The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

I’ve just finished The Lightning Thief, and its sequel, Sea of Monsters, and loved them. The basic premise of the story is that the main character, Percy Jackson, discovers that not only do all the ancient Greek gods exist, but he is the son of one of them. (Telling you which one would spoil the first book a bit, so I’m not gonna). He goes to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for heroes–children of gods and mortal parents. The camp director is Dionysus, or Mr. D. On his way, he is attacked by the Minotaur. The adventures get better and better .

I’ve been teaching a summer enrichment program for rising sixth graders, and I wish I’d discovered these books while planning! They’d be a great introduction to Greek mythology.

American Girl

Morning Edition did a story about an upcoming movie based on the American Girl series of books. I just listened to it now, and got a thrill in the middle of doing the dishes.  (Mark this day on your calendar people!  Thrilled while doing dishes–an historic event!)  Now, I wonder what I can promise my husband to induce him to take me to this movie?

I LOVED these books as a child.  I think I read through the entire series multiple times–Borrow my limit from my school library, read them THAT NIGHT (or better yet, during school), return them in the morning, get more, lather, rinse, repeat, lather, rinse, repeat. I rediscovered them in my school library, and it’s still really difficult for me to read through that section of shelves without reading a couple. AGAIN.

As a kid, I got the American Girl catalogs in the mail.  I’m not sure if this was a failing in their marketing research or not.  There was no way in heckola my parents would have ever paid that much for a doll for me, much less for any of the stuff that you can get to go with it, but I loved drooling over the catalogs when they came.  If I’d been in charge of the checkbook, the company would have been well repaid for their postage.  Alas, it was not to be.  Couldn’t even talk my grandparents into one of the dolls. Sigh.

In the Morning Edition piece, a 26-year-old woman talks about her doll, Kit, which the movie is based on.   She still has it, of course, and recited some of the details of Kit’s story. Even though I never owned one of the dolls, I still remembered a lot about my favorite one–Samantha. She had the best clothes.  I wonder if there will be a series of movies–I hope they do her story next.

What’s next? Audio versions of graphic novels? The Invention of Hugo Cabret

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After getting the grant to order some Playaway audio books for my library, I got to do the fun part: SHOPPING! (Shopping for books with NOT MY MONEY is my favorite part of this job). Poking around Follett Titlewave, I noticed that this year’s Caldecott was available on Playaway.

If you’re unfamiliar with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you really must at least flip through it. It’s set in Paris, where Hugo lives in the walls of train station with his uncle and learns to are for the clocks of the station from him—until he disappears, abandoning Hugo to care for the clocks alone. Recently orphaned, all Hugo has of his father is a broken automaton (clockwork man) that he is determined to fix by stealing parts from the station’s toyshop. He’s caught by the toyshop owner who takes his father’s notebook of plans for fixing the automaton. In getting them back, Hugo discovers a secret about the toyshop owner, his automaton, and his love of movies.

So much of the story is told in gorgeous silvery pencil illustrations that I wondered how in the world Scholastic would manage to translate this to audio. We got it, and it has turned out to be one of the most popular audio titles at my library. For the most part, music and sound effects substitute for illustrations, but occasionally there are verbal descriptions that aren’t in the text. It is very interesting to follow along in the book while listening to the audio, which most of the kids seem to do.

I wonder if they consulted with the author about the audio version?

School’s out!

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So, another school year wound down. I’ve actually been out for almost three weeks, but I’ve been spending my time cleaning and decluttering, reading books written above a 5^th grade level and reading other edublogs and libraryblogs. I was inspired by some of these, like IMC Guy to post a reflection on my school year. I hope that reflecting on what worked and what didn’t this year will help me keep the good stuff and focus on improving the not so good.

Worked:

1. Collaborated more with my teachers this year. I got a few more to work with me on some projects. Still not quite true collaborative projects, but we went beyond dropping just the kids off for library time. Best of all, I think the reading coach at my school and I have developed a good working relationship. We’ve worked together on several projects like developing a larger professional library, planning family reading night and Read Across America activities, , and I think that’s all to the good.

1. Ran a weekly trivia contest to increase student use of the library. This increased my foot traffic, and I was able to do some point-of-need teaching when I asked questions that required the students to use the computer catalog. Plus, just general goodwill towards the library. The prizes were paperback books.

2. Adopt an Ugly book project. I still plan on getting the pictures I took of this uploaded. Some of these turned out really well, and the books got an updated look.

3. Took the fifth grade classes lightly stepping through the blogosphere. I’d like to do more of that with my school library blog. I envision a page of student book reviews and recommendations.

4. Used the school newsletter to communicate with parents better.

5. Got a grant to add Playaway audio books, which stayed checked out and reserved the entire rest of the year!

6. Weeded out old, moldy dinosaur & space nonfiction sections and replaced with new shiny books. Weeded out old & moldy chapter fiction.

7. Started circulating magazines.

8. Didn’t always dread the Kindergarten classes.

Needs Work:

1. I need to map out my curriculum a bit better. I want fifth graders to leave me able to locate books easily using the catalog and the call numbers, choose an appropriate and reliable source in print sources, subscription database and on the interwebs, and correctly c ite a source and understand why they have to cite sources. And I want them all to have found books that they love to read. I just need to plan out how to get them there.

2. Figure out ways to get kids to return their books on time. I still lost some this year, and that bothers me.

3. Recruit some reliable volunteers to help during book fair. Try advertising it more.

4. Investigate fund raisers that might be easier to handle than book fairs but that make just as much, since book fair is half my operating budget.

That’s a start. Any suggestions would be welcome!

Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!

This Sunday was very sleepy for my husband and me. Today is Pascha, so we were up until 4 a.m. at church. Pascha is Easter in the Orthodox Church. I am not Orthodox yet, but I attend with my husband. Even if you are not Orthodox, you should attend Pascha liturgy at least once in your lifetime. It is beautiful, and indescribable. Today was the second time for me, as we’ve only been married a bit less than a year. After the service, everyone EATS, and tries to crack each others’ red eggs.

Our priest posted this beautiful youtube video on his blog today. I don’t understand most of the words, but you can hear them saying Christ is Risen! in it. It sounds like Christos A-less-ti.

Lemonade-ing

A Kindergarten student came in this morning on an errand for her teacher.

“Mrs. wants to know if her lemonade is done.”

I sent her back to class, her teacher’s laminating (lemonade-ing) in tow.

Adopt an Ugly Book

My library’s got a lot of ugly picture books.  If you’ve worked in a library, I’m sure you can relate–Unless you’ve lucked into a brand-new library, complete with brand-new books.  If you have, don’t tell.  It’ll just make me jealous.

I know I could, and in some cases should, drastically weed them.

BUT (WHINE ALERT) It’s only my second year.  I’ve already caused some heart attacks with my weeding of duplicates and literally moldy-oldies.  Some of them are classics.  Good stories, just unloved because the kids can’t get past the ugly, plain covers.

So, my 3rd-5th graders are picking out one of these unloved orphans.  They’re giving them a makeover with new covers.  We’re going to laminate the new, improved covers put them on the books. Students started this week by selecting a book to adopt, reading it, and thinking about ideas for the book cover.

And the best part of all: They’re excited about it!

From a Student: “Can we check it out first when we’re done?”

From a Teacher: “My kids came in from recess today and asked me if they’re going to get to adopt an ugly book in their library class this week.”

Hopefully I’ll have some pictures of rejuvenated books soon.

Ideas for assessment

I don’t assign grades for library.  I don’t do much work with the kids where they produce a written, tangible product.  So how do I assess them? How do I figure out if they’re learning? This is something I’ve struggled with a bit, especially coming from a classroom teacher position, where I DID assign grades, give exams, assign papers and projects.  How do I know if we’re actually accomplishing anything?  I want them to enjoy coming to the library and to enjoy reading and hearing stories for their intrinsic value, but is there a way to measure that quantitatively? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this (if there’s anybody out there!)

So here’s one thing I sometimes do to see if they’re getting it:

After reading a story, I pass out my tiny whiteboards and some markers, and ask questions about the story we’ve just read.

Some lower level ones, like:

1. Who’s the main character?
2. What’s the setting of this story?

Some higher ones, like:

1. What genre is this story?
2. How can you tell it’s a mystery (or historical fiction, or whatever)?
3. Tell me one way it’s similar to story X we read last week.

I can glance around at the answers, discuss them a bit with the kids, and see if they’re getting something out of it.  I do this with other things too, sometimes.  Like which reference book would be best for a topic.  I like the whiteboards because they don’t generate paper for me to toss, and because they force everyone to participate.  Does anybody else do something cool in their libraries to see if their kids are getting what they’re trying to teach?

P.S. I so understand the value of just letting the kids enjoy a story, with no questions afterwards or huge analysis of the plot, so I by no means to all this every week!

This is SCARY

Came across this on the teachers.net chatboard

WAYCROSS, GA — It’s the type of news you don’t expect to hear coming out of an elementary school.

Nine third grade students suspended at Center Elementary in Waycross for an alleged plot to attack their teacher. (read the rest)

I work with 3rd graders.  I can imagine certain individuals plotting to hurt their teacher.  But an entire class?

They seem to have been pretty organized, even.  Certain students assigned to cover up the windows.

What would you be thinking as a teacher at that school?  Apparently, this was in reaction to their teacher fussing at them.  If this happened every time I’ve fussed at a class, I’d have been dead long ago!

I’m Dirty!

Kate and Jim McMullan’s picture books, I Stink! and I’m Dirty! are buckets of fun to read aloud to kids.

I Stink! is about a garbage truck; I’m Dirty! is about a backhoe loader.  Both have plenty of attitude, as they tell you about what they do, with loud, raucous noises:

Garbage truck: “See those bags? I SMELL BREAKFAST! Crew? Get me to the curb!”

Backhoe: “RRRRRM! RRRRRM! Who wants to be clean when it’s so much fun being dirty? Clunk! I just LOVE my job!”

They sound like “boy” books, don’t they?   I’ll admit that my boys love them, but so do the girls.  When I finished reading it aloud to the second graders for the first time, they immediately begged me to read it again.

So, I decided to do I’m Dirty! as the library’s door decorations for our Read Across America celebration.  I printed out the title and authors names, and drew a huge backhoe.  The kids colored illustrations from the book that I found on Kate McMullan’s website.  It was a blast.  Hopefully, I’ll get some pictures posted of that soon.