BookTalk: Among The Hidden & Miss Daisy Is Crazy

BookTalk - The Apprenticeship of Lucas Whitaker

BookTalk - Rules, Whangdoodles

We have two new DMS BookTalkers - Bri & Nataly.

Newsletters - December 2007 and January 2008

We had some issues with our server over the past few days. As a result, a few posts were lost. We will try to update important information over the next few days.

For now we want to link to our December Newsletter (which was lost and now is back.

December Newsletter

We are also adding our new edition. Enjoy.

January 2008 Newsletter

BookTalk - Harry Potter

The BookTalk Guys talk about some differences between the Harry Potter books and movies. Did you find any other differences?

See previous BookTalks at the Cougar Paw'dcast page.



Direct Link

October Newsletter

The October Newsletter is out and available for download.

Click here to download.

If you need Acrobat Reader - click here.

It's Book Fair Time!

The Spring Book Fair is here (May 7-11). Scholastic BookFairs has sent a great collection from which to choose. Students are scheduled to come with their Reading/Spanish classes throughout the week.

What's cool about this Book Fair? It's BOGO - Buy One Get One FREE! Or if your like - everything is half-price!

Be sure to stop by the Multi-Purpose Room and take a look.

Testing Week = Slow Week in The MC

HEY! Where is everybody!

Oh yea...it's CRCT Testing week. We don't get to see our favorite people in the whole-wide-world...our STUDENTS. In the morning, you are testing. We hope you are concentrating, reading the questions carefully, and doing your very best to show others your brilliance. See, we already know you're great. But those who are not with you everyday only have the results of these tests to know how great you are. It may not seem fair, but "who said life was fair?" So, give your best effort.

In the afternoons The MC is used for students who were absent on the previous day. Therefore, we are closed to other students. What is amazing is that with over 1400 students there are only about 10 -15 students a day who are absent! That is awesome. But our space is needed, and the counselors are doing a great job making sure every student has an opportunity to prove themselves.

We in The MC will be glad when testing is over because we miss you coming in each day. Make-up testing will continue through most of next week, then it will be Spring Break. Your MC staff is nearly crying because we miss you so much. OK, that's an exaggeration.

We are using this time to prepare for the end of this school year and the beginning of next year. We are doing inventory so we can hopefully find some "missing" or "lost" books that you may have misplaced. We don't want to charge you fines for books we might be able to find. We have inventoried about 4000 books, and have found several books we recently had listed as lost or checked out. Ms. Bremner has been working on a new order of Biographies. We should receive books on sports stars, historical figures, musicians (yep, rappers too!), authors, and more.

We look forward to seeing all our students after Spring Break. The first 3 days back is Poetry Alive! It will be great. See you all again soon.

Poetry Alive! April 23-25

Poetry Alive! is coming to Dalton on April 23, 24, 25. This is right after Spring Break. All of the reading classes will participate. The schedule is shown below.

The Poetry Club is hosting an evening session for the students, parents, and others.

We are looking forward to having Poetry Alive! return to DMS.

April 23

2nd Period @ 9:35-10:15 (40 min.) in the Pavilion

5th Period @ 12:55-1:35 (40 min.) in the Pavilion

7th Period @ 2:45-3:20 (35 min.) in the Pavilion


April 24

3rd Period @ 10:30-11:10 (40 min.) in the Pavilion

4th Period (6th grade) @ 11:55-12:40 (45 min.) in the Pavilion

THE THIRD PERFORMANCE ON THIS DATE WILL BE AN EVENING PERFORMANCE (6:30 p.m.) HOSTED BY THE POETRY CLUB.


April 25

1st Period @ 8:40-9:20 (40 min.) in the Pavilion

4th Period (8th grade) @ 11:55-12:40 (45 min.) in the Pavilion

6th Period @ 1:50-2:30 (40 min.) in the Pavilion

NEW BOOKS - About 450 of 'em

We recently added about 450 books to our collection. About half are from our Science Fiction and Fantasy order. Many students requested that we increase our collection variety, and a few students actually helped us put the order together. We will have these books on our New Books Carts for a few days. AR tests have been ordered, and should ba available very soon.



The second half of the new books are from the Scholastic Warehouse sale. Ms. Bremner and Mr. Murry went to Kennesaw over the mid-winter break and spent 4 hours selecting a few classroom sets, replacement books, and we found some new ones too.



The teachers were invited to Biscuits & Books to preview the books and enjoy a small breakfast early in the week. The books are ready to be checked-out, so come in and find yourself a good book.

Our 8th Graders are Movie Stars

Over 100 of our 8th Grade students attended a Junior Achievement conference. This conference was designed to reach young Hispanic students to help them dream big dreams, and realize the role of education in achieving their dreams.

Mrs. Zahn, our 8th grade Assistant Principal, gathered our students in The MC to show them the video Junior Achievement plans to show around the country. The pictures are of our students as they watched themselves and their friends.

We are hoping to get permission to show the video online. We will have a PodCast (the player is to the left) interview soon. For now, look at the pictures.

Students watching the J.A. video



"Hey, I know those people on the TV!"



Mrs. Zahn asking her students
if they would let her show the video
to the entire school



Time to go to class.
I wonder what they will be talking about today.

WE ARE PROUD OF OUR KIDS! CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

A.R. Test Lists Now Online

Accelerated Reader Lists

We are very happy to announce that we now have three different lists of our Accelerated Reader tests. Each list has the same information, but they are organized differently.

1. Alphabetical by the book title.
2. Alphabetical by the book author.
3. In order by book level.

The permanent link for each list is in the left column under the DMS Originals category.