Tag Archives: MASL

Pocket Poems & Journeys

Every month there are celebrations both large and small in the Flower Hill media center. We celebrate learning, connecting, collaborating, creating – and reading!

April is not only School Library Month:

school library month

…but also National Poetry Month, and April 30th was Poem in Your Pocket Day.   poem in your pocket day

If you visited our school during the month of April you would have noticed our large bulletin board inviting all to pick a poem or two from the pockets, and share them with others.   Throughout the month (and into May) we have been exploring different types of poems – Haiku, List, and Book Spine Poetry, to name a few. Book spine poetry is a bit eclectic, and it’s created and read by stacking books so that the title of each book is one of the lines in the poem. Below are a few examples of book spine poetry that my fourth grade students created:WP_20150414_14_12_47_Pro[1]

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We read Guyku (haiku poetry for boys) by Bob Raczka and Peter H. Reynolds and my 4th grade students created some fantastic Guyku and Galku (haiku for girls) –

Diego Guyku

Ryan Guyku

Samanthagalku

During the week of April 27th – May 1st, many of my classes connected with students in other states via Google Hangout. We collaborated together to create some wonderful list poems with our new friends in New York and South Carolina.  We read a few selections from Falling Down the Page –  A Book List Poems, edited by Georgia Heard. and then, using Google Docs in real time, we created poems together, alternating lines, and color coding the poem to help!  If you’d like to read some of them, please click here.                               

The month of May was filled with industrious students finishing book trailer videos, researching and creating online newsletters, learning about effort and persistence, taking care of the earth, and much, much more!

I will be preparing my 2015-16 library book order soon, and have asked all the students to give me input. I have several book catalogs available for them to peruse, and they can add their suggestions to the wish list.

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The Black-Eyed Susan Book awardees were announced on Saturday, May 2nd. I attended the event, and knew my students would be thrilled to find that The Day the Crayons Quit (educator guide), and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (website) were this year’s KidLit winners!  All three have been very popular titles in our Flower Hill ES library, and rarely stay on the shelves – if they make it back on them at all!  WP_20150504_07_37_53_Pro[1]

On June 16th, I was thrilled to be a guest reader in the Story Time Tent at the 6th annual Gaithersburg Book Festival.  I read two great books by Patrick McDonnell – Wag! and The Monsters’ Monster. WP_20150516_10_38_52_Pro[1] Both have wonderful messages of friendship, kindness, and love, and both have downloadable activities from the publisher’s website.  I also volunteered in the Edgar Allan Poe Pavilion, and there was able to listen to many authors of adult literature.  At one point during the day when I wasn’t volunteering, I had the opportunity to listen to Michelle Knudsen and Matt Phelan discuss Marilyn’s Monster, a delightful book about a little girl who has been found by her monster yet, so she decides to go out and decides to go out in search for him herself, and the adventure that ensues.  (Michelle reads her book to us)

 (Matt gives writing tips)

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Another book I like to finish my year out with is The North Star  by Peter H. Reynolds – a quiet book about a little boy who learns to follow his guiding star.  I love sharing this book with my 4th and 5th graders and getting them to think about their own strengths and following their own paths to greatness.

WP_20150512_19_29_41_Pro[1]Reading is my super power, and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to share my love of books and learning with my students.  I have spent many enjoyable hours this weekend listening to The Busy Librarian’s podcasts, and have been so thrilled to learn more about authors and illustrators (and everyone in between) and their amazing books and hope that I’ll be able to stretch my media center budget to include the purchase of all of the books I have heard about on the Let’s Get Busy Podcast.  If you haven’t discovered Matthew Winner’s fantastic website or podcast series, you need to do so quickly by clicking here!

Level up! Fighting the Zombie Librarian Apocalypse

In October, Maryland Association of School Librarians (MASL) held its annual conference.  As I always do, I left energized and full of new ideas to bring to my school library.  Although I am far from the level of school librarians like Matthew Winner and Jennifer LaGarde, I strive to be a mover and shaker in the field of school librarianship, and I continue to Level UP my library program.  I follow Jennifer LaGarde’s philosophy … I am NOT a Zombie Librarian – I am definitely fighting the Zombie Librarian Apocalypse in my school library media center!    Each year I challenge myself to submit a proposal to MASL, and again was chosen present this year.  You can see my Session 1 presentation on becoming a Common Sense Media certified educator here.

One of the exciting things I was asked by my administration to create was enrichment programs for our 2nd and 4th graders.  This fall I launched “Technology Rocks Information Literacy” to give my students more opportunities to do more in depth research and create projects using technology.  Students were invited based on their MAP-R scores,  and I have twelve 2nd graders and thirty-four 4th graders participating this session.    I meet with the 2nd graders twice a week for 30 minutes, and with each of the 4th grade groups once a week for 30 minutes.  I chose two MASL 2014-2015 Black-Eyed Susan books upon which to base the programs:    Lifetime cover final_0Lifetime by Lola Schaefer andlemoncellos-library-300h Escape from Mr.Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein.   I have asked the 2nd graders to research one of the animals in the book Lifetime, and create a Google presentation based on their research to be shared with their classmates and teachers.  After reading the book (and working through all the riddles within it), my 4th graders will be creating book trailers and a scavenger hunt for all the Flower Hill students.  We will be culminating our fall session with a Google Hangout session with the author (whom I was thrilled to meet in person at MASL conference after having emailed back and forth for some time)!Chris Grabenstein   MCPS launched Google Apps for Education this year, and rolled out Chromebooks to the 3rd and 5th graders; my goal is to prepare not only these 2nd and 4th grade students, but all of my students (and staff!), to the Google products and to build their computer navigation skills for the rigors of PARCC online testing.

In October, my PreKindergarten through 2nd grade students participated in Read for the Record (a partnership between Jumpstart and We Give Books), and we made good use of the activity guides for the book Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells.

Here at Flower Hill ES we also celebrated Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Week , and continued conversations about staying safe on line.  CSM has created two great videos – one geared towards elementary students “Pause and Think Online” and another (with Flocabulary), for middle and high schoolers “Oversharing:  Think Before You Post”,

I  asked all my students and staff to sign the Digital Citizenship Pledge  and shared with them these THINK bookmarks  created by Technology Rocks seriously blogger Shannon Long.  Digital Citizenship Day Digital Citizenship Day2 It is amazing the engagement when you start talking about being safe online, posting on Facebook, Instagram, etc., and discussing the reasons for minimum ages on social media. Even the youngest of students emphatically shares their personal experiences with online games and social media!

Look for another post soon!  Happy November!

“Libraries really are the gates to the future.” ~Neil Gaiman

I just returned from the MASL (Maryland Association for School Librarians) annual conference and it is always so nice to spend a day focused on what we do best – sharing information!

In my e-mail this morning was a link to a fabulous article about the prolific and talented author Neil Gaiman.   I am attaching the link to his lecture for The Reading Agency, but wanted to include some of his quotes, in case you don’t have time to read the whole article! 

“Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.” Our world is becoming smaller and smaller every day, and we need to teach our students how to become global citizens.

“A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it.”  This is especially important to remember when we are school librarians in Title 1 schools – we are often our students’ only access to books.

“Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over.”

“I think we have responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and obligations to children, to the adults those children will become, to the world they will find themselves inhabiting. All of us – as readers, as writers, as citizens – have obligations. I thought I’d try and spell out some of these obligations here.”

“I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.”

“We have an obligation to support libraries. To use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries, to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.”

“We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. Use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.”

“We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not to attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time.”

“We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine.”  We must encourage our students to think outside the box, to dream, and to find ways to make the world a better place. 

We have an obligation to our students to continue to advocate for them.  Full-time school librarians are critical to our students’ success as they navigate research projects, are exposed to quality literature, and learn a love of reading for pleasure.  Last Wednesday, Julie Greller, who writes the blog “The Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet” posted several links to videos that praise school librarians and highlight the multitude of hats we wear to help make our students successful.  You can access her post by clicking here.  I hope you will take some time to view them, and share with others when you can!

The last idea I want to share with you is an event that ties in with the above, because the founder, Pernille Ripp,  was inspired by Neil Gaiman’s One Book, One Twitter book club– it is the Global Read Aloud and this  year’s project runs September 30th – November 8th. According to the website, there is no deadline to sign up and there are four different groups from which to choose:

Eric Carle Author Study – K and up

Marty McGuire by Kate Messner – 1st and up

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper – 4th and up

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach – 8th and up

Hope to connect with you soon!

Getting Graphic with Dots and Books!

My students and I are gearing up for a fabulous celebration of International Dot Day.  Here’s a sneak peek at the splash of color that decorates the hallway walls at Brookhaven ES. Image

I also wanted to share some additional Dot Day resources created by Peter Reynolds which includes posters and certificates of participation.

I have a few openings in my International Dot Day Skyping schedule, and would love to connect with you!    Please take a look at the Google Doc that lists everyone connecting the dots through  Skype video chats.

On a completely different note, I was excited to spend my Saturday at the Small Press Expo, where I got the chance to meet amazing graphic novelists Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, John Green, and Gene Luen Yang, and also listen to a very informative conversation between Raina and Gene about their work.

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Raina has a great newsletter, and her fall edition included a series of blog posts about the graphic novel creation process – a great set of resources for the MCPS 3rd grade Marking Period 3 writing project.

 

If you haven’t done so already, consider building your graphic novel collection.  An informative article by Scholastic Books explains what the graphic novel format is, and how graphic novels promote literacy  – this is a great resource to share with those that are wary of the format.  

For a list of great graphic novels for the grade 4-6 set (in addition to the titles by the authors listed above!) visit the Maryland Association of School Librarians 2013-14 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan nominees for the new graphic novel division.

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