#JustaChicken Author Visit

Bethel was excited to host the #JustaChicken authors last week and it was a really nice visit!  Langston Moore and Preston Thorne were extremely professional and easy to work with.  The hardest part was finding a time they were available to visit - they are in high demand!

I really liked the message of their book - you are special and amazing, you are not #justachicken!  They did a great job revving up all of our K-5 students with their "reading workout" and I really liked how they talked with the 3-5th graders about doing their best in school and not expecting sports scholarships.  I think it was helpful to hear former football players say those things to them!

They did two big sessions, visited a few classrooms, had lunch with some 4th grade boys, and then autographed books before they left!  It was a great day and a lot of fun!

Teaching Biography and Memoir with the SC PBA's

     December has been busy in the library media center!  I've been working with the 4th graders on planet research with the Chromebooks in their classrooms.  I've been doing a fun holiday read aloud with the 3rd graders in the media center.  We also had #Justachicken authors visit us!  I'll be doing a separate post for that one so I can share some fun pictures!

     In the media center with the K-2 classes I see every week, we are still reading the SC Picture Book Awards.  We have talked a lot about fiction and nonfiction, so December has us using two of the PBA books to talk about biography and memoirs!

     I used Beatrix Potter and Her Paintbox by David McPhail to introduce biography.  This is a very well written and accessible biography.  We talked about how a biography tells about someone's life.  I didn't tell them who Beatrix Potter was, but read the book and then watched them at the end to see who recognized the Peter Rabbit title.  I was surprised how many of them knew Peter Rabbit, but it helped a lot that there is a TV show of it in addition to the book.  After reading, the students have created their own tiny Peter Rabbit Christmas card with a template that I found here.


This week we are extending our knowledge of biography by talking about memoirs.  Billy's Booger: a memoir by William Joyce is cataloged in the library as a fiction book, but he says in the end papers that it is the true story of his first book (and does include the book itself), so we are talking about it as a true memoir with a few embellishments.  I wasn't sure I would be able to pull this one off with the kindergartners, but they have done really well with it.  All the students have connected with Billy not winning a prize for his book, but then feeling good about himself when his book is placed in the library.  We've had some great conversations about how sometimes winning doesn't mean you get a medal or trophy.

I really enjoy William Joyce's books.  I hunted in hope of finding an interactive app to go with Billy's Booger like the apps for The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore and Numbers, but couldn't find one.  It looks like there were plans for an app, but it is no longer available.

Getting Spooky with SC Picture Books

        October has me getting spooky with my read alouds from the SC Picture Book Nominees.  Every year has a different 20 books to share with students and some years I get more excited about the list than others.  So far, I am loving the titles on this year's list!

Last week we started with I Am Trying To Love Spiders by Bethany Barton.  My kindergarten, first, and second grade students loved this nonfiction book and it creeped me out ALL WEEK!  I am NOT a fan of spiders, but I put on my big-girl pants and read it anyway.  The kids thought it was hilarious that I was afraid of spiders and was willing to read them the book.  I loved the tone, it was an extremely readable nonfiction book.  I'm pretty sure it is the student favorite of all the books I have read so far.  After we read it, I let the students play on the Duck Duck Moose App "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and it was such a nice day!

This week I am reading Night Animals by Gianna Marino.  This is another one that is not really spooky, but it is about a bunch of night animals that are scared of... night animals!  We are talking about main idea and this book really falls into my October category with a theme that everyone gets scared sometimes.  I try to give the students something else to do after checkout that goes with our story to keep them engaged.  I had a bunch of the Usborne Flashlight books that I hadn't put out yet, so I went and got flashlights at the dollar store and the kids have had a blast shining the lights to find the hidden pictures at the tables.


The next two weeks we'll be having fun with monsters.  I'll be reading Marilyn's Monster by Michelle Knudsen and The Little Shop of Monsters by R.L. Stine.  I have another app I love to let them play with around Halloween - Monsters by Sago Mini.  It lets them create and feed their own monster!  I love pairing technology that my young students can explore and enjoy with our read alouds.  I focus a lot on finding books to get them excited about reading in elementary school.  It is so important for young students to find a love for books!

Dot Day 2017

Despite Hurricane Irma shortening our week, we have had a lot of fun celebrating Dot Day in the library at Bethel this week.  I am reading the SC Picture Book Awards with my Kindergarten, First, and Second graders right now, so we celebrated by reading Grandma in Blue With Red Hat by Scott Menchin instead of The Dot since most of my students are familiar with The Dot.

I loved Grandma in Blue With Red Hat! It is a fun story set in a museum where the main character realizes that his Grandma has the same characteristics art does.  What's a boy to do? He tries to donate Grandma to the museum!

We had some great conversations about the art in the book (which many of the students recognized) and how everyone can make their mark on the world!  After reading the book, the students had a chance to create their own dot on a Quiver printed page.  Then we used the ipads to scan the dots and play with them.

3-5th Orientation with GooseChaseEdu!

      I love how excited my students get when I add technology to my lessons, so I'm excited to share my 3rd-5th graders have been having a blast this week doing library orientation with the online scavenger hunt GooseChaseEdu.

      GooseChase was very easy to set up.  I signed up for a free educator account and then began creating what I wanted the students to do.  Each question is a "mission" in GooseChase, and the answer can be given by photo/video or typing in a text answer.

      I wanted my students moving around the library and I really wanted to force them to look at the signs and spine labels, so all of my missions have to do with sections and genres of the library.  Last year I rearranged my Fiction section by genre to make it easier for students to browse the type of book they like to read, but they are still getting used to the change and it had been all summer since they had been in the library.

     I ended up creating about 14 missions.  Most of them were just looking for a genre (Adventure, Historical, Scary, Animal fiction, etc) where they had to take a picture of the spines to show they found the right location.  The other few missions asked them to type an answer to a question such as "Who would you be interested in reading about?" in the biography section.

     Set up was super easy.  I downloaded the GooseChase app on my student iPads.  The free educator version let me use 5 iPads at a time, so when the students came in I put them into 5 groups before starting directions.  I brought up GooseChase on my Promethean board so I could show them an example of what evidence I wanted from them and that I could see (and delete!!) their answers as they submitted them.

     The students have really been enjoying it all week and I can really tell that they are using the signs to find things!  Success!!

     I am definitely not a GooseChase expert yet, but I am going to keep playing with it!  You can also link websites into your mission questions, so I'm thinking my next game may be a virtual reference scavenger hunt!  I am also looking forward to exploring the games other people have been creating to see what I can "borrow!"  My only wish for the moment is that there was a way to reset the game and delete (or archive) the submissions instead of having to click and delete each one to get ready for my next class - maybe that will come in future updates to the game.

Refugee by Alan Gratz

This book made my heart ache. 

I have been recommending it to all my fifth grade teachers as we have come back to school this year. It is an absolutely wrenching story of three 11-12 year old kids who are refugees at different points in time, but their stories still intertwine with each other.

The point of view rotates each chapter with a different child: Josef is escaping Nazi Germany with his family in the 1930's, Isabel is escaping Cuba with her family in the 1990's, and Mahmoud and his family are running from Syria in 2015.

It is a tough story to hear how hard life is for a refugee.  I was impressed how Mr. Gratz mangaged to share this story with only 2 curse words that I caught in the whole book.  It is sad, but there is joy in it.  There are characters who don't make it, but there is hope at the end.  And the end is more of a beginning because you realize this is someone's story right now.

Update on Fiction Genre Project

I won't lie, it was a lot of work, but as the students have gotten used to the genre labels and sections in our updated fiction section, they seem to be liking it!

I ended up with Adventure, Animal, Humor, Historical, Fantasy, Mystery, Christmas, Science Fiction, Scary, and Realistic genre sections.  Each section is labeled with spine stickers (from Demco), and a sign on the end of the row to guide the students.  They are in abc order by author within their genre.

 It has definitely taken some getting used to by me and the students.  I did scan all the books into subcategories in Destiny, so when you look up a title it will say where it is located.  I am very much enjoying being able to point students to the genre they are looking for and watching the look of amazement when I tell them that all the mysteries or scary books are in one place.  I haven't tried running reports to see what the statistics are telling me, but I'll tackle that next year.  I have plans to begin the school year with a simple scavenger hunt!

Winding down...

Our year in the library is coming to a close.  I enjoy this time of the year and the excitement of summer and days off, while at the same time I am sad to see my 5th graders move on!  It is a challenging part of the year to wrap things up and also to keep everyone engaged til the end!

This week I am enjoying reading This is a Moose by Richard T. Morris to my kindergarten and first graders.  We are talking about speech bubbles and dreams for the future, both of which run rampant in this book.  The kids are really enjoying it and I have had some very interesting future job choices from them - doctor, police officer, veterinarian, cleaning lady, amusement park worker, ninja, animal, and a few who want to try all the jobs - hmmm.

My K-1 students have also been enjoying the Duck Duck Moose App Puzzle Pop HD after check out. I love all the Duck Duck Moose apps, especially now that they are free as they have partnered with Khan Academy!  The Puzzle app doesn't disappoint as it has 27 levels to really challenge everyone!  I could just sit and do puzzles all day, but I do have work to do!

My 2nd graders are finishing their year out by recapping some of the things we have learned about how the library is organized.  They have started working with Destiny this year and are starting to get comfortable looking up books.  I also just finished genrefying the fiction section, so they are taking a scavenger hunt through there to make sure they know where to find things now!