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!

The New Year

I just love that teachers get two times a year for New Year's Resolutions! Of course, there's January, when the rest of the world get to make them, but just for us in the education world, we can also make them in September.  I am going to try hard this school year to be present--to do one thing at a time.  I so often try to squeeze in something else when I should just be focused on one thing.  That's my goal.  The start of the school year is always hectic, but it's been good this year.  I am feeling organized and fairly on-top of things in my library world.

Readers of this blog know that the main reason I love teaching is because I can laugh with the kids every day.  OK, sometimes I laugh at them, but mostly it's with them.  This past week, our first week with students, all teachers had to eat with their class in the cafeteria.  The specialists were visible down there, too, as it should be.  I ate with a group of kindergartners on the first day, and when I sat down next to this little boy, he looked me up and down and said, "Are you a kid?"  HA!! I just love the cluelessness of these kindergartners!! Just too cute!

This year, for the first time, my principal asked for a copy of my pacing guide add to our staff shared drive.  Usually, I make one, but just for myself, as I go.  Since my lessons are always based off what's going on in the classrooms, my map depends on the classroom activities.  But whatever...I pretty much know when the teachers are teaching what, so I've been working on that for the past week.  Non-stop!! I want it to be great, so the details are taking me a lot of time.  I've been going through the state curriculum and aligning each lesson to it (no Common Core for us!) carefully.

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!

Harry and Horsie pics

As promised, here are some photos from the kids' work on Friday. 
This first one is from the beginning of the book, in Harry's bedroom.  I love the toys inside the bubbles.  I'm not sure which toy this is, but it's perfectly recognizable as a toy, I think!

The next one is from the middle of the book, in outer space.  It's a cat on the Milky Way, of course!

And this last one is at the end of the book, where Harry finds Horsie hanging from the crescent moon.  The kids loved learning that phrase, "crescent moon."

Hooray for the kids! They did such a cute job on this!

Inspired

I was working on my curriculum map for the rest of the year this past week, trying to get things aligned with what's happening in the classrooms. There are only 8 weeks of school left! EIGHT WEEKS!!!!!!!! A couple of the lessons I'm working on last for several weeks, so there's hardly any time left at all this year. That happens every year: I feel like there's SO much time and it's only October and then before I know it, it's the end of April and everyone's going on field trips and I have only a few classes left. Whew! I borrowed a lesson from a friend of mine in our district and tailored it a bit to my taste. Third graders will be working with the thesaurus to re-write nursery rhymes. Rhymes be damned--we're learning a new resource! Kindergarteners were so busy working on our state readers' choice list that I didn't even have time to do community helpers with them (they study them in March), so I made up a Smartboard activity today matching helpers with the tools and special clothes they wear. Interactive! Come on, administrator--observe me now! I guess my inspiration is coming from that light at the end of the tunnel. Every year, I feel like it all comes together a little better. It's only my ninth year in the library--there's always room for improvement!