A Book and A Hug

Have you seen the website A Book and A Hug? I saw mention to it on LM_NET along with a "Which Reading Superhero Are You" reading quiz to help students and librarians know what type of reader your student is. Students can fall into 1 of 4 categories by gender. 
For the boys its
- Belonger/Connector
- Seeker/Leader
- Jokester/Thrillseeing Party Animals
- Answerman

For the girls its
- Heart/Home/Friends Forever
- Joan of Arc Empath
- Wild Thing/Mirette/Annie Oakley
- Investigator Analyst

As I type these categories I can already thing of a few students whose names pop into my head. I bet some answers would surprise me.

I am thinking about giving my second grade students this quiz when we return in January. It might be fun to make some symbols for each category and then have students gather with their "like-minded" classmates. They would also know who to turn to for a book recommendation.

I would be excited for the results so that I could guide their selections better. Maybe I can even put a selection of those books on a shelf and designate each shelf with which Reading Superhero is represented there. I can see something fun coming from this and more importantly I can get to know my students better, which can be hard to do in a school of any size. I can also be a better resource to them and offer suggestions.

38 titles in 38 minutes

Can you find 38 minutes in your day to hear about the new Spring 2014 releases from Scholastic?

If you are a school librarian you can actually scroll through and go directly to your grade level so your time spent would be even shorter. There were also author interviews sprinkled throughout.

I think as book lovers we want to hear about ALL of the new titles. I know I starred some books that I would like to read and add to our school library collection. Just click on the link below and get your pen and paper ready!

Scholastic Video

Teachers Pay Teachers SALE

Teachers Pay Teachers is running a Cyber Monday and Tuesday sale. The code is CYBER to get 8% off. A lot of teachers are seling their products at an additional discount of anywhere from 5-20% off.

My particular store is 10% off and I have added new products.
- True/False Non-Fiction book lesson plan and printable.
- True/False PowerPoint presentation
- I updated to State Book Award lesson plan to the 2013 Volunteer State Book Award nominees.
- I also posted 2 grants, one of which I recently won.

My Thanksgiving Favorites

Did you know that a lady named Sarah Hale helped make Thanksgiving a national holiday?

Did you know that a baby boy was born on the Mayflower and his parents called him Oceanus?

Did you know that children drank beer aboard the Mayflower? (Only after the drinking water in the barrels spoiled)

Today I am going to share my 3 favorite Thanksgiving holiday books.

Thank you Sarah! by Laurie Halse Anderson
I always think of this book as the I listen to all of the stores who open earlier and earlier every year for Black Friday deals. I bet Sarah Hale is rolling over in here grave! I LOVE to read this to my first grade students every year. We have a discussion about today's modern pens and the type of feather quill pen Sarah did her writing with. It makes Sarah all the more admirable! My favorite quote from the book, "It took Sarah thirty-eight years, thousands of letters, and countless bottles of ink, but she did it. That bold, brave, stubborn, and smart lady saved Thanksgiving...for all of us."

Molly's Pilgrim by Barbara Cohen
The third graders in Molly's class must create a pilgrim to display at school. Molly's mother, a Russian immigrant, helps Molly decorate hers. When the assignment is due at school Molly's classmates ridicule her pilgrim. This endearing story teaches students that pilgrims didn't just arrive in America via the Mayflower.

I had a teacher ask me for some good read aloud chapter books. With the upcoming holiday I immediately thought of Molly's Pilgrim. The teacher who is reading it to her second grade students said that her kids have developed such empathy for Molly that they are very concerned about how her classmates treat her and they have been asking her all types of questions. There is also a short video out there. I had to borrow it from another school. The class that I leant the book to is coming into the library tomorrow to watch it. I can't wait to see it for myself.

If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern
An oldie but a goodie! This little question and answer book is filled with a goldmine of information. Even though it has an older copyright date I can't bring myself to weed this little gem! I love reading this book as a "filler" when you have a few minutes of class time left. I am choosy and sometimes watch what I read (as a K-2 librarian). I don't tell students that the pilgrim children drank beer on the Mayflower. It's one of those interesting tidbits that would definately make it home to mom and dad's ears! It was only because their water supply which was stored in barrels went bad...but do you think they'll remember to tell their parents that part!?!

I won a grant!

I am excited about winning a $3500 City Schools Foundation Grant to purchase Interactive eBooks with Digital Content Creation Tools published by Rosen. That's a huge chunk of change for my little library. It will be about 90 books which it's also scary to think that 90 books can cost $3500! More reason not to cut the library budget...books and eBooks are EXPENSIVE!

If you want to learn more about them go to this link
Rosen Publishing Interactive eBooks

I am just 1 signature, a PO number, and some paperwork away from the purchase! I think the digital content creation tools will be handy as kids learn to gather their research for a project. As we move towards taking our TCAP on the computer students need to know how to type and these eBooks can give them some experience. I heard in a webinar recently that eBooks are different than regular books and students need to be exposed to them and get used to them before taking their computerized tests.  This fact keeps ringing in my head.

Hope to give you some pictures of finished student projects soon!

A fun fall book

This year all kindergarten students go to the gym for 45 minutes of "SMART" time. They are broken up into small groups, 8-10 students, upon their arrival and we start out with some spinning. After that each group takes off to a station to spend 3-5 minutes on an activity. This takes the place of their normal physical education, music, and library class for the week. Basically I get about 25 minutes with a class each week. I am trying my hardest to incorporate some type of reading, library, or book skill into that time. Luckily I have found some ways to sneak a book in but I do struggle with that weekly.

The kindergarten teachers gave me a calendar containing phonics, language/grammar, reading comprehension, sight words, and their thematic unit for each week so this helps guide me in my book and topic selection. I also make sight word flash cards and do them with the students. Yesterday I zipped through Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. I have always LOVED the illustrations in this book and thought about what a creative idea it is.

Our weather here has been quite odd for Fall. Yesterday's high was 80 so I grabbed my EA, Educational Assistant, and we went outside to gather materials. We grabbed colorful leaves from different trees, acorns, helicopter seeds, grass, feathers, twigs, and any other objects we could find. This morning I spread them across the lobby of the gym floor and challenged the kids to try to re-create Lois Ehlert's animal characters or to create their own leaf men and women.

 

Here are some of the cuties that were made today. I have seen a second grade teacher have her students glue one to a piece of construction paper. I am thinking about doing this activity with my Writer's Workshop group and then having them write a story about the leaf person's adventure. I will make a post if we do that.

Wishing you all a HAPPY and SAFE Halloween!

It's that time of year...Book Character Parade TIME!

Does your school have a book character parade? Are you looking for some new ideas? I was going to re-cycle my Cleopatra costume from Book Fair (Yes I like to dress up in a costume on Wish List Day and for the car dismissal line on the day of Family Night!) but the librarian across the street had a better idea...the Lunch Ladies from the graphic novels by Jarrett J. Krosoczka.

 

Easy costume! All you need is
- Apron
- Jeans, a white shirt, and sneakers
- Gloves
- Kitchen tool of some sort
- Copy of the book
- Hairnet if you are brave enough!

Here is a picture of our special area team dressed up and ready to go!

Other costumes I have been in the past.
- Word Wizard by Cathryn Falwell
I found a purple graduation gown and safety pinned words all over it. I had a sorcerer's hat and a wand.

- Waldo is another easy one. I shopped online at http://www.shopwaldo.com/

Some cute costumes I saw teacher's wear today...

- Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch

This first grade teacher made a jacket out of brown bags. She had a crown and borrowed my Library Dragon doll.

- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.

Wear brown pants and a shirt. Diecut letters or numbers all adhere them to your clothes.

Wild Discoveries, Wacky New Animals

You just never know if you are going to run into at a conference!

After our session was over it was lunch time and boy was I hungry. We did a quick pack up, abandoned it all in the room and headed to the lunch. We ended up sitting at a table with author Heather L. Montgomery. We started a conversation with her and she told us she was an author from Alabama and she began telling us about her book. Sarah immediately recognized it from last years book fair. It's called Wild Discoveries Wacky New Animals. How cool is that frog on the cover?

I went to Heather's website http://www.heatherlmontgomery.com/ and found a wealth of teacher resources to go with this book. On her website you can find

* A list of book pairs to go with Wild Discoveries

* A 40-page "Wild About Learning Unit"  (Word or .pdf files) that is aligned to the Common Core.

* Youtube video links to videos of some of the animals.

* "Which is the Wackiest?" survey and bar graph of results.

* Interview of Heather Montgomery talking about her this book.

All of this information is found on the homepage of her website...just scroll on down.

It turns out that the Scholastic Book Fair booth had the book on sale for $3.99 so I quickly snatched a copy. Looking it over I don't think it would be great for my young students. I would recommend it for grades 4 and up. I do see some things that I could adapt from the book. I particularly liked how the left side of each page gives the name of the animal in large bold print, the scientific name, the animals size, what it's role in nature is and where it was discovered. 

The animals role in nature as either a carnivore or herbivore are terms I can easily teach my students. It brings to mind Brod Bagert's "Food Cheer" poem which can be found in his book The Gooch Machine. My kids love learning that cheer!

Due to Fall Break plans I was unable to attend Heather's sessions on Saturday. I thought there were some really good sessions on Saturday so I was bummed to miss her presentation and others. I am passionate about science and I can only imagine her session would have been great to attend. I did visit her website and found her fees to visit a school aren't too costly so I am thinking about maybe having her visit.

TASL Conference

Some of you might be stopping by my blog after attending our "Cool Collaborations II and the Common Core" session at our recent TASL conference. Thanks so much for attending and stopping by my blog.

As you can see my blog posts aren't as frequent as I would like them to be but I hope to change that soon.

I picked up a couple more cool books at the Scholastic Book Fair booth so I hope to cover one a week. I'm beginning to think Scholastic may want to put us on their payroll after Sarah's idea sold out copies of the non-fiction Fly Guy books.
- Please follow my blog and you'll get updates when I make a post.

It's Flat Stanley Time!

Probably my all time favorite project I've done has to be the Flat Stanley project. My group of 19 campers is about to undertake the process this Friday. I posted a request for hosts on LM_NET and had a fabulous response. I had to turn quite a few librarians away which always breaks my heart, especially when I see where they are writing from. I wish I could do this with all of my second grade students.

I had probably 5 responses from people who were unfamiliar with the concept. I directed them to these two websites.
www.flatstanley.com
www.flatstanleyproject.com

Both websites give ideas, reproducibles and pictures. I even saw a Flat Stanley photographed with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. Wonder what the secret service thought about him!

Our take on it is a little different. My students actually create a paper doll that looks like themselves. We write learn letter writing skills and write a friendly letter to the library telling them a little bit about themselves.

If you want to try this project out here are some things I've learned from doing it.
* Photocopy your dolls or Flat Stanley on a heavy cardstock paper.
* If possible laminate them!
* Include a letter to the host telling them about your school and town and what your expectations of them are.
* Include your mailing address in this correspondence.
* If you are a member of LM_NET then ask there for hosts. I'm sure you will get a great response!
* Stay in communication with the hosts. I e-mail them when the dolls are mailed and ask that they let me know when they arrive. I keep all this recorded on a master list of addresses. I also ask them to e-mil me when the doll is heading back to our school.
* Keep requirements simple. I ask that they keep a journal and include some pictures. You'll find that lots of people will go above and beyond which is always very kind of them.
* Make your students write a thank you note. I have my students do this on a postcard. The picture usually has a map of our state on it.

Unfortunately you can expect that some people won't return the doll :( I've never had a 100% success rate which makes me sad, not to mention the kids. I had a fellow LM_NET member offer me some good advice today. When she does the project she has some back up contacts. She will create another Flat Stanley doll and send it off to that school and they will have a quick turnover. For the kids I think it's more important that they receive some correspondence then nothing at all.

I'm excited to find out about the adventures of our dolls!

2013 Outstanding Science Trade Books for K-12 Students

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful holiday break.

As mentioned in my December post the lists are coming out. Today I have the 2013 list of Outstanding Science Trade Books for K-12 link
http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb/ostb2013.aspx

So what books do you own? Unfortunately I don't own many though I do have quite a selections from Nic Bishop and Steve Jenkins. Two great authors in the science field.

I do want to point out one that I just added to my Follett list. It happens to be the second to the last so you may not make it that far down.
What Color Is My World? : The Lost History of African-American Inventors by
 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld. Candlewick Press. Quoted from the list
"Integrated with technology, engineering and social studies, this book highlights unknown inventors. Useful for Invention units and STEM curricula. The variety of inventors and inventions will be appreciated."
With Black History Month approaching this may be one to buy quickly.

Next month I have scheduled an in-service for my teacher's  on science materials in the library. Thanks to two grants I won this year I have expanded our Folkmanis puppet collection and will be getting a slew of Smithsonian Backyard books to pair with the matching puppets. Another grant has purchased the AV2 Science Books that are on the K-2 level. I can't wait to share with them all of the great science related tools that I can offer them!