World Read Aloud Blogging Challenge #2

I'm participating in the World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge. Here's my 2nd entry: 

Week 2:  Adult & Child

I had a chance to talk to a couple of our 1st grade students this week :)

Q: I think everyone in the world should read...

Me: This is such a tough choice - I have so many favorites! But I do think everyone should read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.  I think this is a perfect story.  The plot, the illustrations, the layout design - perfection! It is a classic. It won the Caldecott Medal in 1964. It has proven to have real lasting power.  I heart this book.

  

Shane:  I think everyone should read children's books especially Elephant and Piggy books.

Lila: I think the same as Shane. But everybody should read Pigeon books too.

Q:  If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be...

Me:  Eric Carle.  During the Global Read Aloud this school year, my classes and I had a chance to watch Eric Carle reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar via his website. He was charming! He was warm!  His eyes twinkled! We all loved him.

Shane:  My mom and Mrs. Elrick, my teacher.
Lila:  My mom and dad.

Q:  When I read aloud, my favorite person to impersonate is...

Me:  This would have to be Mo Willems. I know I do a poor job of attempting to be like Mo, but when he reads/tells one of his stories, well, there is nothing like it!  He becomes Pigeon.  He become Elephant.  He becomes Piggie.  His characters come to life.  They're BIGGER than life.  That's Mo.

Shane:  Elephant!
Lila:  Elephant too!  
Me:  Hmmmmm.... seems we have a theme here :)

Q:  The genre or author that takes up the most room on my bookshelf is...

Me:  Here's a pic of a few shelves from my home library:

Children's books, of course!

Shane:  I have about a millions books!  I have 26 books by R.L Stine   
Lila:  Fairy books.  I have a lot of them!

Q:  My favorite part about reading aloud or being read to is....

Me:  I love sharing my favorite books and authors/illustrators with students, teachers and friends!  I love sharing my love of picture books and feel very lucky that is what I get to do everyday at work.  I also love hearing others read aloud.  To hear the "voice" of an author through different person, always entertaining and enlightening.  Reading aloud, either by me or listening to someone else, makes my heart sing.  As Kate DiCamillo, the  current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature says,  "stories connect us." 

Shane:  Finding out what the book is about.  Finding out what the surprise in the book is.

Lila:  I like when my dad changes his voice with the characters.

WRAD Blogging Challenge #3 coming soon!

Introducing.... World Read Aloud Day!

I'm so excited to announce that Memorial School will be participating in World Read Aloud Day! We will be incorporating WRAD into our Read Across America celebration throughout the week of March 3-7. What perfect timing to have two reasons to promote and celebrate literacy. According to LitWorld, a non-profit literacy organization fostering resilience, hope, and joy through the power of story:

World Read Aloud Day is about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.

By raising our voices together on this day we show the world’s children that we support their future: that they have the right to read, to write, and to share their words to change the world.

As part of our participation, I have decided to take part in the WRAD Blog Challenge.  For four weeks, beginning today, I will be answering prompts along with many other bloggers who are participating in this global celebration of reading aloud. Thank you to library teacher extraordinaire, Matthew Winner for letting me know about this challenge.

Week 1: February 10 - 16

What is your earliest or fondest memory in which someone read aloud to you?

How fun to travel down memory lane for this purpose....  I have very clear memories of visiting our local public library in Fair Lawn, NJ.  It was always a highlight of the week for me.  I loved going into the small (at the time) building and finding the children's section.  I don't remember her name, but I have very warm memories of the children's librarian. She read us wonderful stories and helped us find great books to read. And, she was kind. I loved being surrounded by so many books and having the freedom to choose whatever I wanted. It was heaven to me.  Spending so many hours in the library and loving being there so much must have had a huge impact on me, because when I was in 6th grade and wrote my autobiography (which I came upon a few years ago!), I wrote that I wanted to be a children's librarian when I grew up.  Dreams do come true!

So, how will we be celebrating at Memorial School?  Dr. Quigley, our wonderful principal,

Michelle Callahan, our fabulous CSA Literacy Committee Chair, and I have been planning for the past month:  

• decorations around the school
• a kick-off assembly 
• many community readers coming in to share their favorite picture books with our young students 
• several Skype sessions planned with librarians and their students in Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts 
• we'll end our week by having a wear Red and White Day and by having the Cat in the Hat welcome our students as they enter school on Friday, March 7.

Sound like fun?  You betcha!

For more information go to:  World Read Aloud Day

And the winner is......

January is a very exciting time in the world of children's books - it's the month the American Library Association announces the Youth Media Awards.  Because we love picture books at Memorial School, our students learned all about the Caldecott Medal.

The Caldecott Medal "shall be awarded to the artist of the most distinguished American Picture Book for Children published in the United States during the preceding year. The award shall go to the artist, who must be a citizen or resident of the United States, whether or not he be the author of the text."

What a great award for our young students to learn about!  I shared previous winners with my classes. They now know to look for the gold and silver medals on the front covers of winning books and also to look for the Caldecott stickers on the spines of these special books in our library. We talked about some of the criteria the judges consider when making their decisions.

• We looked closely at all parts of each book (front and back covers), end-papers, etc.
• We discussed, do the illustrations tell a story?
• We thought hard about whether the art was so special that the illustrator deserved to win.    

And then I decided to try something new - we would have our own Mock Caldecott right here at Memorial School! It was tough, but I narrowed the choices to three books:

We read all three stories and looked very closely at them as if we were Caldecott judges and then all the kindergarteners and first graders voted using a Google form on our library computers.

One of our students voting.

And, drum roll please, here are the winners of the Memorial School Mock Caldecott:

The Caldecott Medal (gold) goes to:  Journey by Aaron Becker

The Caldecott Honor (silver) goes to: The Story of Fish and Snail by Deborah Freedman

    The "real" Caldecott winners are:

                             
        

All fabulous!  Locomotive by Brian Floca was awarded the Caldecott Medal.  The others, all stories without words, are Caldecott Honor books and are perfect to share with your children.  I highly recommend each of them!

This was such a fun and interesting unit.  I loved sharing some of my very favorite picture books with our young students.  I can't wait to do it again next year!

Memorial parents, it might be interesting to ask what your children thought of each of these books!      

Introducing..... Symbaloo!

What is a Symbaloo?  It’s a new way to share our favorite websites with you!  A Symbaloo is a visual webmix or a collection of websites that have been carefully curated.  To date, there are three Memorial School Symbaloo’s: one for our students, one for parents and one for staff.  Here is what the Student Symbaloo looks like:

Each tile acts like a bookmark.  Just click on one and you will be taken to that website.  There are tiles for what I am calling, “Google Alternatives” or search engines that are safe for young children, such as Sweet Search, KidsClick!, KidRex and SearchyPants.  There are tiles that will take you to author websites (think literacy fun and games!) and lots more.

We encourage you to take a look.  Here are the links to the Symbaloo’s:

Student Symbaloo

Parent Symbaloo

You can also access these from Memorial School webpage under the Academics tab. There you will see Web Links for Students and Web Links for Parents.  New tiles will be added whenever a great new website is discovered.

We’d love to hear what you think.

Happy Clicking!

On Being Connected

As I enjoy this wonderful December vacation in beautiful Maine with my husband, two dogs and my son's puppy, I've had time to reflect on the past few months.  It's been an amazing time of growth and inspiration for me professionally, probably the most learning ever in such a condensed time period.  And why?  It's all because I became a "Connected Educator."  Last year,  T-21: Teaching in the 21st Century, an all year course was offered to elementary teachers in Medfield. I ran, not walked, to be part of this experience.  I've been running ever since.  Beth Holland (@brholland), taught our group and opened our eyes to the possibilities of 21st Century education. We learned about web-based applications to use with our students and to manage and organize our own work. There was a lot of learning and lots of work as well, but the work was all very much hands-on and practical- projects we could use with students and in our own practices immediately.

For one assignment I made an Animoto featuring new informational books added to our library collection  thinking it would be a fun way to share titles with staff:

We also learned about the CRCD Framework: Collect, Relate, Create and Donate. About how social media can be of use to us and to our students. We talked about the 3 A's, that information can be accessed, adapted and archived.

Then at our last session led by Tom Daccord (@thomasdaccord) and Samantha Morra (@sammorra), we delved into Twitter.  I had been lurking on Twitter for a little while, but that day it clicked for me.  I was ready and willingly went down the Twitter rabbit hole. 

There was so much to learn.  A few hashtags that were tailor made for me as a school librarian such as #tlchat and #tlelem.  One tweet led to another and slowly I began building my PLN (personal learning network).  Now I was connected with passionate and committed educators.  I started reading relevant blogs, got led to amazing websites and began to feel my brain was exploding with inspiration. I was collecting ideas and knowledge that I related to in a big way.

As Twitter was literally blowing my mind, I had also decided to change things up with the summer reading list I prepared each June for our young students. Out with the old, in with the new! I decided to create a Pinterest board for the Summer Reading List.   I could add descriptions to all the books and have links to author websites and to other literacy based sites.  Here's what it looked like:

Soon after I completed the board, I was led to Joyce Valenza's NeverEnding Search Blog where she was asking for new ideas for summer reading lists.  Hmmmm, I thought my pinterest board might be what she was looking for, but wasn't sure.  And then, I did something brave - I "donated" the board to her.  I will admit I was a bit nervous about putting myself and my work out there but to my great astonishment, she wrote back  and asked if she could use it in her blog and to add it to her ISTE 13 presentation.  To say I was blown away is an understatement.  This is Joyce Valenza we're talking about.  To say this was a top professional moment for me is also an understatement! The only reason this happened, is because I am connected, oh, and I was brave.

Then I started seeing tweets about edcamp BLC13. I quickly registered.  It was a day of PD unlike anything I've ever experienced.  Spending a day with passionate educators who are excited about what they do, who love change and want to share knowledge and experiences was exhilarating. I love this model of PD. 

Because I became a connected educator, I learned about International Dot Day. Here is a Smore I created describing our celebration:

So far this school year, I have attended 2 edcamps, my first national AASL Conference (American Association of School Librarians), have particpated in several twitter chats,  and have nErdamp Northern New England,  Edcamp Boston and the MSLA (MA School Library Association) conference on my calendar.  All because I am connected virtually but still crave actual connections too.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much I have learned from and have been inspired by Diane Horvath (@techmonstah).  She is a technology integration specialist who loves to share her enthusiasm and love for all tech things.  She is a wonderful addition to our school district and I thank her for always being so patient...

It was so much fun skyping with Wendy Garland (@dancelibrarian) for International Dot Day and Edie Crook (@WESMediaCenter) for The Global Read Aloud.  I want to especially thank Shannon Miller (@shannonmiller) for being an outstanding library teacher and for always being so generous in sharing her work and Beth Holland for helping to get me started on this journey.  I've also learned from Amy Short (@amyshort2).  It would be impossible to thank my PLN adequately - I appreciate every single one of you.

What's ahead?  More learning and connecting.  I'm still working on the 3 A's. Archiving deserves it's own future post.  In a couple of weeks, a first grade class will be skyping with a class in Pennsylvania to share their Global Gingerbread projects.  I can't wait.

Library Update

Hard to believe it is almost the end of 2013. This school year seems to be zooming by. The library has been a busy place where lots of learning, reading, exploring and fun has happened. Our students know the routines and are learning the lay-out of our library.  They know where their favorite sections are such as pets, sports, Elephant and Piggie, Mercy Watson, etc.

An exciting change has taken place! Our kindergarteners are now able to borrow two books at a time and first graders are now able to borrow three books at a time. Actual cheers and applause could be heard from the library when students heard this news! Our library program is here to encourage and promote the love of reading and I think this new policy supports this mission. Now an additonal 200 plus student books are going out and coming in each week.

Students dropping off books one morning.  We may need a bigger book cart to hold all the returns!

This means I need to allow more time for book selection and check out during library classes.  It means slower lines at the check-out desk.

Here are a few of our students waiting very patiently in line to check out their books.

Donna Knott, our wonderful Library Assistant, and I are amazed at the piles of books that now need to be checked back in and then shelved. This means more work for our dedicated (and fabulous!) parent volunteers and makes their time in the library even more essential. We are all getting used to this change, but everyone thinks the extra efforts are worthwhile.

What do you think?

iCollect!

What is iCollect! at Memorial School?  It's a program for our students to show off their personal collections.  It all started a couple of years ago.  I was remembering how much fun it was for my own children to have the opportunity to showcase their collections in our public library. My daughter displayed her My Little Pony collection and later on, my son displayed his Troll collection.  It was so much fun setting up in the library's display case and having patrons come see their prized possessions.  But, I also remember how long the wait was till it was their turn.  So, after talking it over with our principal at the time, Andrea Trasher, I got the go-ahead to write a grant for a display case from the MCPE (Medfield Coalition for Public Education).  They approved the grant and generously funded us purchasing a new display case for the library with lockable doors!

I created a form for interested students which is always available on this blog and in the Thursday Packet:

We try to display as many different collections as possible. Here are two from past years:

                                                 

This fall, Abby, one of our first graders, displayed her shell collection.  She made a lot of very helpful signs identifying the different kinds of shells and where they were from.

Here is Abby setting up her collection before school one morning.

                                                                                 

Here it is all set up.  What a beautiful display!

                                               

Abby's class came to the library to learn about her shell collection. We were all impressed by how much she knew about shells and by the great questions her classmates asked!

If your child has a collection they would like to show off, please fill out the form and send it into school.

Click here to access the form.

We look forward to displaying many collections this school year!