Treat Tuesday

Now that I've resolved to participating in "It's Monday. What Are You Reading?" I thought I could add "Treat Tuesday" to my week as well. This cute idea comes from Mrs. Houghton. You can see her blog here. I thought I could share my middle grade and professional reading on Monday and share my reading with my son on Tuesday since we often eat and read together.

This week we have read and reread Star Wars: A Galactic Pop Up Adventure by Matthew Reinhart. This pic is of my son with the book and our chocolate chip wookiee cookies. Here is an interesting interview with the author. I recommend the Star Wars cookbooks and the Star Wars Origami book if you have students that are fans of the series.

This book is really amazing. First of all I was surprised at how thick it was when it came in the mail. Each page not only has one large pop up, but it has little side pockets with one or more pop ups included. It was the most intricate pop up book I've ever seen. A true work of art. 

What Are You Reading?

I've followed the weekly meme started by Teach Mentor Texts for months and I've resolved to try to participate this year. I usually post about library lessons instead of books. I'm a horrible book reviewer. I either love or hate something and I'm not good at explaining why, but I thought I could participate in this without having to write reviews.

This weekend I finished Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. I love zombie books and while technically about a zombie, this book is very different. It is a zombie romance. Yes, that's right. Sounds crazy, but it was better than I expected. Here is the movie trailer that explains it a little better. It opens Feb. 1st, just in time for Valentine's Day. Looking forward to seeing this one with several of my other zombie-loving friends. I will not be buying this one for my school library, however.

Also picked up 100 Best Books for Children by Anita Silvey from the public library. I like to check books out from the library before I commit to buying them. I've been burned too many times with professional books. I think this one will be a winner because it is often mentioned on Twitter.

2013 Trends in Middle Grade Books

I was excited to meet my Goodreads reading goal of 300 books in 2012 and I'm looking forward to many great titles in 2013. I hope to get my students excited about reading in this new year as well.
I saw this fun list from the Scholastic editors that predicts some of the book trends in 2013.  
I thought it would be fun to add more titles to their list and create a bulletin board. I put together these two posters and you are welcome to use them to talk about trends with your students. I tried to find recent or soon to be released titles, but threw in a few older titles that fit the trend perfectly.



My Flickr Photostream. I found the font on Urban Fonts. If you are a member of NetGalley you can find many of these titles online.

When we return to school the first visit with my 6th graders will include an introduction to Six Flags Read to Succeed.  I'll be showing them a video clip of a roller coaster ride from the passenger's point of view. You can find several fun choices on Youtube. That should grab their attention. Then we'll talk about the guidelines for the challenge and hand out reading logs. If you have students in 6th grade or lower you can sign up for free.

Enjoy the remainder of your holiday break and I hope you have a wonderful start to 2013.

Christmas Commercials and Propaganda

This week I've been teaching my 6th graders about propaganda using Christmas commercials. This is a lesson I've done for the past two years. Each year I tweak it a little and every year it is a big hit with the students.
We start the lesson with a fun, engaging warm up. I used the Retail Alphabet Game as inspiration to create an alphabet using letters from different brands, restaurants and stores. I put all the letters on one slide and ask the students to write the alphabet down the side of a piece of paper and write down as many brands as they can identify. After a few minutes we go through each one and find out which student had the most correct. I especially enjoy seeing students that are not necessarily the most "academic" show off their memory skills. I explain that we used this game to illustrate how advertising influences us and gets into our brain. This is why it is so important to understand the techniques advertisers use to influence your life.
We quickly review the five types of propaganda that they learned in class. The five techniques are Name calling, Fear, Testimonial, Bandwagon and Plain Folks. Up next is an informal assessment. We watch commercials that I found on Youtube and they have to identify which technique(s) were used in each one. I try to find Christmas commercials when possible, but for some techniques that is difficult.
These are the playlists I have compiled for this year.
Name Calling
Plain Folks
Fear
Testimonial
Bandwagon
This is one of my personal favorites from the testimonial category and always a hit with the kids.


To wrap up the day we take a quick slogan quiz. I put slogans on the board and they have to identify them as quickly as possible. This year we're adding a project to the lesson. Students will be creating a virtual poster on one of the techniques using Poster My Wall. This has become my go-to site for replacing Glogster. This is also my opportunity to introduce them to proper image citation. I look forward to seeing the creative ways they illustrate their assigned technique.

Do you have any creative Christmas lessons to share? I'm always on the look out for how to make topics relevant and fun for our students. I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday.

Epic Fail

Ok, so maybe epic fail is a bit of an exaggeration. I usually blog about lessons or events that go well so I felt it was only fair that I share about my plans that don't live up to my expectations.
This year after being inspired by the Level Up Book Club I started a reading program with my 6th graders called Reader's Quest. It started out well enough with lots of activity on our Edmodo group pages and several students earning badges quickly; however, it has fizzled out as the year has gone on. The majority of this fizzle is due to my inattention. I could list the other things fighting for my attention and time, but we all have a long list so I'll spare you the details. Right now there is only one student that still actively tries to earn badges and a small group of students that consistently post on Edmodo.

Now I'm left to decide if I will continue the program after Christmas. Should I continue as is and just target those students that seem to be interested? Should I revamp it and have a "pep rally" meeting about it? Should I scrap it, think about it more and try again next year? Or should I focus on other activities that seem to have a larger impact? For example, this year I didn't have a student book club because of limited time. In that past I have had two book clubs: one book club that anyone could join and we met monthly during our Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) time and another one for male reluctant readers from each grade that met with me daily during SSR. I tracked benchmark testing scores and Lexile levels for my boys and saw a significant improvement (average of 14 point increase in MAP reading scores from Fall to Spring and every student increased at least one Lexile level). Should I focus on those activities where I can show my impact with hard data? Maybe I'm giving up to early. I need to think about this over the Christmas break.

This year we also utilized gaming elements in a new professional development course called Level Up Tech Quest. Librarians provide a great deal of the professional development for our district, something I'm very proud of. Each year we are asked to do more and more. In response Kristen Hearne, Monique German and I created this self paced online course. Teachers often complain that there isn't enough free, tech PD offered by the district, yet we had only 7 teachers sign up and 2 of those dropped out quickly! As of today only 1 has kept up with the challenges and turned in her monthly point totals. We are still going to finish creating the course and have plans to offer it again next year since all the work will basically be complete at that point. I have a few ideas about why so few teachers are participating.
1. Many teachers only complete the minimum number of hours to be renewed
2. Tech savvy teachers have plenty of hours from other activities and don't want to add more to their plate
3. Teachers that need the hours and are techphobic are intimidated by the self paced online course and prefer face to face sessions
I'm not sure why we have such a small group, but I still really like this course and have had positive feedback from our little group this year. Maybe next year we will have a larger group.

These disappointments are in no way a reflection of gamification. I still believe that injecting gaming elements in learning can benefit many students. Rather than a judgement of gamification, I believe these programs demonstrate a weakness is my planning.

When you are one person with limited time and energy it is hard to make these choices because if you are like me you see value in so many ideas. It can be difficult to decide where to focus your effort. After some reflection, I hope to make some decisions and do what is best for my students and me. Eating lunch and being able to go to the restroom are priorities that I need to make time for.

Edublog Nominations 2012

Every year I look forward to the Edublog nominations and awards. I always find more people to add to my PLN. And I like to pay it forward because I was fortunate enough to be nominated and it really encouraged me to keep learning, sharing and blogging.
Here are my nominations:
Best Group Blog: Nerdy Book Club
I love this community of readers and I'm constantly inspired to add to my TBR pile.
Best New Blog: It All Started in the Library
This blog is written by my fellow SC librarian, Lorena Swetnam. She has lots of great ideas and I am always excited when I have a new post from her in my reader.
Best Library/Librarian Blog: Mrs. Readerpants
This is always the hardest category because I love so many of them, but this year I want to recognize Mrs. Readerpants for her middle grade book reviews and creative ideas. I've used many lesson ideas from her blog.
Best Individual Tweeter: Nikki D. Robertson
Nikki has worked so hard getting #tlchat organized each month and she always has great library ideas and lessons to share. If there was a Pinterest category she would win that as well. Follow her on Twitter and Pinterest for display ideas, resources and more.
Best Twitter Hashtag: #tlchat
This is a no brainer. I love this hashtag and have really enjoyed the recent addition of the live chat each month.
Best Free Web Tool: Edmodo
For this category I tried to think of the tools I use the most. I love Goodreads, Postermywall, Picmonkey, Big Huge Labs and more, but no site as much as Edmodo. We use it for creating a community of student readers and to facilitate PD in my district.
Best Webinar series: TL Virtual Cafe
I've been lucky enough to present as part of this series and each month I'm excited to "attend" the webinars to be inspired and make new librarian connections.
Best Mobile App: Remind 101
This app (and site) has been an excellent addition to our outreach to parents at my school. The tool allows you to create text notification groups without sharing your number or collecting student and parent numbers. I have a group for the library and many teachers have a group for their classes as well. We send homework reminders, school news, library program dates and more. If you aren't using it you should take a look.

Big thanks to Edublogs for sponsoring these awards each year. Good luck to all the nominees.

Read Your Way Across the USA

I loved this post and poster from Epic Reads.

While some of these titles are in my middle school library, many of them are for high school only. So my buddies and I were thinking of doing a middle school version, but we need help thinking of titles for each state. Please help out with a few suggestions. The spreadsheet is here.
We promise to share when its all together. Thanks for your help!