, it's time to get involved in the community and make a difference in the literacy developement for some who need help.

We'll also be discussing our upcoming mini-conference to be held on January 30th at USCB South Campus. We'll talk about the upcoming deadline for proposals for presentations as well as a nice combo-deal for renewing your BCRC membership and paying your conference fee at the same time.

We hope you'll come, renew your membership and perhaps even get involved in some of our planned projects. See you there!

Happy New School Year!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:37:00 +0000

I hope everyone is enjoying the start to the new school year. The Beaufort County Reading Council will be in its first full year and we plan to pack it full of new opportunities for you. Soon to come will be information on our first meeting which will be a good time to come out and renew your membership, or sign up for a new one. You don't have to wait though. If you would like to renew sooner than that email our membership director at suelyn.brooks@beaufort.k12.sc.us. Our dues are just $10 and $5 for students.

Some of the many things we have in mind for this year include community service projects, community outreach, a newsletter and a mini-conference. In fact you can pre-register for the mini-conference when you renew your membership for a discount!! Ask Suelyn for more infomation.

Check back soon for more information on dates, times and locations. We'll be DIGGING INTO LITERACY soon!!

BCRC Beach Bash

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Yummy food, fantastic stories and good times were all a part of our final meeting of the 2008-09 school year. It's been a whirlwind of a year with getting the council up and running. We're now officially a charter of the IRA and have much to look forward to next year!

To begin the meeting, Bonnie Goltz shared some great resources with us about nifty ways to make books with children. She modeled one way for us and invited all to pick up some paper and scissors and make one to take home as a model.

Next, Joan Stevenson wowed the crowd with picture books for the youngest children to middle school-aged children to parents and grandparents. She shared wonderful stories about her own family as well as the picture books themselves.

Here are just some of the titles she shared with us:

Dear Child

Bugs (poetry)

Sea Shapes (poetry)

When You Were Born

Because Daddy Loves You

The Puzzle of the Platypus (grades 5+)

What A Beautiful Day (counting book for the very young)

Say Daddy

When Donkeys Fly

(I apologize for not getting all of the authors names.)

Joan mentioned that if you have any questions about these books or any others you can email her at www.joanlovesbooks@aol.com

Attendance was low this time. The weather wasn't very nice and it is a busy time of the year. We're sorry we conflicted with many other gatherings. We are going to continue to try to avoid that in the future. Please vote to the right as to what time of the day you would prefer we hold meetings. We want to make sure that we are accessible to all who want to participate.

If you haven't filled in your end of the year feedback form, please send it in. We value your input. If you need another one, email me and I'll be happy to send you another one. www.cynthia.laizer@beaufort.k12.sc.us

Our Next and Final Meeting for 08-09 - Let's Get into the Spirit of Summertime

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Our next BCRC meeting and our last one for this school year will be held on May 21st at 4:15 in Okatie Elementary's Library.

You'll get to munch on some "sand" wiches, sit down near a colorful towel, and share "buckets" of snacks as we transport ourselves to a nearby beach. We have so much in store for you.

Joan Stevenson, retired teacher, former state coordinator for the SCIRA and founder of T.K.O.—Turn Kids On, will be presenting at this meeting. She will be traveling to us from the Rock Hill area and we are thrilled to have her with us sharing books and ideas.

We will have our Idea Share Make and Take on making
little books presented by Bonnie Goltz.

To celebrate the end of the school year, our start as a council and the beginning of the new year to come, we’ll be having a “white elephant” exchange. Bring a teacher item that you don’t need, but just can’t seem to toss…. Or if you don’t have such a thing, you’re welcome to bring a new item.

As usual we'll have many treasures to give away as doorprizes some of which were supplied by the IRA, International Reading Association, in recognition of our newly approved charter!! We hope to see you there!

March 12th - Books for Everyone

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Our second meeting meeting was another success. Attendance was down a bit, leading us to have a conversation about the day we choose to meet. Thursdays seem to yield a lot of competing mandatory events throughout the county. Please take a moment to vote for your choice of day, so we can better serve everyone for 09-10.

Our meeting began with a membership report by Suelyn Brooks announcing we've grown to more than 70 members! That's incredible. Thank you to everyone who has supported us by becoming a member this first year. We hope you'll renew for next year as we have some great things planned. A local BCRC newsletter, mini-conference and Saturday Brunch are all in the works. Jan Sparks shared with us a treasury report letting us know that we're on our way to having a working budget.

We began our new regular segment at this meeting, our "Idea Share." Anyone from our membership can share a quick 5-10 minutes on something they've learned through professional development or something that's been working in their experiences with children. Leah Roche from Beaufort High School shared wonderful ideas about a project she's been using to combine literacy and technology while enticing kids to pick up a book they may enjoy. The concept was developed along with Jessica Mangum, the Media Specialist at Hilton Head High School, who wanted something promoting books and reading to run all the time at a kiosk. The project has grown to involve the kids creating their own "Book Bitz" using Movie Maker and Powerpoint in conjunction with Teen Tech Week.

Susan Olsen, Diane Wiggins, and Laurie Allenbach, from Barnes and Noble Booksellers at Indigo Run on Hilton Head, presented a variety of goods and services that are available at their store. Susan stated that daily she is asked to match a book with a child. She shared many book titles for younger children. Diane shared a list of books available at their store for readers between 3rd grade and high school. She also gave plot summaries for many of the books, teasing many of us to want to pick them up or match them with children. Laurie wrapped up the presentation by mentioning some of the events and services offered by Barnes and Noble including the 20% educators discount, Educator Appreciate Week which is coming up in April and in store book fairs which can be used as stress free fund raisers.

To end the meeting, we awarded many doorprizes. Attendees had written their name and their favorite book on a shamrock as they entered. Here are some of those favorites:

The Twilight Series
The Bible
Pink and Say
Panda Bear Panda Bear What Do You See?
Skippy yon Jones
Wump World
To Kill a Mockingbird
Oh the Places You Will Go
The Great Gatsby
At Home in Mitford
Love You Forever
Something Borrowed
The Paperbag Princess
Baby
Harris and Me
Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk

Our Next Meeting - March 12th

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:17:00 +0000

The newly forming Beaufort County Reading Council will be holding its second meeting on Thursday, March 12th at 4:15 in Okatie Elementary's Library.

We've listened to all of our attending members' comments and suggestions and we're happy to announce that representatives from Barnes and Noble will be presenting a book talk to include titles for all age ranges from elementary through middle and high school aged children. They will also be bringing teacher discount cards for all those who don't already have one.

Also that evening, Leslie from Teaching Carolina in Beaufort will be on hand to talk about her relocation, offer coupons, and show us some of the exciting teaching tools she has to offer.

Also as a result of your suggestions, we are implementing a new feature as a part of our meetings. We will begin each meeting with a 5 minute Idea Share when some of our own talented literacy professionals will share an idea either from their own classrooms or from a professional development opportunity they've had. Times are tough. We need to look to each other to continue to grow as professionals.

If you'd like to present an idea at an upcoming meeting, please send your information to cynd1234@hotmail.com.

As always, we will have refreshments and lots of door prizes.

We need to try to meet our goal of having a contact at each school both public and private. If you'd like to be that contact for your school or organization, please leave a comment and we will add you to our list.

Membership - A HUGE Success

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:27:00 +0000

These totals are just in from Suelyn, Membership Director for BCRC. Last night we signed on 41 new Beaufort County Reading Council members. That's an amazing beginning!! Our Charter paperwork is complete and will be mailed today. There was a ton of positive feedback and many great suggestions. Thank you to everyone who helped organize the event. The BCRC Board members are incredible in doing whatever it takes to get the job done. Thank you to Jamie Pinckney and Okatie Elementary for hosting the event. Thank you to Ellen and Laura for helping with some of the goodies. And, thank you to all of you for coming, participating, joining and giving us wonderful feedback. We are looking forward to our next meeting on March 12th. Hope to see you there!

Watermelon ABCs & So Much More

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:58:00 +0000

Our first meeting went well. Guest author, Mary Beth Roulston was inspriring. We all shared great snacks and conversation. We received a lot of good feedback too. I'll write more about exact attendance and membership numbers soon, but for now here are some pictures.

Our New Shirt

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:03:00 +0000

Here it is.... our first BCRC T-Shirt.
It will be nice to represent our new organization by wearing one!!

Order one now by emailing me:
cynd1234@hotmail.com

They are only $10.00!!
We have M, L, XL and XXL ($1 extra)

Our First Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:02:00 +0000

We will be holding our first meeting in less than two weeks. There has been and will continue to be a lot of planning. We're all very excited about it. We will be welcoming new members and partners from all across Beaufort County! If you're an educator or working to become one, you should come, join, and participate.

Where: Okatie Elementary School Library

When: Thursday, February 12th at 4:15

Who: Educators (elementary, middle, high, post-secondary, preservice)

Why: Get together with collegeaues to enjoy learning about and sharing what we love about the teaching of reading.
Hear guest author Mary Beth Hiers Roulston speak about her book Watermelon ABCs and how she teaches writing using picture books.

How It All Got Started

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 18:23:00 +0000

It was the beginning of a new school year and as usual I was reflecting on my goals for the year. One thing I planned to do was join the state reading council. I had been a member of the IRA for many years, but never joined out state's organization. So, as I was filling out the form from the SCIRA website, I noticed it said to send to my local council. I wasn't aware of one, so I began to look into it. After emailing the SCIRA, I found out there wasn't one and I could mail my payment directly to them. So my next email to them was, "If we don't have one, can we start one?" Michael Teal, the current SCIRA president and I began some back and forth emailing and before you knew it, a friend and I were heading to Columbia for a board meeting. We gathered lots of information and shook lots of hands, and we were on our way. After holding an organizational meeting and getting some key people on board here in Beaufort County, we are ready to apply for charter with the IRA. It's all very excited to watch the whole thing unfold and grow before my eyes.