Spring Reboot

Yesterday, I went to one of my state's regional librarian conferences.  It wasn't the one for my particular region, but it was fine--plenty of people I knew, and I got some good ideas.  The conference for my region was held pretty far away, and I, of course, couldn't get professional leave to go on Friday.  But the conference I attended was about 1/2 hour away and on a Saturday--WIN/WIN!
At the start, I had a little something to eat while I sat with some librarians I did not know.  We had a great discussion about genrefying our fiction sections.  I am leaning more and more toward it...much to think about here.  It could be a good summer project.
Then I went to a session about a local man who was a civil rights leader (not on our state standards) who was friends with others who are on our people-to-know list.  All the attendees at this session got a free copy of the book--awesome! I am excited to share it with the kids and help them make connections among all these people they're supposed to know about.
My second session was so fun--an old friend presented a session about controversial literature and literature that makes a social commentary.  She noticed me in the audience about 1/2 way through the presentation and stopped to say hello.  Afterwards, we got to talk for a few minutes.  Another librarian came up and announced herself as the presenter's first groupie.  We laughed and let her know that I was officially the first groupie several years ago!
Then it was time for lunch, where I met a new friend, a librarian getting her MLS online and hoping for a school library job next year.  Our lunch time passed too quickly as we found lots of things we have in common.
The third session was a sneak-peak at our state award list for next school year.  I'd already seen the list, but not all of the books, so it was nice to start thinking about that already.  I picked up a few of the books from a vendor who had a great deal, so I can start working on them over the summer. Ooh, I just stopped to order one from Amazon.  The presenter mentioned that it is hard to get; indeed, Amazon had no copies in stock, but I bought it used from a third-party seller.  At least I will have it, as I'm sure librarians around the state will be clammoring for it soon.
I visited with a couple vendors after that and then decided to bag the fourth session and keynote and just head home.  It was a good day, and just what I needed to recharge for the spring.

Great Day in the Library!

Oh, my.  This week has been a roller-coaster ride of feelings and emotions.  Yesterday, the specialists' team met with the principal.  It was tense.  Very tense.  You know the story: we feel devalued by the teachers, he doesn't know how else to help us...what a mess.  It was pretty ugly (although things were worked out today).

Today was Day 6, which meant it was the last day of the rotation.  The book we read in K-2 from our state award nominated list, I had already read 15 times.  Today was 16-17-18.  I thought that I had heard everything.  But today's classes had whole new insights, new ideas, and it totally lifted me past the fact that I had the book memorized already and was more than a little tired of reading it.

The kids were doing a small writing activity after the book, and I was walking around helping a first grade class with sounding out their words.  One little boy had finished his writing, and I read it out loud.  He looked at me with the biggest smile and said, "You can read that!?!?!" And I said yes.  He said, "I never did that before!!" (write something that others could read).  Oh, my gosh, how totally sweet was that?!?! He was just so excited that I read what he wrote!

Another little boy, who is a bit of a behavior problem, did an awesome job on his writing, and I told him how excited I was that he did such good work.  Then I told him to read it to my assistant, who was equally impressed.  I swear, that boy floated out of the library today.

It was a really good day in the library!!

Oh no, George!

I have been reading this VRC nominee book to the kindergartners, first graders, and second graders.  It's really funny and the kids have really been enjoying it.  For the K and 1 students, we vote on what we think George will do at the end of the book (the ending leaves us hanging!!).  Today, one of the classes I read the book to voted 19 students thinking that George will dig in the trash and only 3 who thought he would walk by it.  Wow... these kids are cynics!!

Here's what the voting looked like for us:

This was early in the voting process with a class.

Since the second graders are a little better prepared to write, I created a little half-sheet activity where they would write what they thought George would do and why.  The kids did a really good job with it; some kids even colored the picture on their paper.  This one below, though, has been my favorite.  It's just SO FUNNY!!

It reads, "I think George will dig in the trash because he has that look."

Just how cute is that?!?! Love these kids!

Virginia Readers' Choice 2014

I do love the Virginia Readers' Choice program.  It allows me to create new lessons every year, discover new literature, and get kids excited about reading. Using the primary list, I study each of the books, troll the Internet for ideas, and create some of my own ideas for teaching the books.  Even though the mission of the program is for the children to enjoy these books as read-alouds, as a librarian, I cannot simply read a book out loud without doing some sort of literacy or comprehension activity afterward.

Usually,  I present my ideas for the books at our state librarians' conference, but last year, I was really disappointed in the quality of the conference and decided I needed a break.  I did not attend this year (it just ended yesterday), and I'm still glad about my decision.  The other morning, I received an email from a fellow librarian that just made my day:

• You may not remember me, but I sure remember you.  I cannot tell you how disappointed I was that you were not here to do your Virginia Readers' Choice session at the VAASL conference.  I sooooo look forward to it every year and this year has been particularly stressful for me since we have adopted a new catalog system and the budget cuts get worse and cause us to be swallowed into other areas so our supervisor is stretched to the max.  I have no idea what I would do without my volunteer since we have no aides.  And these SMART goals are just ridiculous.  Well, anyway...I missed you and just wanted you to know that.

I know that my sessions are well attended at the conference, and I get really good reviews, but for someone to take the time to write just shows that librarians are truly special people! 

Since I am teaching the books anyway, with or without the presentation at the conference, I have done the work for the books and compiled everything on a livebinders page (my new favorite way to organize my online life!!).  I sent the link to this librarian, and I am happy to share it with the readers of my blog (are you out there?!):  

VRC 2013-2014 Ideas

Lots of great ideas for teaching the books, along with comments as I teach the books and discover how my plans worked (or didn't).  Check it out!

Immi's Gift

This was my favorite state award nominee book, so I saved it for last.  Our school just launched a 26 Acts of Kindness program, and it was so awesome to hear the kids make that connection to the book. So I read it 18 times. I didn't get tired of it, not once.  What I especially loved was how the kids responded when I read the last page.  Every single class of second graders gasped.  They totally got it.  Some of the first grade students got it--I heard a few gasps.  Not one kindergartner got it without a little explanation.  But that's okay--I assume it's a developmental thing.

I had a few different activities to go along with the book, but every class ended up doing the same thing, which was to draw and color one of the things that Immi got from the sea.  Then we put all the items (ahem...maybe not all of them) on my K-cup igloo.  I can't believe I forgot to take an "after" picture. 

I'll take one tomorrow and upload it to this post, but for now, here is the igloo before we decorated it.  I collected K-cups from my own home and from my assistant's.  We had almost half of the cups pictured below! (yikes) Then I had to ask the teachers for help.  Thank God for caffeine-addicted teachers! I had the rest of the igloo completed in two days! The igloo in all its K-cup glory:

Ok, so you can see all the kids' creations on the snow around the igloo.  I hot glued most of them to the igloo and even inside it.  That picture will appear below (after I take it tomorrow!).

It came out so cute--I just love it! The kids enjoy looking for their object on the igloo, and if they don't see it, I tell them it's on the inside!  (I couldn't fit them all on the igloo.)

VRC Lessons Learned

Apologies to my VaASL colleagues who sat through my presentations extolling the virtues of this year's books! I had to try to put a good spin on them.

As I was preparing to teach this year's VRC nominees, I had some weird feelings.  Some of the books would be too babyish (Blue Chameleon, Dinosaur vs. Bedtime); some of them would be too old (Underground, Goal); some would be too scary (I Need My Monster).  We are in a bad way this year in terms of teaching these books during library.

What I've discovered over the past several weeks is that some of these books might be fun readalouds, but they're definitely not great "teaching" books. 

Here's what I think so far, and this is not a criticism of the VRC program.  The program is not designed as a teaching vehicle for librarians.  I get that.  But this year's crop of books is just so overall lacking in teachable content that I will just not be spending a lot of time on the books.  I'll read a few to each grade level--enough for them to be able to vote--and that's it. Here's the information from the VRC website about the program's purpose:

• To encourage young readers to become better acquainted with contemporary books with outstanding literary appeal, to broaden students’ awareness of literature as a life-long pleasure, to encourage reading aloud in classrooms as a means of introducing reading for pleasure, and to honor favorite books and their authors.

I Want My Hat Back--fine for K-2.  Not a lot of content to teach.  We did a readers' theatre with 2nd grade and a "who stole my hat" game with K-1.

Dinosaur vs. Bedtime--fine for K-1.  We read it and brainstormed ideas of what else Dinosaur could "verse." (The kids' word, not mine!) Then I had the kids draw their idea on a "Dinosaur vs. ____" activity sheet.  For the kindergartners, I also showed them the YouTube video of Bob Shea reading the book to his son.  It's a shortened version, which is a bummer, but at least they can see and hear the author.

The Fox in the Dark--so far, I've done it with 2nd graders.  We read it and then did a little play acting with paperbag puppets (the noise drove me crazy).  I wrote a couple of the lines each animal says on the back of the paperbag puppet and then prompted the kids to say the lines when it was time.  I also had a student hold the "a fox in the dark" sign and a "Rat-a-tat-tat" sign for audience participation.  It was just okay.  Nothing great, and I don't know what I'll do with K-1 who able to read yet.

City Dog, Country Frog--fine for K-2.  In kindergarten, we have a lot of discussion first about what it means to live in the city versus the country.  And I have to explain that THE country is different from A country.  Why do things have to be so complicated?! I did find a use, finally, for the big floor easel maps that I bought from Nystrom a million years ago.  There's a nice page comparing the farm to the town.  Since the kids can't read the words farm or town yet, I haven't even bothered to cover them with city and country.  No need.  But it works to illustrate the differences. In first and second grades, they've liked to talk more about the seasons and what exactly has happened to the frog.  Not one of the groups has gotten the "but you'll do" line at the end that ties to the same line at the beginning.  I have to point it out every time.  I couple of the kids have noticed the changes in the frog's appearance through the seasons.  I do have a readers' theatre for this book that I wrote up, and I'll be doing that with 2nd graders next week.

Blue Chameleon--so babyish.  Even too babyish for kindergarten.  I mean, it's fine, but what is there to teach?  I have read it to the kids, then we all read it together, and then we read some non-fiction books about chameleons, because they all have half-knowledge about chameleons.  I still, after reading this book 20 times, have no idea of any way to teach content with it.

I Need My Monster--I have stopped reading this.  I read it to two second grade classes, and the reaction was the same from both of them.  The kids just didn't love it.  A few kids in each class were truly afraid of the illustrations.  There are a lot of activities to go with this book, but they're mostly writing (lots of great adjectives) and I just don't think the K-2 crowd is ready for that yet.  I did do a short writing activity with the two classes I read the book to, and it was ok.  Just ok.  It was a "My monster has.... My monster can...." graphic organizer, and then the kids drew their monster.  I have a couple of thoughts about this book: I think that the kids just aren't used to this kind of book being read in a library setting.  Perhaps they'd be more comfortable if their parent was reading it to them.  Maybe I'm putting too much into it with the animal voices--too realistic? too scary?

Books I haven't read yet and why:
Goal--this book just seems kind of a downer.  We'll see how it goes with the boys--maybe they'll be really into it. 
Underground--I just think this book is for older students.  It's just too complicated to explain Underground Railroad to the kindergartners. 
Say Hello to Zorro--Cute.  I am looking forward to reading this one, but the timeline activity I have to do with it won't last that long, and it's a little young for the 2nd graders.
Immi's Gift--I'm trying to save this book to read during the winter months, but it seems like I'll have to do it early.  Maybe before Christmas won't be a bad thing.  The activities that I have for it are craft-based (!) for the K-1 crowd, so I'll need to gather a few more supplies before reading it.

I'm interested to hear the experiences of other librarians teaching these books!

VAASL!

What a great time I had at the VaASL conference!! A whole lotta work, fun time with old friends, and a little drama.  What more could we ask for?!?!

Lotta work: This year, as in years past, I presented two workshops on extension ideas to use with the VRC books.  Our state awards readers' choice award nominees list comes out each spring, and librarians like to use these books with our K-2 kids, so I put together some ideas for using the books in the library.  I was thinking back to when this all started, and I remember being appalled that my reading specialist just went from room to room reading all the books in a row and had the kids vote.  I wanted to make the reading more meaningful, so I gently insisted that I'd have to take over the VRC program.  That was in 2001, I think.  I don't think she was too disappointed not to be reading the books like that.

Then, one year, I was mentoring a lovely new librarian and we came up with ways to use the VRC books in our libraries.  I shared those ideas with the librarians in my county, and then everything started to snowball.  The reading specialist at my school created a summer class for teachers and librarians who were interested in using the VRC books, and we came up with lots of ideas there.  Another librarian friend and I decided to present at the state conference and share the ideas we'd found and created for the books.  And now it is just expected. 

It takes hours and hours to troll the Internet for each book on the list, looking for ideas and finding out what's out there.  Then I create lessons based on my own ideas (and improve the things I found online). 

Drama: I somehow got sick immediately after eating breakfast about 1 1/2 hours before my presentation.  What the heck?!?!? Who vomits?!?!?!  Not nerves.  Not a bug.  Who knows.

Fun times: The Thursday night entertainment was the best ever for VaASL!! Scooter Hayes, AKA Melvil Dewey entertained us with bunches of his songs from his CDs.  I've been watching his Dewey Rap video with the kids for years now, and he is a rock star to us. 



My new favorite word is Plagiarizzle.  If you plagiarizzle, you get in troub-izzle.  A great song by Scooter.  I totally think that kids will respond differently to any lesson on plagiarism if we just call it plagiarizzle!