Tuesday, April 26, 2016

National Parks Display Idea

Hello,

I had a brilliant idea and I just wanted to share this with you since I only have brilliant ideas a very few times each year!

Since 2016 is the centennial of the National Parks program, I am getting a display ready that will last through next December. I am putting up a map of the National Parks in the library. I bought some pins with colored flags and we will mark each park that someone in our school has visited. I’ll write names or initials on the flag of the pin. I’m trying to decide how to verify an actual park visit. Maybe I’ll have a short form for students to take home and have parents sign, or maybe it isn’t necessary. Still thinking about that, so if you have any thought or ideas for me, please let me know.

I also bought a couple of books about the national parks and I’ll have them in a prominent area for students to check out. My map has been delayed, so I can’t show you what it looks like, so look for that coming in a week or so.

If this sounds like something your school would enjoy working on, I’d like to encourage you to do it along with me.

Have a great week,

Audrey

Monday, April 18, 2016

A Website and a Book

Hello,
I have some things that you might be interested in, but they don’t really go together. The only thing they have in common is that they are both new to me!

One is a website that has information, activities and cool things to do in respect to climate. I looked over the Carbon Travels section and did notice one place that mentions ‘millions of years ago’, but the information is updated and interesting. At first I thought the site was for young children since it is brightly colored and has font that is somewhat juvenile, but it looks like it will work for grades 3 – 8. The review on Common Sense Media says Grades 3 – 6. There is a lot of reading, so children will need to be able to read fairly well or work with a partner.
Subjects include Weather and Climate, Air, Ocean, Fresh Water, Carbon’s Travels, Energy, Plants and Animals, Technology and Big Questions. Big Questions discusses “What is ‘global climate change?”, “What is the Greenhouse Effect?”, What is happening in the ocean?”, “What else do we need to find out?”, “What is the big deal with carbon?”, “How do we know the climate is changing?”, and “What can we do to help?”

http://climatekids.nasa.gov/


The other is a book about a few people who helped establish our National Parks. My husband and I are ‘collecting’ National Parks, and when I saw a preview of this book, I requested a galley to look it over.

The title is Mountain Chef: How One Man Lost His Groceries, Changed His Plans, and Helped Cook Up the National Park Service by Annette Bay Pimentel. It is the true story of Tie Sing, a Chinese American mountain man who fed thirty people for ten days in the wilderness. He was hired by Stephen Mather to cook for his group of influential men on this camping trip hoping to influence them to help create our National Parks. Tie Sing planned diligently, but he could not know that problems with the donkeys carrying the food would happen causing Tie to completely change his menus not once but twice. Tie creatively made fortune cookies on the last night with fortunes reading “Long may you search the mountains” or Long may you build the paths through the mountains” and more. This is a picture book with watercolor paintings throughout. At the end is more information including photos of the people on the camping trip plus little bios of some of the men. If you visit Yosemite National Park, you can hike to Sing Peak which is named for Tie Sing.

Look for this book coming out on August 2, 2016. It is a great tribute to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service created by Congress on August 25, 1916.

Have a great week!
Audrey

Currently reading:
A New Song by Jan Karon (Book 5 of the Mitford series)
The Indiscretions of Archie by P. G. Wodehouse
The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell (Audible book)
It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas

Monday, April 11, 2016

Book Talks

Hello,

I have a group of students that seem to think checking books out of our school library is not cool enough. They want to go to the public library to get their books. This past week, I decided to do some book talks for them during their library class. I found 6 – 8 books in our library that were age appropriate and interesting. I realized that I really did not have enough time to write book talks for all of those books before their class time, so I did the next best thing. I went to the internet and typed in the title of each book and the term ‘book talk’. I found a couple of great sites and printed out the book talks for each book.

I typically use Amazon.com to check out information about books and this is a good place to start. Amazon has summaries of the books and if needed they can be tweaked slightly to make a good book talk. http://www.amazon.com/

One site was Teen Ink. This is a literary magazine for teens and teens write the book reviews. I used one review from this site. If you decide to use this site, read the review and make sure that it is a good fit for your school. https://www.teenink.com/reviews/book_reviews/

My best source the other day was a site that I use personally – GoodReads.com Their reviews/book summaries worked very well for me. https://www.goodreads.com/

In searching for book reviews sources today, I came across some by children on SchoolTube. If you aren’t familiar with SchoolTube, I understand that it is YouTube for scholastic purposes. The ones that I saw were by children and were quite short, so you could show quite a few of them in a short time. I also had the thought that students might decide to create their own book talks and post them. You can also find book talks on YouTube. http://www.schooltube.com/search/?term=book+talks

Scholastic has book talks for their books, too. Each book fair that we host here has a resource section where tons of information and help can be found. Book talks are there, too. You just print out the ones you need. Even if you don’t host Scholastic book fairs, you can type in Scholastic book talks and find them. http://www.scholastic.com/teacher/ab/booktalks.htm; http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/tradebooks/booktalks.htm#discussion

If you wish to either teach students how to prepare their own book talks or make it a bit easier to create them yourself, ALA (American Library Association) has a lesson plan plus template and even a rubric for this purpose. http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/conferencesandevents/ecollab/lpd/StudentCreatedBookTalks.pdf

By the way, after I gave the book talks, those students came rushing to my table to grab the books I had just promoted. I felt pretty good about that.

Have a great week!

Audrey

PS. For each book talk I used, I copied the source at the bottom of the review both to cite it and to remember where I got it from.

Currently Reading:
A New Song by Jan Karon (Book 5 of the Mitford series)
Gunn’s Golden Rules by Tim Gunn
The Indiscretions of Archie by P. G. Wodehouse
The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell (Audible book)

Monday, April 4, 2016

New Books

Hello,
Here are a few new books you might like.

Tree of Wonder by Kate Messner, illustrated by Simona Mulazzani. This is a book about a tree in the rainforest and the creatures that make their homes in the tree. The book begins with 1 Almendro tree, 2 Great Green Macaws, 4 Keel-billed Toucans, and continues multiplying 8 more times. In the back is more information and websites about the Almendro tree and extra rainforest math problems. One of the problems is this: There are four Great Green Macaws shown in the illustration on pages 4 – 5. When the eggs hatch, how many birds will there be all together? There are also book suggestions and a movie suggestion for more rainforest information.

I chose the poison dart frog page because they are so colorful and I wanted you to see the visual of 256 frogs in the sidebar. I also like that there is easier text and more informational text. Great for a reading buddy situation.

Beatrix Potter and Her Paint Box by David McPhail. A simple biography of the author/illustrator of Peter Rabbit plus many other books for children. Beatrix Potter was born nearly 150 years ago this coming July and her books still remain popular. McPhail has used watercolors to illustrate this book which is a lovely nod to Beatrix’s own illustrations.


Traveling Butterflies by Susumu Shingu. If you study the life cycle of a monarch butterfly, this is a great resource to have. The book begins with a picture of eggs on a leaf, and continues through the different stages of a butterfly through their migration south.


Edible Science Experiments You Can Eat
by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen and Carol Tennant. If your kids like science experiments and eating, they will enjoy this book. Each experiment give the science of what is happening. There is a list of supplies needed, a difficulty level, time needed, and instructions. Vocabulary words may be found on many pages. Photographs help to show some of the steps in each experiment and children are shown wearing lab coats and goggles when appropriate.


Clean Sweep! Frank Zamboni’s Ice Machine by Monica Kulling, illustrated by RennĂ© Benoit. Here is the story in picture book format of the Zamboni ice machine and how it came to be invented. Use this in a unit on inventors, the Winter Olympics, ice skating, or just for fun. There are a list of fun facts at the end of the book. One of the is that a Zamboni machine, with a top speed of 9 miles per hour, was driven across Canada from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia, a trip that took four months.


The last set of books I want to share with you today is actually three books that work well together. In a preview box, I found among other things, three different sets of books. One set had six biographies written on a low reading level. The series is found under the title “Amazing Inventors & Innovators. The books in that series include George Eastman, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Samuel Morse, and The Wright Brothers.
Another set of books was titles Amazing super Simple Inventions and each one has projects for children to do. Super Simple Aircraft Projects, Super Simple, Automobile Projects, Camera Projects, Phonograph Projects, Telegraph Projects, and Telephone Projects. One of our 5th and 6th grade teachers was interested in these projects.
The third set of books was about inventions. Aircraft, automobiles, cameras, phonograph, telegraphs, and telephones.
I admit that it took me a while to realize that the three sets were linked to each other. They would make great units. Read the biography of George Eastman, read about the invention of the camera, and then have your class do some or all of the camera projects. The books have different authors, but the publisher is ABDO. I do wish the publisher would have combined these three books into one and published six books rather than eighteen, but apparently they didn’t think to ask me.


I hope you see something that interests you. Have a great week.
Audrey

Currently reading:
A New Song by Jan Karon (Book 5 of the Mitford series)
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
Gunn’s Golden Rules by Tim Gunn