Today, in addition to teaching more of the kindergarten classes, I also finished planning for the week ahead. I laughed when I realized that my initial plan (from Day 4) was definitely more like a classroom plan rather than a story time in the library. I was still thinking in terms of a "unit" rather than an individual "visit." So, I had to rethink my game plan!
New goals: (1) engaging pages and story for the students to interact with; (2) brief stories with less words on the pages; (3) less "serious" subject matter that would need more "unpacking."
As Valentine's is next week, I tried to choose books on themes of love, different ways to show love, acceptance of others, and friendship. At first, I wanted to avoid this topic, as I figured the classes themselves would be talking about this holiday and I'm not a huge proponent of "romantic" love between elementary schoolers. However, I saw that especially the younger students that come for reading time still experience this holiday as a new, novel experience. Of course! They are only four to six years old! So the books I decided to choose were based on love as a concept or love between non-amorous relationships.
Additionally, the following week is the Book Fair! As this is the last time we will see the students before the Book Fair, I will also be using material provided by Scholastic that uses the authors themselves to advertise a few books available for purchase. The particular titles were chosen based on apparent appeal and creativity of presentation to value thirty-second to two minute clips rather than traditional booktalks.
Here is the list I ended up with today:
* indicates first priority book, then listed in order of alternate titles for more time.
K4 (30m without checkout)
Bookfair Booktalk WATCH Pig the Pug
*Love is a Handful of Honey by Giles Andreas
*No Matter What by Debi Gliori
I Love You Always And Forever by Jonathan Emmett
The I Love You Book by Todd Parr
I Love You, Mister Bear by Sylvie Wickstrom
K (30m with single table checkout: 1 book)
Bookfair Booktalk WATCH Kwame Alexander in Surf’s Up
Bookfair Booktalk Pink is for Blobfish--in lib
*If Kids Ran the World by Leo and Diane Dillon
No Matter What by Debi Gliori
In Daddy’s Arms, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe
Love is a Handful of Honey by Giles Andreae
1st (15m with checkout: 2 books)
Bookfair Booktalk WATCH Hats Off to You!
Bookfair Booktalk WATCH Press Start!: Game Over, Super Rabbit Boy!
*If Kids Ran the World by Leo and Diane Dillon
*Two Friends by Dean Robbins
Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London
EBD (30m with checkout: 1 or 2 books, dependent on student)
*If Kids Ran the World by Leo and Diane Dillon (AR 3.2, P 0.5)
*Love is a Handful of Honey by Giles Andreae
No Matter What by Debi Gliori
After school, Cindy and I traveled to Blue Ridge Elementary, where the Battle of the Books is to be held tomorrow. I will blog more about what the program is, but it was a great experience to see another elementary library within the same school district. This school was built in 2009 and has an expansive space. I would live there, it is so spacious and beautiful! The Blue Ridge library has sections for "popular" series in the high traffic areas like Ravenel, but also has begun "Maker Spaces" with art supplies, large tables, and diverse work configurations. The whole school has also adopted the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as a sort of theme and infrastructure for their discipline and character program. The library has set collections of books focusing on each habit to carry and support that school-wide initiative. It was definitely a cool opportunity to see some of the same programs or library organization implemented in different ways or with different tools to achieve the same goals. I'm looking forward to the program tomorrow!
Showing posts with label booktalks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label booktalks. Show all posts
Friday, February 10, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Day 7: Book Talks LIVE!
The Ravenel Library is set up with a section for popular series, to make frequently circulated books easy to locate and shelve. Many of the students go first to this section which contains series titles such as:
Using Amazon’s Editorial Reviews sections, Goodreads reviews, the book jackets themselves, and the upcoming Book Fair previews, I combined some information to present to the students live in Mr. Dent’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade "gifted literature" classes. I tried to vary the books I presented within the list that Cindy suggested of less-circulated books, appealing to both boys and girls, offering shorter and longer stories, and ranging story contents. I decided to pick four titles per grade level, using one title to mention the Book Fair availability.
I first generated mini "speeches" that I would give during the book talks and then created handouts to go along with each presentation. My original intent was to create bookmarks with these titles on them; however, my computer and copy skills did not quite follow along! You can see that my handouts became more like my original vision as the grade level (the day's schedule) increases. Despite my tech-flubs, the students did not seem to notice one way or another the way the pages were written.
Booktalk Handouts 3rd
Booktalk Handouts 4th
Booktalk Handouts 5th
Once I was in the rooms to present, I found that the script I had created was too rigid to "perform" live. I still plan to record these book talks, so the scripts can still be useful; however, the reactions/interaction with the students required more flexibility. In this situation, I found the students both engaged and potentially excited in response to the titles. In the moment, I realized that the students needed some interactive piece to these book talks: STARS! I directed the students to draw one to five stars based on their interest for the title. This spur-of-the-moment thought worked exceptionally better than I expected, as the students enjoyed trying to draw stars, added twenty-two stars for some they were VERY excited about, and talked with their table-peers about which book interested them the most. Both the students and the teacher seemed excited about at least some of the titles which had them talking even as I was leaving the room!
I knew that the book talks were at least some success when several students came to the library to either check out or reserve the titles I had suggested. One student even came in with the handout to remind him of which one he wanted! Though a little intimidating and requiring a good bit of energy to hype the books up, this seems like a practice worthwhile for a few times over the year in my own library career.
- Big Nate
- Spirit Animals
- Magic Tree House
- Geronimo Stilton
- Series of Unfortunate Events
- Junie B. Jones
- I Survived
- Bad Kitty
- etc.
Using Amazon’s Editorial Reviews sections, Goodreads reviews, the book jackets themselves, and the upcoming Book Fair previews, I combined some information to present to the students live in Mr. Dent’s 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade "gifted literature" classes. I tried to vary the books I presented within the list that Cindy suggested of less-circulated books, appealing to both boys and girls, offering shorter and longer stories, and ranging story contents. I decided to pick four titles per grade level, using one title to mention the Book Fair availability.
I first generated mini "speeches" that I would give during the book talks and then created handouts to go along with each presentation. My original intent was to create bookmarks with these titles on them; however, my computer and copy skills did not quite follow along! You can see that my handouts became more like my original vision as the grade level (the day's schedule) increases. Despite my tech-flubs, the students did not seem to notice one way or another the way the pages were written.
Booktalk Handouts 3rd
Booktalk Handouts 4th
Booktalk Handouts 5th
Once I was in the rooms to present, I found that the script I had created was too rigid to "perform" live. I still plan to record these book talks, so the scripts can still be useful; however, the reactions/interaction with the students required more flexibility. In this situation, I found the students both engaged and potentially excited in response to the titles. In the moment, I realized that the students needed some interactive piece to these book talks: STARS! I directed the students to draw one to five stars based on their interest for the title. This spur-of-the-moment thought worked exceptionally better than I expected, as the students enjoyed trying to draw stars, added twenty-two stars for some they were VERY excited about, and talked with their table-peers about which book interested them the most. Both the students and the teacher seemed excited about at least some of the titles which had them talking even as I was leaving the room!
I knew that the book talks were at least some success when several students came to the library to either check out or reserve the titles I had suggested. One student even came in with the handout to remind him of which one he wanted! Though a little intimidating and requiring a good bit of energy to hype the books up, this seems like a practice worthwhile for a few times over the year in my own library career.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Day 5: Filling in the Roles
Today, I taught another class of first-graders, reading Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink. They LOVE this story! Not only do the students respond to the moments of the story, but they also relate to the message of being kind to one another and the consequences of writing mean things. The biggest curve I will need to learn is timing. I did go a little over the teacher's allotted time which potentially sets his/her own plans back. From teaching for six years, I know that timing is something that comes with practice: practice with the student groups, with the materials, with the environment, with teachers' expectations. I have a few more times with this story with different classes, so will try to focus on appropriate timing and interaction.
I also had my first experience with adding books to the catalog. These books were ordered from Bound to Stay Bound, and Cindy pays for them to be prepped for shelving. They came already with call numbers and barcodes, though we added some information within the pages. We stamped the Ravenel ownership "watermark," wrote the AR reading level/points, and put the spare barcode on the first end page. Cindy also writes the vendor and the fiscal year on the inside spine to keep easy track of inventory sourcing. She then puts the packing list or invoice in a binder organized by date. This way, she says, if the bookkeeper requires any additional information for review, Cindy can pull up the form easily. Though much information is now digitized, Cindy says that this "ledger" has saved her spending lots of time searching for information. This way, it is tangible and brief to record and retrieve information for orders and inventory.
After the instructional day, today was a faculty meeting. Our first presenter was for additional insurance. He was goofy and adorable. All the while, the glaring ''CODE RED'' was staring at us all from the projection behind. This meant this presentation was not as well received. The second presentation felt terrifyingly tense for this collection of sensitive and caring elementary teachers. The Sheriff outlined so many scenarios and horrific potential realities that the ''training'' felt like a scare tactic rather than an educational system of protection. Even the officer and the district trainer both said the reality vs. the plan will change. One of the teachers also reflected that the students are often traumatized after their undercover intruder drills, including nightmares, tears, and general terror. Obviously safety training and drills are important, especially with recent events locally and nationally, but there must be a method that is both effective and empowering to the teachers. I don't know what the right answer is for this, but these are my observations from today's training. Two valuable points from the presentation were: (1) do not keep id with a key on it: if left, immediate access and knowledge from where the keys belong; and (2) prepare ''outs'' for each room including cafeteria, recess, etc
I also had my first experience with adding books to the catalog. These books were ordered from Bound to Stay Bound, and Cindy pays for them to be prepped for shelving. They came already with call numbers and barcodes, though we added some information within the pages. We stamped the Ravenel ownership "watermark," wrote the AR reading level/points, and put the spare barcode on the first end page. Cindy also writes the vendor and the fiscal year on the inside spine to keep easy track of inventory sourcing. She then puts the packing list or invoice in a binder organized by date. This way, she says, if the bookkeeper requires any additional information for review, Cindy can pull up the form easily. Though much information is now digitized, Cindy says that this "ledger" has saved her spending lots of time searching for information. This way, it is tangible and brief to record and retrieve information for orders and inventory.
After the instructional day, today was a faculty meeting. Our first presenter was for additional insurance. He was goofy and adorable. All the while, the glaring ''CODE RED'' was staring at us all from the projection behind. This meant this presentation was not as well received. The second presentation felt terrifyingly tense for this collection of sensitive and caring elementary teachers. The Sheriff outlined so many scenarios and horrific potential realities that the ''training'' felt like a scare tactic rather than an educational system of protection. Even the officer and the district trainer both said the reality vs. the plan will change. One of the teachers also reflected that the students are often traumatized after their undercover intruder drills, including nightmares, tears, and general terror. Obviously safety training and drills are important, especially with recent events locally and nationally, but there must be a method that is both effective and empowering to the teachers. I don't know what the right answer is for this, but these are my observations from today's training. Two valuable points from the presentation were: (1) do not keep id with a key on it: if left, immediate access and knowledge from where the keys belong; and (2) prepare ''outs'' for each room including cafeteria, recess, etc
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