Thanks to an inspirational presentation by one of our County's middle school librarians, I decided to give Xtranormal a try this year in order to cover some of the more...ehem...drier bits of library lessons.
I signed up for the Basic (read: free) subscription and was able to create two similar videos with my allotted "XP" (Xtranormal points). My two videos featured the same robots and background; one was for my primary grade students and the other was for my secondary grade students.
The kids loved the videos! The younger ones were puzzled by the fact that the robot called me a friendly "robot". Why did it say that? It said I was a robot! What did it mean that I was a robot? Sometimes I forget how literal and how serious a bunch of first graders can be! They are so earnest! I cleared up any confusion and we were on our way to checkout!
If you go to the site in general and type in "library" or "library rules" or even "elementary library" you get quite a few hits. I have yet to explore them all, but I have a feeling some of them might be "borrowable" and cover some of the same topics I cover in my library.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
In the Home Office: Third, Fourth, Fifth Grade Book Menus
This year I have planned my lessons for every class for each week for the entire year. It's really just a pacing guide because I have found that the end of the year sneaks up on me (hard to imagine in September) and I wonder where all the time went.
Part of my plans include book talks and book trailers for every class once a month. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I have to admit that last year my book talks were few and far between.
One problem (or wonderful challenge) with book talks is that there is then a mad rush for the books I've book talked and there are inevitable hurt feelings and discouraged students. So I decided to create these book talk menus. Students will leave their menus in the Library (any hints for managing the paper would be appreciated) for all third, fourth, and fifth graders. Each time I book talk new books or highlight oldies but goodies, students can jot down the books of interest to them. They will then have a running list of titles to chose from throughout the year.
Any suggestions for the format of my book menu? I haven't made the photocopies yet. ; )
Part of my plans include book talks and book trailers for every class once a month. It doesn't sound like a lot, but I have to admit that last year my book talks were few and far between.
One problem (or wonderful challenge) with book talks is that there is then a mad rush for the books I've book talked and there are inevitable hurt feelings and discouraged students. So I decided to create these book talk menus. Students will leave their menus in the Library (any hints for managing the paper would be appreciated) for all third, fourth, and fifth graders. Each time I book talk new books or highlight oldies but goodies, students can jot down the books of interest to them. They will then have a running list of titles to chose from throughout the year.
Any suggestions for the format of my book menu? I haven't made the photocopies yet. ; )
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Hello from the Library, Y'all!
Weeee'rrrrrrreee baaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Not quite. The Library looks like that awkward stage where you've just dumped everything out of your clothing closet because you've decided to "reorganize" it at 11:00 at night and then you get tired and go to bed leaving everything on the bedroom floor. But hey. Students don't return until Monday, so I've got plenty of time. Yeah. That's the ticket!
This week we have our annual joint meeting with the librarians from our public library system. We really do share the love. The librarians are so supportive - I just love collaborating with them and of course, their summer book talks are the best. Ah, the beginning of summer. It seems like only two months ago. Oh. It WAS two months ago.
How are you doing?
Not quite. The Library looks like that awkward stage where you've just dumped everything out of your clothing closet because you've decided to "reorganize" it at 11:00 at night and then you get tired and go to bed leaving everything on the bedroom floor. But hey. Students don't return until Monday, so I've got plenty of time. Yeah. That's the ticket!
This week we have our annual joint meeting with the librarians from our public library system. We really do share the love. The librarians are so supportive - I just love collaborating with them and of course, their summer book talks are the best. Ah, the beginning of summer. It seems like only two months ago. Oh. It WAS two months ago.
How are you doing?
Monday, July 9, 2012
Rebecca Stead's Liar & Spy: Another Jewel in the Crown
Title: Liar & Spy
Year Published: Available August 7, 2012
Author: Rebecca Stead
You May Know Her: As the author of the Newberry Award-Winning book When You Reach Me.
You May Find Her: At her website and on twitter at @rebstead.
Review You May Not Have Seen: A review from the Katie on the Teens at the Arlington Public Library (TATAL) blog.
The Delta/Plus
Liar & Spy, Rebecca Stead's forthcoming work of middle grade fiction, takes place in a different borough from Stead's book previous work, When You Reach Me, but it is, just the same, like a love letter to her beloved New York.
Georges, a seventh-grader, has just relocated with his father and mother to an apartment, not far from their former house. Money is the issue, and Georges and his mother seem to pass like ships in the night as she works double shifts as a nurse at the hospital. Soon Georges meets a fellow apartment-dweller, Safer, who enlists his help in a rather Rear Window-esque situation that involves a man in black and the lobby surveillance camera.
Weaving its way through the book is Georges relationship with his father, his mother, and kids of the wearing, bullying sort. As the book continues, you realize that indeed Mr. X is the least of this book's mysteries, but that is classic Rebecca Stead.
Liar & Spy is a deceptively simple book, both in its length and in its lean prose. This, I believe, is one of Rebecca Stead's great talents. But of course her books are extremely intricate, slowly revealing themselves, as the reader peels back the layers.
Many of my fifth graders picked up When You Reach Me after I glowingly book talked it to them three years ago (I had predicted it would win the Newbery - please, please, hold your applause). This year, I plan to read Liar & Spy to my fifth grade lunch bunch. I cannot wait to see the looks on their faces as they hang on every detail, find connections to their own lives, and as the book comes to its powerful, yet low-key (can that be?), conclusion.
Liar & Spy will take its place on my bookshelf next to When You Reach Me as a gem to be read again and again.
This book gets five out of five dog ears from me!
15 Second Sell in the Stacks
(This is when I'm in the stacks, a student shows me a book and says, "Have you read this, Ms. B.?" I have about 15 seconds to "sell" it.)
"Liar & Spy is by my favorite author, Rebecca Stead. This is a story about a boy names Georges who moves into a new apartment and is quickly recruited by a neighbor to join a spy club. The two of them together try to get to the bottom of a mystery involving a suspicious-looking man in the building, named Mr. X. All along, Georges is pretty lonely as his mom works long hours at the hospital and his dad tries to drum up some work after having lost his job. Not to mention, the bullies at school play a mean game of dodge ball. You'll love this book."
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Library Without the Library, Part Two
Okay, so you know that old saying about the best laid plans...?
Getting hand, foot and mouth disease (ew) was not in my Planner! How did that happen? So the last week and most of this week has been taken up with a hodgepodge of substitute plans and half days and basically phoning it in. Not how I like to wrap up the school year.
So, I guess you call this post Library Without the Library AND the Librarian!
Here's how I dealt with the dealt...cards I was...and not in any particular order.
My firsties were working hard on their animal research projects, so I called in the book Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York by Janet Shulman and illustrated by Meilo So for my substitute and then had her show them the Pale Male website. Of course I didn't realize that the You Tube clips would be blocked at school so I guess you could call it a Pale Male Fail. OH! That's a good one.
For one of my other classes I took the sage advice of one of my Tweeps, @ontheshelf4kids , aka Ellen, who suggested that I have my substitute read any one of Willems' pigeon books and then use this handy cheat sheet to have them draw the pigeon. Thank you, Ellen! I can't wait to see how they came out.
And finally my second graders practiced their skills of estimation by using 600 Black Spots, a pop-up book by David A. Carter. I cannot take credit for this excellent connection to the math curriculum. That goes to one of my wonderful colleagues in my county. You slowly open the book to each page and ask the students to estimate how black spots are on each page.
I also had my substitute just read some Really Good Books to my kids and, I must admit, I cancelled a couple of classes as well. With state testing in the library, library in the classrooms and the librarian at home, we're just going to chalk this week up to experience!
Getting hand, foot and mouth disease (ew) was not in my Planner! How did that happen? So the last week and most of this week has been taken up with a hodgepodge of substitute plans and half days and basically phoning it in. Not how I like to wrap up the school year.
So, I guess you call this post Library Without the Library AND the Librarian!
Here's how I dealt with the dealt...cards I was...and not in any particular order.
 |
| Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York |
My firsties were working hard on their animal research projects, so I called in the book Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York by Janet Shulman and illustrated by Meilo So for my substitute and then had her show them the Pale Male website. Of course I didn't realize that the You Tube clips would be blocked at school so I guess you could call it a Pale Male Fail. OH! That's a good one.
For one of my other classes I took the sage advice of one of my Tweeps, @ontheshelf4kids , aka Ellen, who suggested that I have my substitute read any one of Willems' pigeon books and then use this handy cheat sheet to have them draw the pigeon. Thank you, Ellen! I can't wait to see how they came out.
And finally my second graders practiced their skills of estimation by using 600 Black Spots, a pop-up book by David A. Carter. I cannot take credit for this excellent connection to the math curriculum. That goes to one of my wonderful colleagues in my county. You slowly open the book to each page and ask the students to estimate how black spots are on each page.
I also had my substitute just read some Really Good Books to my kids and, I must admit, I cancelled a couple of classes as well. With state testing in the library, library in the classrooms and the librarian at home, we're just going to chalk this week up to experience!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Library in the Classroom - Week One
 |
| Here Come the Girl Scouts! by Shana Corey Illustrated by Hadley Hooper |
This week begins the challenge of Library without the Library. Our state testing has taken over THE WORLD {ehem}, so I get out to the classrooms for a change of scenery. {<---positive spin}.
In Kindergarten, we will continue to collaborate on telling time to the hour. Last week I did a pre-test of sorts by showing the students 8:00 am and 10:00 pm on a clock and asking them to write down the time. Then they had to draw a picture of what they would be doing at each of those times. We'll repeat the pre-test as a post-test after we've read a few new books in the Library that focus on time.
We are so fortunate to have author Monica Brown visiting our school in June. I always seem to run out of time when preparing for these visits, so I'd better get cracking. First grade and Multiage (1/2) will visit Monica Brown's website with me. Before we do so, we'll write down things we'd like to know about Ms. Brown and then see if her website answers any of our questions.
I have been waiting several weeks to share Shana Corey's Here Come the Girl Scouts with my second graders. I took some of Juliette Gordon Low's quotes from the books and put them onto strips of paper. After handing them out to the students, I will ask them who they think said these quotes. I am dying to hear their ideas. After the big reveal, I will read Corey's book to them.
Third grade will most likely be sapped from taking their first SOL ever, so I'm sure a nice rousing game of Book-Tionary will fit the bill quite nicely. Here will be my first five illustrations: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (warm up), The Name of this Book is Secret (don't ask me how I'll draw THAT!), Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and Scaredy Squirrel. I'd better get practicing.
Fourth grade has come right off their spectacular Voki project (I'm a little behind in posting the finished products, eh hem) so I wanted them to get a look at an ebook called The Artifacts. Truth be told, I know nothing about it but Ms. Reid wrote up such an intriguing post about it, that I have to investigate further. Thanks again, Ms. Reid, for another great lesson plan!
I'm not sure I will get a chance to see my fifth graders this week due to state testing. : (
What do you do when there's library without the library?
Have a great week!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
In the Classroom: Book-tionary
This is the time of year where planning for my library classes becomes a little bit of a sticky wicket.
With our state Standards of Learning (SOLs) testing (three weeks!), field trips, field day, a visiting author, school-wide assemblies, (you get the idea) our schedule is an ever-changing serendipitous discovery of...We Can't Come To Library!
You'd think this would make planning easier, but it does not. You'd think I could say, "Hey, I'll just plan the rest of the year out, and if they don't show, my lesson is planned for the next week." But I don't like library like that (most of the time). I like to time my lessons with the seasons or what's going on in the classroom, or how close we are to hosting our visiting author or prepping my students for the visit from our public librarians. If I'm going to the classroom (SOLs are given and taken in the Library - did I mention, three weeks!) I need to plan for a full half hour. I actually like this opportunity to spend a little extra time with my students without the pressure of fitting in book checkout (I do have longer chunks of time with my students but it feels different when I'm in the classroom without an "agenda").
Here is one activity that my students LOVE. In fact, they might love it a little too much. I call it "Book-Tionary". Creative, eh? : )
I use the whiteboard/dry erase board in the classroom and begin to draw a character or scene from a book. The students have to guess the book I am drawing. I usually begin with the pigeon from Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Once they catch on, it's mayhem. My one rule is that they cannot call out - so when I look out over my little guys I see about 25 students turning red just trying not to blurt out the answer while their little arms are waving around like crazy.
Allow for plenty of hang time to differentiate. I also tell them that I probably will NOT call on the FIRST person who raises their hand. Helps to take the pressure of those who need a little more time to think. Come ready with a list of books (it's harder than you think to think on the fly). With older students, I let them write down the title of a book they'd like me to draw; they love it when their book comes up and they get a good chuckle (okay, hearty laugh) at my artistic ability.
What do you do when you're blessed with a little extra time with your students?
With our state Standards of Learning (SOLs) testing (three weeks!), field trips, field day, a visiting author, school-wide assemblies, (you get the idea) our schedule is an ever-changing serendipitous discovery of...We Can't Come To Library!
You'd think this would make planning easier, but it does not. You'd think I could say, "Hey, I'll just plan the rest of the year out, and if they don't show, my lesson is planned for the next week." But I don't like library like that (most of the time). I like to time my lessons with the seasons or what's going on in the classroom, or how close we are to hosting our visiting author or prepping my students for the visit from our public librarians. If I'm going to the classroom (SOLs are given and taken in the Library - did I mention, three weeks!) I need to plan for a full half hour. I actually like this opportunity to spend a little extra time with my students without the pressure of fitting in book checkout (I do have longer chunks of time with my students but it feels different when I'm in the classroom without an "agenda").
Here is one activity that my students LOVE. In fact, they might love it a little too much. I call it "Book-Tionary". Creative, eh? : )
I use the whiteboard/dry erase board in the classroom and begin to draw a character or scene from a book. The students have to guess the book I am drawing. I usually begin with the pigeon from Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. Once they catch on, it's mayhem. My one rule is that they cannot call out - so when I look out over my little guys I see about 25 students turning red just trying not to blurt out the answer while their little arms are waving around like crazy.
Allow for plenty of hang time to differentiate. I also tell them that I probably will NOT call on the FIRST person who raises their hand. Helps to take the pressure of those who need a little more time to think. Come ready with a list of books (it's harder than you think to think on the fly). With older students, I let them write down the title of a book they'd like me to draw; they love it when their book comes up and they get a good chuckle (okay, hearty laugh) at my artistic ability.
What do you do when you're blessed with a little extra time with your students?
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