First to Finish!

Back in September I wrote about my challenge to the fourth graders to read at least five of the Rhode Island Children's Book Award nominees.  (Click here to see the post!)  This week, not one but two of them finished reading all fifteen books that I bought for our library!  That means they will both be presented with a "Champion Reader" medal at the Rooster Games in the spring!

Mia and Nathan have been engaged in a friendly competition to see who would finish first.  As it happens, it was a tie!  That's because Mrs. Young was reading the book Wonder aloud to their reading class, and that was the last book for the both of them.  Don't you love a happy ending?  :)

Nathan and Mia point to their rows on the poster, which are completely filled with stars!

The Many "Phases" of Research!

Our first graders have been learning about the steps we follow when doing research.  We started off by reading Eric Carle's Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.  The story is about a little girl who wants to play with the moon.  Her father climbs a long, long ladder into the sky and then waits for the moon to become small enough to take with him back to Earth.  Our first graders have been learning about the difference between fiction and nonfiction, and they were quick to point out that a ladder couldn't really reach the moon, and the moon would never really get small enough for a man to carry it in his hands.  They did wonder why the moon appears to change shape in the sky, though, and thus began our research project!

The books we used to find information!

We spent part of one library class beginning a "KWL" chart.  In the first column we recorded what they already Know about the moon, and in the second column we wrote What they wanted to learn.  The third column, what they Learned, would be filled in over the course of the next few weeks.  I began modelling for them how to locate the "treasure words", or useful information, and they followed my example on their own note sheets. 

Students discuss what to record in their notes

Both classes are now working on their final project: a book illustrated by the students using MicroSoft Paint!  I demonstrated the basic tools using the SmartBoard, and then the students took turns on the computers.  Thanks to the support of some fabulous fourth grade volunteers, the first graders had lots of help as they explored the program.  They loved "painting" on the screen, and I can't wait to see their excitement when we share their work on the SmartBoard in January!

Thank you, fourth grade helpers!!!

Teacher-Librarians: Rising to the Challenge!

Chariho librarians Mrs. Mann (Ashaway Elementary School),
Mrs. Ward (Richmond Elementary School),
Mrs. Steever (Chariho Middle School),
and our friend Ms. Hayes (Frenchtown Elementary School)













This week I attended the American Association of School Librarians national conference in Hartford, Connecticut.  The theme of the event was "Rising to the Challenge", and the accompanying images of hot air balloons were everywhere.  It struck me how apt this metaphor was.  While the person in the basket has a degree of control over where the balloon travels, the pilot is still required to take into account the force and direction of the winds!  We all need to create a vision for where we'd like our libraries to go while taking into consideration all the outside influences that affect our trajectories.  With our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground, we eagerly explored a myriad of ways to take our students to where we believe they need to go.

Our students are growing up in a world where information can be accessed from devices as nearby as a back pocket.  But merely having access to resources is not the same as possessing the critical thinking skills necessary to select the most useful, reliable and accurate information available.  (And, of course, we strive to ensure that our students have access to a library that provides much more than what can be found for free!)  Students also need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens in an age where connectivity offers as much opportunity to grow as it does to harm.

A beautiful Friday night in Hartford

I am so excited to bring back what I learned to share with the teachers and students back at school!  I attended sessions that introduced me to new science books (and activities for using them in the classroom), websites that support the Common Core standards, and lessons for fostering media savvy students.  Throughout the conference there was an emphasis on not only guiding students through the research process but also on what needs to happen next.  As one presenter put it, "You have them pick the apples, but you need to teach them how to make the pie!"  I discovered some novel strategies for motivating students to incorporate new knowledge into their writing.  Other projects encourage them to support an opinion with evidence while considering the audience that will be addressed.  One example I was particularly excited by was having the students create a "trailer" to promote a book he or she really enjoyed using the web site Animoto.  I've already signed up for a free educator's account and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it!

Of course, we teacher-librarians aren't only interested in shaping conscientious members of a global community.  We are just as passionate about celebrating and promoting the joys of reading!  The conference featured an incredible number of authors and illustrators who were on hand to present at various sessions as well as to sign copies of their books.  In many cases, vendors were giving away copies of the books, and the lines of people waiting to receive one for their libraries were very, very long.  It was so much fun hanging out with my colleagues, though, that the time really did seem to fly by!

I met and received signed books from Michael Dahl (the Library of Doom series), Adam Gidwitz (the Dark and Grimm series) and Matt Holm (the Babymouse and Squish series)!  I was also looking forward to meeting Jenny Holm, who is the sister of Matt Holm and co-creator of the Squish and Babymouse books, but she wasn't there.  Matt added some graffiti to their sign that helped to explain her absence:

We hope you're feeling better, Jenny!

I was also extremely excited to meet the charming and hilarious Jon Scieszka.  (It rhymes with Fresca, although when I overheard someone ask him how to pronounce his name he replied, "Jon".)  He's best known for his books Math Curse and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, but he is also the founder of Guys Read, a web-based literacy program for boys.  I was disappointed (but not terribly surprised) that none of his books were available by the time I got to his table, but he was happy to chat and offered to sign the back of my conference badge.  It was great fun joking around with him.

The conference was both exhausting and energizing!  Thanks so much to all the people who made this incredible event possible, as well as to the vendors who provided free (signed!) books for our library: Perma-Bound Books and Capstone Publishers.

Books, Buddies and Belly Laughs!

Miss Hurley was thrilled to meet Avi and get a book signed by him!

Look who else I found!

More Ashaway friends!

Meagan Lenihan at the Lincoln School in Providence organizes an absolutely incredible event that I look forward to every year.  Once again, this year's Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors was an absolute blast!  I ran into many friends and colleagues who were also enjoying the day, and everyone was in a great mood.  The schedule was packed and once again the day seemed to pass by in a blink!





As always, the presentations by the featured authors were informative and entertaining.  It's so fascinating to hear the stories behind the stories!  Gregory Mone, author of the story Fish, told about his inspiration for creating this tale of pirates and hidden treasure.  It began with him creating a treasure map as a game for his nephews:

Mr. Mone also revealed that, in addition to his stories, he also writes nonfiction articles for the magazine "Popular Science".  He explained how important it is to learn as much as you can about a subject before writing about it, and then he shared an article with us about people who construct drivable furniture.  (Yes, you read that right: as in, furniture you can drive!)  Click here to see the piece he wrote about the world's fastest piece of furniture titled A Nitrous-Injected Dining Room Table!  The crowd was truly impressed by the vehicle's unusual exhaust system: "A six-foot plume of white smoke comes out of the chicken's backside"!  (Mr. Mone kept referring to all the very interesting people he's met during the course of his work for the magazine, but I can assure you that he is just as interesting!)

Jarrett Krosoczka, creator of the Lunch Lady graphic novel series and many picture books, showed us pictures of a book he had written as a boy (complete with title page and copyright date!) and described the long path he followed to become a published author. He described submitting his first story idea to twenty different publishers and then asked us how many did we think showed interest?  When someone guessed that the answer was "one" he replied, "Fewer than that!"  Time after time after time his proposed ideas were turned down, but he refused to give up.  Fans of his work are very grateful for that!

Adam Gidwitz is an amazing storyteller who told the original Grimm version of Cinderella, and it certainly was grim!  He recounted the story with an air of Can you believe this?? that was as hilarious as the story was shocking.  He had the full attention of every single person in the room, and we alternately cringed in our chairs and burst into laughter.  He did demonstrate an acceptable pose to be taken during the course of the story -- fingers in ears, head in lap -- but I didn't see a single person take him up on it.  Even amongst the youngest in the room; no one wanted to miss a moment.  (I was so engrossed that I didn't even take any pictures!!!)  You can enjoy his unique style by picking up his books: A Tale Dark and Grimm, In a Glass Grimly, and The Grimm Conclusion.  

The day concluded with a delightfully unusual presentation by Daniel Handler, a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket's representative".  This man went to great lengths to assure us that he was not in fact the actual author of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  

Daniel Handler used a rubber stamp in each book before signing it to indicate that he was acting as Lemony Snicket's "official representative".

A series of hilarious events: This agenda appeared on the screen at the beginning of his presentation.  It was followed faithfully as the following video snippets will attest!

Video clip below: 

"Very Handsome Man Reads Apology From Lemony Snicket"

Video clips below: 

selections from "Safety Warnings"

Video clip below: 

"Lemony Snicket Excuses Himself and Runs Screaming From the Room"

It was a truly wonderful day filled with books, buddies and belly laughs!  Thanks again to Meagan Lenihan at the Lincoln School for organizing this fantastic event!!

It's a bird! It's a plane! No...it's DAN SANTAT!

Last Friday Ashaway School was visited by the incredibly talented (and somewhat silly) author and illustrator Dan Santat.  He lives in Los Angeles but was in Rhode Island to receive the Rhode Island Children's Book Award for his graphic novel Sidekicks as well as to attend the RI Festival of Children's Book and Authors.  Thanks to the sponsorship of the Ashaway PTO and the remarkable coordination skills of Meagan Lenihan of Lincoln School, we were lucky enough to have a visit to our school included in his busy schedule!

For weeks now, we've been enjoying Dan's books, engaging in Dan-centric activities (like this and this), and watching his videos.  (To see some of our favorites, click here and here and here!)  Of course, we were all super excited to finally meet him!  Soon after his arrival, two of our fourth graders stopped by the library to present Dan and me with superhero masks they had designed for us.  All of the fourth graders wore their own masks to Dan's presentation, and the second graders wore masks and capes!

Dan also enjoys putting mustaches on babies.

Dan showed the students a slide show of pictures to share what he was interested in as a kid (Superheroes! Star Wars! Comic books! Legos! Drawing!) which the students had no problem relating to.  These are now interests that he shares with his two sons, Alex and Kyle.

One thing he likes to do with his sons is create monsters.  To the left is a "Bobbie Monster" as originally envisioned by his oldest son.  As Dan put it, now you know what to call a rock monster that has a fan in its stomach.

Dan also talked about some of his upcoming projects.  Next year he plans to create the illustrations for thirteen books, which will be the equivalent of about 600 pages of art!  Much of his work is done on the computer using an electronic tablet and a program called PhotoShop.  This not only makes him more efficient, but it also affords him the ability to generate extra help:

Thanks to "the power of PhotoShop" he created a clone of himself to help get more work done.  There was an unfortunate accident with a Lego shrink ray, however.

Hmmm.  Testing out the growth ray on the cat might not have been the best decision.

Adjustments were made, but there are still a few problems to be worked out...

During his visit, Dan took some time to look over all the superheroes created by our second, third and fourth graders.  I asked him who he would choose as a sidekick, and the winner was Song Girl!  [She was one of the students featured in my Sidekicks blog entry!] She received a free, autographed copy of Sidekicks.  She can blow things up by singing, so we were glad that she contained her joy and didn't burst into song.

Dan Santat and the amazing Song Girl!

At the end of the day, Dan had a pile of books that still needed to be signed, but he chose instead to spend some time with the students who were lined up in the hall waiting for dismissal.  The students *loved* getting the extra attention.  How cool is that??

After the students were gone, Dan went back to books and stayed until every one of them was signed.  He even autographed all of the many copies that belong to the school library.  Thanks, Dan!!!

It's true!  We really do!  :)

Picture Day Perfection!

What do you think the “perfect” school picture would look like?  Bright, new clothes?  Neatly combed hair?  A freshly washed face?  A sweet, friendly smile?

During library class, kindergarten and first grade enjoyed Deborah Diesen’s story Picture Day Perfection.  Dan Santat’s expressive illustrations suggest that the boy in this story has a very different idea of what makes a picture “perfect”! 

I filled a bulletin board in our school foyer with the students' "perfect" portraits.  As you can see, they found Dan Santat's illustrations to be very inspiring!

Ashaway School is Our Reading Oasis!

Once again Ashaway School participated in the Westerly Columbus Day Parade with an incredible float designed by our PTO.  This year's theme came from our Scholastic Book Fair, and the parade was the culminating event for lots of fun "Reading Oasis" activities!

 

Halina, our "Where is Your Reading Oasis?" contest winner, got to ride on the float in a special chair reserved especially for our "Float Pharoah".  Doesn't she look regal?  You can learn all about the contest and read some of the entries by clicking here!

Sara Mitkowski, our PTO president, was presented with a ribbon and certificate declaring Ashaway School the winner of the Most Original School award!

Kindergarten teachers Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Smith carried our banner

Fourth grade teacher Mrs. Ornburn and her husband provided the truck that guided our float through the streets of Westerly

A few of our enthusiastic float riders!   [click to enlarge]

Ashaway School continued our new tradition of handing out gently-used books along the parade route!  [click to enlarge]

These parade goers brought home a treat that will last much longer than candy!  [click to enlarge]

As you can tell, we all had a fabulous time!  You can see lots more pictures by visiting our online photo album at http://kmman.magix.net/album.

Looking for a Sidekick? "Pick ME!"

In the book Sidekicks, Captain Amazing is feeling his age and has decided to find a sidekick who can help him in his fight against crime!  We love the characters Dan Santat created in this book!  In his honor, our second, third and fourth graders invented some terrific sidekicks of their own!  Which one of these superheroes would you want by your side?

CODE NAME: Aqua Wolf

POWER: Water blast, Frost blast, and Swimming!

CODE NAME: Lazer

POWER: I can read your mind and know the answer!

CODE NAME: Hydromorph

POWER: Changes into and manipulates undersea creatures!

CODE NAME: Song Girl

POWER: When I sing I can blow things up!

 

CODE NAME: Airmazing

POWER: I can read without opening the book with my special vision!

CODE NAME: 

Lightning Eagle

POWER: I can wrap my wings around myself and disappear!

The students came up with so many creative ideas!  Here are just some of the many bookmarks that are now on display in our foyer:

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 To watch a "trailer" for the book Sidekicks, 
click here!