Skyping with Candy Gourlay

Screen Shot Candy took of our students

Screen Shot Candy took of our students

Last Thursday our Nook Book Club kids skyped with Candy Gourlay, the author of one of our all time favorite books: Tall Story. We had a great time and learned a lot too!

We learned about:

  • Gigantuism
  • Yau Ming
  • Writing from what you know
  • Philippine history
  • Candy’s family
  • How to pronounce Tagalog!
  • How ideas for writing are born

We especially learned that talking with someone that rocked your world is way cool and pretty easy to do too!  Candy was great with our students; it’s easy to tell that she’s a born storyteller and someone who’s plain old fun to hang out with!

Thanks Candy for rocking our world!

Candy has an awesome website too. Check it out

Screen Shot 2013-06-23 at 9.20.30 AM

Check out her Slideshares too I Loved Tall Story What Should I Read Next  & Reading and Thinking About Tall Story: A Discussion Guide

 

 

Blogging About Books: Join the Conversation!

Share your summer reads by adding a comment to this post. Great book shares include:

  • the Book Title
  • the Author
  • a SHORT Summary without giving away the ending
  • What you liked or didn’t like about the book, and
  • What kind of readers might enjoy it.

Thanks for sharing! Don’t let your brain freeze; keep reading and learning all summer and be the best that you can be!

 

 

 

 

 

McKayla’s Super Long and Detailed Birthday List

 

 Nutella. Stephane .Jaspert. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaspert-art-paris/6914886094/


Nutella. Stephane .Jaspert. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaspert-art-paris/6914886094/

WARNING: A lot of stuff would never happen in a million billion quadrillion years!

SECOND WARNING: I have a weird taste in gifts. 😀

1. Minecraft Server

2. RPG Maker VX Ace

3. NUTELLA!

4. Cat Stuff

5. Tobuscus stuff

6. Minecraft stuff

7. Ryan C’s shoes

8. A decent video camera

9. Another pet

10. Accounts

-Facebook

-Twitter

-Instagram

-YouTube

11. New phone case

12. MONEY

13. Gift cards (Apple)

14. iHop Dinner

15. Bacon

16. Cheese

17. Sweet Brown Shirt (Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That)

18. Cool Clothes

19. FaceTime your pet cat collar

20. Osiris

NOW SOME REAL UNREALISTIC STUFF

1. A pool

2. A trampoline

3. A room makeover

4. Lady Gaga concert tickets

5. AN iMAC!!!!!!!!

BACK TO THE REALZ

21. Lady Gaga stuff

22. Jewelry

23. Makeup

24. Uggs

25. Bathing suits

26. Chocolate

27. Candy Apple

28. Mustache stuff

29. Peanut butter stuff

30. Hot chocolate

31. MORE Nutella

32. New karate gear

33. More dresses

34. Hair flowers

35. Duct tape

36. Coolio school supplies

37. Even more Nutella

38. Giant cheese wheel

39. Domo hat from Walmart

40. Frozen Pizza

41. Breakfast sandwiches

42. Pancakes from ‘da diner

43. Chuck Glarman Hat

44. Into The Woods DVD

45. TV for my room

UNREALISM, EH?

1. A dog

2. Trip to Atlantis

3. Trip To Disney

4. Trip to CA

5. Trip to NC

BACK YET AGAIN

46. Hair highlights

47. Cat leash

48. Hamster harness

49. HALLOWEEN COSTUMES

50. A bunny

51. PINK hair dye

52. Industrial sized Nutella

53. Fake eyelashes

54. Red contacts

55. Robot stuff

56. Cool YA novels

57. Fill the bathtub with Nutella

58. “Real” NOT Wheat bread 🙂

59. Pikachu Stuffed animal

60. NUTELLA!!!!!!

 

ADD ONS:

  • Snowboard

  • Sweet and Sour Twizzlers

…and my birthday isn’t until November 27! Do you start thinking this far ahead? Would your list look anything like mine?

 

Drama

 Heart-shaped Tree Trunk. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 11 Jun 2013. http://quest.eb.com/images/300_2267995

Heart-shaped Tree Trunk. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 11 Jun 2013. http://quest.eb.com/images/300_2267995

 

School’s almost over 

I wish everybody liked me

Rumors, playing games

Middle school love and drama,

it destroys people’s lives.

Yes, it happened to me.

You try to make friends

Kids think they’re popular

Call you losers.

Crazy right.

Popular kids leave you out 

Think you’re not worthy.

Mean, but its true.

Choosing to hang with popular girls

Never seemed to work out.

Girls fall in love with boys for stupid reasons 

Maybe date for one day or one month,

Have their hearts broken.

Nice  kids will be there for you.

Help: that’s what everybody needs.

Drama who would want that.

How does middle school love and drama affect you?

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Taylor

 

 

Found Poetry & Easy Peasy Animoto


Last week, with the thought of creating book trailers as a summative learning experience for independent reading, Mr. Smarth’s 6th grade students chose like independent reading books in groups of two or three students. This week, they scanned their chosen books for found poetic lines and created Found Poetry Videos using our Animoto educator account.

Students each worked independently to complete their storyboard templates and then worked collaboratively to chose the found poetic lines and boards which fit together best. Together they found and chose copyright friendly images, either by using those available from Animoto or those found on the Images Page on the Lounsberry’s Virtual Learning Commons. They created image citations on a Powerpoint Slide saved as a .jpeg and chose music available on Animoto that best portrayed the mood of their found poems.

What students learned:

  • to recognize poetic and figurative language found in literary text
  • to determine mood drawn through text
  • to use the digital creations of others in a responsible manner
  • to use a tech tool which requires downloading and uploading of images and text

This learning experience acted as a precursor or “warm up” exercise for upcoming plans to make book trailers. In addition, it encouraged engagement for their upcoming independent reading by giving them something to look forward to. Independent reading in small groups, whether creating book clubs, literature circles or simply reading the same book at the same time, while still allowing for choice, encourages discourse.

Next time I’d add a rubric that considers:  how many slides created, language/text chosen, image selection, music creating mood, correct citation format, spelling (basically because it’s plain old careless to spell incorrectly on a final production!) and overall composition.

The only draw back of using Animoto is that it’s almost too easy to use! These videos came out looking great with very little effort on the part of students. But then again isn’t that the purpose of technology- to make our lives easier! Some students have already transferred their learning by creating videos for their moms for Mother’s Day which is right around the corner. Easy Peasy; this one’s a winner! Thanks to the folks at Animoto!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creating a Community of Learners

It’s been over a week since Lounsberry’s Second Annual Literacy Night, and it’s about time I did a bit of reflection about the event. Putting it all together was a lot of work, really a lot of work, and since the attendance wasn’t quite what we expected this year, you’d think I’d be asking if we should do it again next year. However, if you were there, and I hope you were, you wouldn’t be asking that question. There’s just something magical about the feeling generated when parents and students are learning together that makes it all worth while.

During our last Monday meeting, we presented Literacy Night to the staff at Lounsberry who weren’t involved. We left the gallery in tact, and participating teachers, without being asked, discussed their student lead workshops. I was blown away in learning how meaningful they found the experience. We discussed  inspired parents and the awesome possibilities for transferring learning. Since I had downloaded student video reflections to QR codes attached to projects, the conversation turned to reflection as a means for learning, and teachers even requested information about the kinds of questions I was asking students. Woot!

Some things to remember for next year:

  • Get invitation out to the newspaper early.
  • Attend Rolling Hills & Cedar Mountain (4th grade schools) SCA Meetings before event.
  • Advertise, advertise, advertise! (Send video invite to classrooms earlier).
  • Have teachers upload digital projects to wiki throughout the school year.
  • Start gallery at 6:30.
  • Create survey/wallwisher for participant reflection

Also, I still think people are confused about the term Literacy in relation to the event. Although Transliteracy, would be a more accurate term, I think that might confuse people even more!  Any ideas for a better name are up for consideration!

 

 

 

 

Are Centers Growing Up?

Center based learning, yes that old standby primary school philosophy, may happily be creeping its way into the middle school environment.  Leading its potential for adoption is Columbia Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project’s content based literacy learning, which centers on “centers”! And, if history repeats itself, whatever TCRWP models, for good reason, school’s adopt.

Last week I implemented a center based learning experience, to introduce students to next week’s visiting author, Paul Janeczko. I doubled the tables in the library into three larger tables, which hosted three different center based activities.

  1. Answering questions using Paul Janezcko’s website, to learn about the poet in addition to experience navigating a website.
  2. Three different coding activities, (in light of the author’s book  Top Secret), using Paul’s various other  books as sources for text. Students participated in one of the three activities at this center, which included speaking in Pig Latin, Found Poetry and keyboard coding.
  3. Reader’s Theater using poems from A Foot in the Mouth. Students worked in groups reading & acting out poems for two, three or group voices. We videoed their readings with the Ipads, and the plan is to put videos in QR codes for the front of school bulletin board (So need to get this finished!).

Why it worked and why I like centers: Students were engaged and learning valuable skills. Centers are a great, gradual way for teachers to move away from teacher centered, sage on stage type practices, closer to learner centric experiences. Often teachers fear the loss of control and the possibilities for time wasted in student based learning, however, centers offer a gradual shift from control, and keep students on task. In addition, teachers realize that students do not all need to be doing the same thing at the same time in order to be productive. This may encourage teaching practices which allow for student choice and differentiated learning options. Centers allow teachers to move around the class and work with students, one-on-one, something that I see as  desperately needed and often missing in the middle school classroom.  In addition, centers seem less competitive, mainly because students are working in smaller groups.  This structure allows for differentiated work that’s not obvious to everyone, since students are working on different things at the same time.

What do you think? Do you see a place for center based learning in middle school?

 

Breanna’s Tall Story

My Life Is A Tall Story

  

My life is a tall story.

I stand up

and fall down,

but I am still tall.

I laugh loud

and cry too,

but I am still tall.

I sometimes win

and sometimes lose,

but I am still tall.

I sometimes lose track of time,

and sometimes I’m a little unorganized,

but I am still tall.

Either at the piano,

clarinet,

or on the field,

I know,

I believe,

I achieve

at being tall.

 

Enjoy! especially Nerdy Nook Book Club Kids Reading Candy Gourlay’s totally awesome Tall Story!

Thinkin’ About Independent Reading

This is my third year as Lounsberry’s librarian and our first without Accelerated Reader. It’s demise was not my decision to make alone, however there was no mistake that I wasn’t a fan! My purpose in writing this post, however,  is not to denigrate AR, but to discuss methods which seem to be working in our school for the promotion of independent reading and why. Important to note is that the whole of these practices can be observed  in the classroom of our new awesome LA teacher at Lounsberry, Declan French.

  • Student Book Talks.  How: Students sign up for weekly book talks. They present a short summary of the book they read, We’ve been video recording student talks with ipads and  students use recordings to self access their presentations. In addition we upload book talks to QR codes and attach to photos of students holding books around the library. Why it works: It’s authentic and purposeful. It creates talk about books. It meets additional CCSS  for speaking/presentation skills. There’s an audience! It allows students to estimate the time needed to finish a book and a goal time for finishing.
  • Silent in Class Reading.  How: Everyday, a few times a week, 5, 10, 15 minutes…whatever you can fit in. Why it works: It provides a model for at home/after school reading. Students realize reading is a priority!
  • Sticky Note Connections.  How: Students mark text throughout the book when they have questions with their own understanding, author’s purpose, or characters’ thoughts or actions; when they’re psyched by what a character does, when they especially like the language of a particular passage, etc. Text to self, to text and to world too. Why it works: It highlights their relationship with the book. It makes reading an active activity.
  • Conferencing.   How: Teachers conference, one-to-one, with students about their reading. This may take place during independent reading time or during other learning activities. They talk about the book, sticky note connections etc. Why it works: Students feel honored in sharing their reading with their teachers. It gives teachers another opportunity to access student reading ability and understanding.
  • Teacher Book Talks   How: Teachers share what they’re reading. Why it works: It gets students interested in books. It works to model book talks. Students see that teachers are reading and enjoying the process!
  • Lit Letters  How: Students randomly select another student from class and write them a letter about their reading, including: a friendly greeting, a short summary,  what they like or dislike about the book they’re reading and why the the person they’re writing might like or dislike what they’re reading, a quote  and explanation of its importance. Why it works: To personalize the reading experience; sharing books is authentic!

I’d love to hear your thoughts as to what you think works best to promote independent reading and why.  Students comments too!