November 16, 2016 by plemmonsa

Exploring Advance Reader Copies with 1st Grade

I love getting Advance Reader Copies (ARC) of books. I selfishly enjoy having them for myself to read, but the real joy comes when I get to share them with readers well in advance of the book being released. It’s like sharing a secret with them and creates an extra level of engagement for the story. It also gives me a chance to get reader input on books that might become a part of our library collection. In the past, I’ve returned from conferences with a suitcase full of books and distributed them to readers to enjoy and offer opinions.

Most of the time ARCs come from publishers in the mail or at conferences. However, yesterday, I received 2 ARCs direct from author Hannah Barnaby with a special note tucked inside.

Today, Ms. Skinner’s 1st grade class visited the library for a story time, so it was the perfect opportunity to share the books for the first time. Since it’s world kindness week, we discussed what a kind gesture it was for the author to send us a sneak peek of her two new books. We also discussed how we could in turn offer some kindness back by reading the books, discussing them, and sharing a bit of feedback with the world.

The first Hannah Barnaby book we took a look at was Bad Guy illustrated by Mike Yamada. The book uses short sentences on each page to highlight the daily sinister deeds of one bad boy. Many of these deeds are against his sister. Without giving too much away, he learns that being a bad guy can have its consequences too.

After we read, I asked the students to think about what they loved, what they wondered, and who they would recommend the book to. Here are a few of their thoughts about Bad Guy.

What we loved:

bad guys
bad guys can be good
it went back and forth between the characters like a brother & sister.
his sister played a trick on him, too..
it was like playing a game.

What we wondered:

if they had made a trap for each other
how his sister made the trap
if he was really doing all the bad stuff or if it was pretend.

Who should read this book:

people who like stories about bad guys.
people who like stories where characters play tricks on each other
people who like traps

The second book we read was Garcia & Colette Go Exploring illustrated by Andrew Joyner. This book follows two characters who both want to go exploring but can’t seem to agree with one another on where to explore. This results in them taking two different journeys alone. As they explore, they make observations about their world and without knowing it, make many of the same observations.

I again asked students to think about what they loved and wondered as well as who they would recommend the book to.

Book Title: Garcia & Colette Go Exploring

Author: Hannah Barnaby

What we loved:

they said the same things when they were apart
the packed the same things to eat
both couldn’t do the things they wanted to do.

What we wondered:

how did they make their rocket and submarine?
did they eat all their sandwiches?

Who should read this book:

people who like exploring
people who like space & sea
people who like the desert
people who like to explore alone

Finally, we had some discussion about both books together. First, should we have these books in our library when they are released. It was an overwhelming, unanimous “YES!”. Both books are different, so I didn’t want to pit the books against each other. However, students did offer some feedback about which book hooked their attention the most depending on the reader. It was really split between the two books. The students who preferred Bad Guys liked the trickery and brother/sister relationship. Many students felt a connection to how the brother and sister picked on each other. The students who preferred Garcia & Colette Go Exploring liked the adventure and the setting as well as the illustrations of the two inventions the characters made.

I want to explore more ways to use ARCs with students. Thank you Hannah Barnaby for thinking of us and allowing us a sneak peek at your new books. We can’t wait to add them to our library. We’ll continue to enjoy them with more classes over the next few weeks.

Bad Guy will be released in May 2017.

Garcia & Colette Go Exploring will be released in June 2017.

November 15, 2016 by plemmonsa

When Authors Connect: A Skype with Barbara O’Connor

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One of our amazing Barrow teachers, Ms. Spurgeon, is leading a book club with some 5th grade students. To select their book, she read the summaries of several books as well as the first page of those books. The members of the group unanimously chose Barbara O’Connor’s How to Steal a Dog after hearing the opening line: “The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Luanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car. They have been savoring every moment of reading the book since choosing it. They’ve taken their time because a book like this one deserves some discussion, and Ms. Spurgeon has shared that some of that discussion has been hard.

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How to Steal a Dog is about Georgina Hayes and her brother who have been evicted from their apartment and now live out of their car with their mother. They long for a place of their own, and a “lost dog” poster suddenly gives them an idea. What if they stole a dog and then collected the reward money after giving the dog back to its owner? The plan sounds brilliant, but even though it is well planned out by Georgina, the duo face some unexpected challenges that complicate their hopes.

Ms. Spurgeon’s group has had some tough discussions about homelessness, poverty, stealing, and family relationships, but the students have embraced those discussions and in turn stayed connected and engaged in the book. When she shared with me how powerful the discussions were, I really wanted Barbara O’Connor to hear about it.

I shared some of Ms. Spurgeon’s observations with Barbara and wondered if we might connect over Skype for just a few minutes when they were close to finished with the book. Barbara enthusiastically said yes, and we set a date to connect for about 20 minutes.

Ms Spurgeon kept the Skype a surprise until the day of the connection, and the 5 students were shocked that they would actually talk to the “real author” of the book they were reading. They prepared some questions over lunch and came to the library to Skype.

It was a different kind of Skype because it was intimate. I pulled 5 chairs right up to the board so students could be close to Barbara on screen. Students each introduced themselves, and Ms. Spurgeon had a moment to talk to Barbara about their experience with the book.

Barbara took time to talk a bit about herself as a writer, how many books she has published, and where she lives. Then, it really became a conversation between the students and Barbara. I love author and illustrator visits, but often these visits are more presentation and less conversation because of the size of the groups we pack in for a visit. This type of visit built a connection between author and reader.

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Students asked about whether Barbara had experienced homelessness, why she wrote the book, how long it took, and more. Some students also came up with follow-up questions in the moment and because it was a small group, they could actually ask those. We got to take a quick tour around Barbara’s house as she showed the students her dogs after they asked whether or not she had a dog of her own.

We closed our time by thinking about next reads. I had pulled the books from our library that weren’t checked out at the moment and asked Barbara if she would like to suggest any of her other books as a follow-up selection. She suggested The Small Adventures of Popeye and Elvis and showed students an example of a Yoohoo boat from the story. While she mentioned other books like Wish, one of the students reached out and grabbed Popeye and Elvis and started reading it. That’s one of the great rewards of an author visit whether it’s through Skype or in person. The books come alive for the students and they can’t wait to read them all. Even though I can often recommend a book to a student and they will read it, the recommendation from the actual author is as good as gold.

When the students returned to their class, they continued to talk about the visit and how wonderful Barbara was to talk to. Some of them said they couldn’t wait to read more of her books once they finish this one. I know that Skype visits take time for authors, but it means the world to readers when they offer even a small amount of time to say hello, show off their dogs, and talk about the joys and challenges of writing and reading. Thank you for joining us today, Barbara O’Connor!

November 14, 2016 by plemmonsa

Exploring Pigloo with Anne Marie Pace

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Today Ms. Skinner’s 1st grade class had the great fortune to Skype with Anne Marie Pace to celebrate her new picture book, Pigloo. This book began when Anne Marie was in 1st grade, and now it is a beautiful picture book for our readers to explore. Pigloo dreams of going on an exploration to the north pole, and thanks to some snow, his sister, and some imagination, he is able to make his dreams come true.

This Skype was made possible through a contest that Anne Marie Pace held for librarians and teachers of 1st grade. Prior to our Skype, students watched the book trailer to get familiar with where the idea for the book came from. Anne Marie also sent us coloring pages for the students to color.

During our Skype, Anne Marie had students think about times they have waited on something just like Pigloo waits on the snow. We heard stories of waiting on pizza and Pokemon cards. We also talked about weather in Virginia where Anne Marie lives and in Georgia where we live. We certainly don’t have as much snow as Anne Marie has, so it was fun for the students to think about opportunities to get out and play in the snow which is rare here.

Next, Anne Marie read through the entire book. She held it up for students to see, but luckily a copy arrived in the mail for us just in time for the Skype. I held up the book so that students could see it on the screen or on the physical pages.

One of the things I love about connecting with authors is the chance for students to chat with them one on one. Anne Marie took time to let students step up and ask a question. Many wanted to ask more questions about Pigloo. Why did his sister “trick” him? Where did he get his sled and hat? However, we also got to ask about writing. She encouraged students to keep writing even when it’s hard. She explained that sometimes writing has fun parts and sometimes it has hard parts. She wanted them to always listen to their teacher and realize that feedback was a teacher’s wish for them to each become better writers. This affirmation is always powerful for students to hear and realize that we all need to push ourselves to do better.

Pigloo will now be available for checkout in our library, but students have a chance to order it from Anne Marie’s local bookshop, The Sycamore Tree. She will sign each one and the bookshop will mail them to our school.

Connecting with authors in person and virtually is always a treat for our readers. Each experience reminds students that there is a person and lots of hard work behind the pages of each book on our shelves. Thank you Anne Marie Pace for stepping into our school for the morning.

November 1, 2016 by plemmonsa

Community Collaboration: Book Making in the Makerspace

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I love opportunities to connect with community and bring expertise, talents, and interests to our students. Recently, a parent contacted me to tell me that her child’s grandmother was traveling to Athens to visit and would love to do book making with some students at our school. I immediately responded back that we would love to have this opportunity in our makerspace, and the planning began.

Grandmother Kathleen sent me a list of supplies we would need, so I ordered those from Amazon in advance. She packed everything else on her flight from Texas.

I also communicated with Gretchen Thomas at UGA to let her know that her students could help Kathleen during this makerspace time. I let teachers know the topic of the makerspace in advance and students signed up to participate across two days (Tuesday and Thursday).

When Kathleen arrived, her enthusiasm for art was contagious. You could tell that she was an amazing art teacher in Texas. She had multiple examples of books she had made from instruction found in Making Books that Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist, and Turn.

She had a different kinds of book planned for each group who visited the makerspace: 1st & 3rd grade, 5th grade, and 4th grade.

Before each group arrived, she put materials at each chair with the help of Gretchen’s UGA students. She gave very clear, step-by-step instructions for each group and me and the UGA students went around assisting students as needed.

Because each project took more than 30-minutes, we reached a stopping point and then stored the projects for Thursday.

Each book had its own purpose and made me and the students think about so many possibilities. One book allowed you to record things from different perspectives. Another book allowed you to write your own Choose Your Own Adventure story with pull out cards. Another book fanned out like a flower and allowed you to put poems, photographs, and more within the folds.

Each time Kathleen showed us a book, my mind was swirling with connections to each grade level’s curriculum. Students were focused, productive, and buzzing with excitement about today’s makerspace. I bet that when students are involved in the process of creating their own published books, they are more likely to fill those books with productive writing. I know that when I personally made my own book during the final 30-minute session, I really wanted to go home and fill it with writing and photographs.

I was reminded once again about how many interests and talents are hiding within our students, families, extended families, and community. Alone, I would not have thought much about book making or how to attempt it with groups of students. However, now that the expertise of a grandparent was shared with me and our students, I’m considering new possibilities with projects.

How many more talents and interests are just waiting for us within our communities? How do we tap into these resources? This was an opportunity that was given to me, but I know that if I had a way of unearthing and organizing the wealth of talents and interests in our community that more opportunities like this would make its way to our students and teachers.

October 27, 2016 by plemmonsa

Storybook Celebration 2016

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Traditions. We have many. The annual storybook parade is one that has been around for a long time. Each year we try a few new things, but the hear of the storybook parade is celebrating books by dressing as our favorite characters, carrying the book, and showing off our costume and book to the community.

Trying to document the day. (Photo Credit: Paul Lee)

The day begins with guest readers in every classroom. Janice Flory, our volunteer coordinator, sets up a Signup Genius to recruit 2 readers for each classroom. They gather in the library, select a book, take a group picture, and then get escorted to a classroom by a 5th grade BTV crew member.

I was really excited about the selection of books they had to choose from this year.

Next, the whole school gathered in the lunchroom for an assembly. Since October 27 was Jumpstart’s Read for the Record, I read aloud The Bear Ate Your Sandwich and recorded approximately 675 listeners to the story.

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When we were a smaller school, we took time to walk across the stage and show off our costumes, but it is a challenge as we have grown. Now, we simply stand by row, do a little twirl, and then sit down facing the back of the cafeteria. The costumes this year were amazing. I really pushed for students to think about characters they connected with and dress as that character.

At this point, we head out on our parade. Our route this year was the entire block of our school.

Students chant “read more books” as they walk down the sidewalk and parents and community members watch and blow their horns as they pass by.

Our Prek-4th grade classes return to school and begin literacy activities in their classrooms. Our 5th grade walks to the nearby Georgia Center to have hot chocolate and spend some time together.

Upon returning to school, our specials teachers, resource teachers, and media center offer special 30-minute sessions that classrooms can sign up to attend.

In the library, I offered a couple of experiences. Lower grades designed their own Halloween pumpkins using the Quiver augmented reality app.

Upper grades used littlebits to make something spooky. Both of these activities were connected to spooky stories we have in the library.

I loved seeing the designs that students came up with in both experiences. It was a fast-paced session that pushed students to be creative, work together, problem solve, and innovate. I hope that many will continue to explore littlebits beyond this fast session.

As always, this day was tons of fun but exhausting. It takes the whole community to make the event successful. Thank you to every student, teacher, family member, and community member who helped us make this day a success.

October 6, 2016 by plemmonsa

Reader’s Advisory: Quirky Questions and Crowdsourcing Ideas

readers-advisory-4 This year, I’m really trying to think of ways to support students’ reading lives. Recently, Ms. Hicks, 3rd grade collaborator, came to me with an idea. She wondered if I would meet with small groups of students in 3rd grade who needed some suggestions of books to read. These students are all readers but some might be stuck in their reading, abandon many of the books they choose, need a nudge to try something new, etc.

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When I recommend books in the library, it’s always a very informal process. I ask what students like, what they’ve read, what they are hoping to find, etc, but I’ve never formally made a list of questions to pull from. I started thinking about Will Walton at Avid Bookshop and how he manages the Avid book subscription program. In this program, someone buys a 6 or 12-month subscription and the recipient gets a new book in the mail specifically tailored to the recipient’s interests. I sent Will a message to see if he had a formal process and learned that he just loves to talk and chats with the person all about things they love. His questions aren’t always specific to reading, so it really got me thinking about quirky questions that I might ask to students that would help me connect them to a book.

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I initially started making a list on my own, but then I sent the Google doc to all of the media specialists in our district as well as posted to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

There were many suggestions about book related questions but some interesting thoughts started to emerge. Our list started to grow. (Feel free to add to this document!)

What do you like to do after school?
What are some of your favorite movies or television shows?
What are some of your hobbies?
What is a book that you couldn’t stand to read? What was it about that book that you didn’t like?
What kind of music do you listen to?
Where do you like to eat?
What kind of games do you enjoy playing?
Would you rather fly a kite (sit by a river, etc.) on a nice day or go to a big party?
Who is your favorite superhero?
Do you have a favorite series? Genre?
Do you like “just the facts” or “a far out story”?
What are 3 books you’ve read that you loved?
Do you like realistic stuff or imaginary stuff?
Why do you read (to escape, entertainment, learn new things)?
What is your preferred length of book? (short & sweet, long & detailed, depends on the book)
If you could visit any place or time in history, where would you go?
Is there anything you would avoid when choosing a book? (bad language, violence, ghosts, death, etc)
When you come to the library, where you usually go first when looking for your next book?
If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be and why?
Who are some of your favorite celebrities?
What is your favorite subject in school?

Then, I took those questions and turned them into a Google form to use with students.

I decided that if 6-8 students came at a time, I could have them start filling out the form while I started having 1-on-1 conversations with them. We settled on a 30 minute session for this survey process. I took over the typing as I talked with them and added to what they had already written or finished the questions they hadn’t gotten to.

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I was actually amazed by some of the responses that I got from students and the insight it gave me into ways I might connect them to a book. Some snippets of responses included:

If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be and why?

Mal from Descendants because she’s pretty and has purple hair. I like what she wears.
a wolf to howl at the moon
a cheetah because I want to run fast

Is there anything you would avoid when choosing a book? (bad language, violence, ghosts, death, etc)

kissing….love story
princesses
main character dies

I looked at all of the results for each student and wrote key words from the answers onto a post-it note for each student.

This helped me walk around the library and pull books into stacks for each student for a second trip to the library. The purpose of the second 30-minute segment was to look at the stack of books that were chosen specifically for each student and really spend some time with them. Students were so eager to get their hands on their stacks that they started asking me for a sneak peek before it was even time. My fear was that students wouldn’t connect with any book, but once again the miraculous happened.

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Each student had a strategy. Some spread all the books out and looked at the covers. Some started reading one book and didn’t want to move to another book in the stack. Some flipped over and read the back of each book. Some read the beginning page of each book. What happened is that every student found more than one book in their stack of 7-8 books that they wanted to read and they were genuinely excited about their choices.

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We decided that each student would choose the “first read” from the pile and we would create a list of all of the other titles so that we didn’t forget about the “future reads”. For all of the books that weren’t chosen, we just pushed them aside in a big stack. Something else miraculous happened. Students who were coming into the library to check out books saw all of my small group looking at that pile of books and they wanted to check something out from the pile. Several students who always have trouble finding something actually picked something from the pile of leftover books from the small group.

This gave me a lot to think about in terms of how to support various readers. This was a very personalized experience. It was time consuming on my part, but it was a way that I connected with students that’s hard to do when they are rushing in and out to get a book while I’m teaching a class. I won’t to continue to explore this and see how it can be fine tuned.

Our next step is for students to read their books during “read to self” time in the classroom and we will meet again to chat about the books. It will be like a book club. We won’t focus on naming the characters, setting, problem, solution, etc. Instead we’ll talk about connections we had to the characters, what surprised us, what made us laugh, what we think will happen next. It will be “real talk” about books rather than just academic talk. I can’t wait to see how this evolves.

If you have a favorite reader’s advisory question, add it to our doc or leave it in the comments.

October 5, 2016 by plemmonsa

A Visit with Kate Beasley

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Thanks to Avid Bookshop and MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group, we had the great fortune of celebrating the book birthday of Gertie’s Leap to Greatness with the author. Our 3rd-5th grade all got to come to Kate’s presentation. We did lots of work leading up to the visit to write about great people in our lives as well as read the beginning of the book.

Kate traveled to our school with her wonderful publicist, Mary Van Akin. When Kate arrived, she took time to look at all of the student writing in the windows. Mary and Kate both took lots of pictures of the students’ “great people”. I also had birthday balloons, Twinkies, and Gertie balloons to celebrate the book’s birthday.

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We were sure to take a picture with those to remember the day.

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Prior to the students’ arrival, Kate got busy signing all of the books. Thanks to our PTA, ever classroom received copies of the books to put in class libraries. Students are always eager to read the book after an author visit, so many teachers will read the book aloud while some will give the book to eager students to read and pass around to other students. The library will also have 6 copies of the book for checkout and I’m sure that they will stay checked out for a long time.

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We kicked off the author visit by singing “Happy Birthday” to Gertie. It was a rambunctious version of the song, but I’m sure Gertie would have loved it. Then, Kate jumped into her presentation. It’s always a treat to hear from an author because you get a window into their life to see where ideas come from.

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Kate also gave the students a lot of tips on what it means to be a writer and shared the huge stack of rewrites and revisions of Gertie. She also showed students what it looked like when various editors sent feedback to her to make changes. Students were very surprised to see that she worked on the book for over 3 years before it came to be in our hands.

I loved that Kate read from Gertie and chose a part near the end of the book that students hadn’t read yet. She read the part where Gertie goes to the office to take a note but the secretary forgets to give Gertie a chocolate for delivering the note. It puts Gertie in a tricky situation where she has to make a decision about the tempting chocolate in front of her. It was once of those scenes that leaves readers wondering, so I’m sure many students will be eager to read the book to see what happens in that scene.

At the end of her presentation students had a chance to ask questions and then participate in an activity on specificity.

Kate asked students to look at some parts of a sentence and try to come up with more specific details to make the sentence more descriptive and interesting.

Kate Beasley is now off on a big tour for Gertie’s Leap to Greatness. We are so honored that we got to be one of her first two stops. I can’t wait to see how readers at our school and across the country react to this wonderful book.

Thank you Avid Bookshop, MacMillan Children’s Publishing Group, and Kate Beasley for a very special day in our library.

October 4, 2016 by plemmonsa

Happy Book Birthday to Gertie’s Leap to Greatness

Today is a very special book birthday. Kate Beasley’s Gertie’s Leap to Greatness is now on bookstore shelves. This is Kate’s debut novel and we are so excited to have her coming to our school on the book’s birthday thanks to MacMillan and Avid Bookshop.

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About the Book

How would you feel if your mom lived just a few streets away yet had no interest in seeing you or talking to you? That’s Gertie Reece Foy’s situation. It doesn’t matter, though, because she has a plan, and Gertie never gives up on a plan. Gertie is a firecracker of a girl. She takes matters into her own hands and makes a plan to be the best 5th grader in the entire universe. She thinks that if she gives the best summer speech and become the best 5th grader in the universe, her mom will realize that Gertie is so awesome that she doesn’t need a mother anyway or possibly even come back into her life. Gertie has something standing in her way: a new girl named Mary Sue. Both of them have what it takes to be standout students, but their battle for the top results in even more struggles for Gertie to deal with. This is a book filled with friendship, school and family challenges, and summer adventures. You’ll be laughing out loud, cheering Gertie on, and crying along with her too.

Gertie is a character that I just want to hang out with. She is full of wit and adventure and can take just about any situation and make the best out of it. She does all of this even with a gloomy situation hanging over her. I think about my role in education and how a student like Gertie might slide by unnoticed as having a challenge to deal with. She isn’t one to reach out for help because she thinks she has to handle it all herself. How do I recognize those students? What opportunities can I give to students that allows them to shine and be the star that they are? I love how even the stern Mrs. Stebbins recognized the potential in Gertie and gave her a moment to shine.

I’ve been reading the first two chapters of Gertie to our 3rd-5th graders, and it is pure magic to read aloud. Reading aloud is a sure way to see how a book connects with multiple readers. It only took a few sentences into the book to have readers hanging on every word, laughing at the opening scenes in Aunt Rae’s kitchen, and begging to go on to the next chapter. I know this book will become a favorite of many of our students.

Going Above and Beyond

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This book made all of my students think about people from their lives that are always giving their all. Together, we thought about the many “great” people in our lives. Students in 3rd-5th grade were able to write down their great person on a Gertie’s Leap to Greatness card and we displayed them in our library windows.

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I have so many great people in my life: family who are always there for me, volunteers who give their all to keep our library program running smoothly, and librarians who push me to be a better librarian.

One of those many librarians that I look up to is Nikki Robertson. She is the picture of perseverance, determination, and never giving up. She is 100% awesome, not from concentrate just like Gertie Reece Foy. I can’t really comprehensively name all of the things that Nikki does, but here are a few:

Co-founder of EdCamp Atlanta
Member of the EdSpeakers Group http://www.edspeakers.com/nikkidrobertson.html
Champion and producer TL News Night, a monthly internet program highlighting libraries
Moderator of #tlchat on Twitter
Nominee for numerous awards including Edublogs and Bammy Awards
Presenter at national and international conferences including ISTE and AASL

What stands out to me about Nikki is her willingness to go above and beyond for the good of all educators and students, not just herself. Here’s an example.

Recently, Google Hangouts on Air transitioned to Youtube Live. Many people in education use this tool and were really worried about how the changes would affect them. Nikki jumped right in to figure out the new tool. She shared her frustrations, reached out to other people for ideas, and ultimately figured out how to easily use Youtube Live just like Hangouts on Air. She could have kept all of this new knowledge to herself, but instead she made a step by step visual tutorial on how to easily setup Youtube Live, and it saved me from agonizing over it another second. I immediately used it to teach my BTV crew how to setup the new way of doing our morning broadcasts as well as assisted a fellow friend in a Youtube Live event we were doing for Dot Day.

Nikki also goes above and beyond for her students. Her high school library is buzzing with activity and it’s all about giving the students a voice. Nikki designed custom Snapchat filters for her library and had students and herself immediately having fun in the library and embracing the power of social media. Her makerspace is a bustling place where she empowers her students to deeply explore specialized topics in making. She engages her students with creative interactive displays such as inviting students to spell out the word “hope” and share what hope means to them. She does a personal shopper program to put the right books in the right readers’ hands. All of these things are in addition to the fully packed schedule of classes that she teaches. The list just goes on and on. The bottom line is that Nikki Robertson never gives up on any mission she starts for her students, teachers, and network just like Gerite Reece Foy.

Get the Book

Who do you know that goes above and beyond? I invite you to leave a comment, share on social media, or do your own blog post. Be sure to get yourself a copy of Gertie’s Leap to Greatness at your local indie bookshop. You can always order a copy from our local store, Avid Bookshop.

Leap with Gertie

While you’re at it, when you get your copy of Gertie, take a picture of yourself leaping with the book and post it to social media with the tag #leapwithgertie Take a look at Kate & Cassie Beasley leaping along with students from our school.

Kate & Cassie Beasley leaping with Gertie. Photo courtesy of Macmillan.

October 3, 2016 by plemmonsa

Win a Skype with Anne Marie Pace

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About 4 years ago, I participated in my very first World Read Aloud Day and scheduled Skypes with several great authors. I was pretty new to using Skype, especially with authors, so I was a bit nervous about how the day would go. What I discovered during that day was how powerful it can be to connect with an author or illustrator in their studio or home. Students get to see a side of an author or illustrator that is hard to replicate in a library visit because they can easily reach over and grab items that they are working on, tools that they use, objects that inspire them, and more. Skypes can also be an affordable alternative for schools on a budget for author visits.

One of the authors that I connected with on that first World Read Aloud Day was Anne Marie Pace. She knew there was a big snowstorm coming, so she proactively gave me her contact info in case anything happened. That morning, I got a call from her because her power was out. She was so sad to miss our connection, but we immediately rescheduled and had an amazing connection. Since that first Skype, she has shared Vampirina Ballerina with us, had Kindergartners up and dancing with her on the screen, and shared favorite picture books with our school and 4 others during our picture book smackdown.

She is a delight, and offers her wisdom on writing books and her love of reading. I’m so excited that she has a new book coming out that started when she was in the 1st grade. It’s so important for our students to hear that adult authors often save writing from their childhoods and sometimes those writings turn into a new published book.

Anne Marie has an opportunity coming up for 1st graders. I hope you’ll take a moment to read a message from her.

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A Message from Anne Marie Pace:

“Because I was a first grader when I wrote the first draft of the story that has become my new book PIGLOO, I’d love to celebrate its release by talking with first graders about reading and writing. I am happy to offer ten free Skype visits to first grade classes across the United States in November and December (and January, if needed to schedule with the schools). To enter, I’d like first grade teachers to use this form to send me their information between October 3 and October 24. I’ll choose ten schools using a random number generator and contact the winners to arrange the scheduled visit.

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Skype visits will be 20 minutes long and will include my reading PIGLOO, a bit of chat about how writing is hard but fun, too, and a Q&A. I’ll also send the winning classes some book-related swag and a teacher activity guide.

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If teachers would like to send home a book order form to allow students to purchase a signed copy of the book, I have arranged with my local independent bookseller to ship copies of PIGLOO which I will inscribe and sign before they are shipped. This is NOT required to enter or to win, but some students and their families like to have this opportunity.

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First grade teachers and librarians on behalf of first grade teachers only, please. Yes, I love kindergarteners and second graders, too, but this one’s for first grade. (Ks will get a chance in the spring for Vampirina at the Beach)”

Submit your info by following this link!

September 22, 2016 by plemmonsa

Students as Teachers: Exploring Text Structure with Flipgrid

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At the beginning of the year, I started talking with Melissa Freeman, 5th grade teacher, about exploring text structure in the library. The very 1st unit in 5th grade language arts starts with text structure which explores the following standard.

Melissa was wondering how to make the topic more engaging and wondered about the possibility of a library scavenger hunt. We really weren’t sure where to go with the idea so we kept bouncing around possibilities over email and in person. She even came to the library and worked with me to pull books out of the nonfiction section and start sorting them into stacks.

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I continued this process so that we knew we had examples of compare/contrast, description, sequence/order, cause/effect, and problem/solution. Then, I mixed them all up. We knew that even though we personally picked a book for a specific structure that students might find other examples of text structure within the book. We were also excited that students would have some one-on-one time looking through some nonfiction books that they might not know that the library has.

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In one of our brainstorms, I thought about the possibility of students recording their findings in a digital way that could be shared with one another and also other grade levels. I originally thought it would be a good way for them to agree or disagree with examples that were discovered, but we expanded the idea to be a way that students could teach other students in our school and other schools about ways text can be organized.

We decided to use Flipgrid for this task. I created 5 separate questions: one for each type of text structure. Then, I linked them all on a Symbaloo that Ms. Freeman could share with her students via Google Classroom.

In class, Ms. Freeman introduced each kind of text structure and students started exploring books on Tumblebooks for each structure.

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Each class came to the library for a 50-minute session. We did a quick mini-lesson to review the structures, show how to use Flipgrid, and share what we hoped students would include in their video. This included things like the book title, author, text structure, and a concrete example from the text to justify the structure chosen. We also setup the idea that these videos could be a teaching tool for the rest of 5th grade, the school, and other schools.

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I spread the books out at tables and students worked in partners to browse the tables for a book to start with. As they discovered one of the 5 text structures, they prepared to make a video. Students used their own computers to record a Flipgrid, and then continued exploring for their next book example.

Ms. Freeman, Ms. Mullins (gifted teacher), and I all walked around and chatted with students as they searched through books. One of our immediate noticings was that students were guessing the structure simply based on the title, topic, or cover of the book.

They weren’t even opening the book to read the text. While this was a great predictor of what kind of structure might be inside, students were missing the point about looking at the organization. We clarified this in conferences and adjusted our mini-lesson with each class to put a stronger emphasis on explaining.

To close each class, we showed a few of the videos and had student offer noticings about what they heard. I love that in the new Flipgrid, you can actually respond to each video response. I showed students how the comments they were making could actually be added right onto our Flipgrid. I also encouraged each person who made a video to think about how they might add to their original video by posting a new video as a response.

The plan is for students to continue using these Flipgrids in class to post additional examples and respond to one another. We hope that eventually there will be some strong examples that can be shared with other classes in our school as well as with schools we collaborate with.