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!
Monday, November 11, 2013
Thursday, October 31, 2013
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.
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!
Friday, October 25, 2013
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/
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.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
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.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
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!
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!
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
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!
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!
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