How Weird Is It?

How Weird Is It?
by Ben Hillman
Scholastic, 2009

Your students know and love Hillman's other three books (How Big Is It?, How Strong Is It?, and How Fast Is It?), right? Well, then, you're going to have to have this newest book in the series!

How else will you know about weirdnesses like Sleepy Bacteria, Odd Eats, Bird Magnets and Superdense Space Stuff?

Genghis Khan and Rumi

Genghis Khan
by Demi
Mashall Cavendish Classics, 2009
(first published as Chingis Khan in 1991 by Henry Holt and Co.)
review copy provided by the publisher






Rumi: Whirling Dervish
by Demi
Marshall Cavendish, 2009
review copy provided by the publisher

First of all, these two books are classic Demi -- beautiful rich colors, detailed pictures, plenty of gold.

The similarities pretty much end there. Genghis Khan is the story of "the greatest conqueror of all time," a military genius, a heavyweight thug. Rumi is the story of "the greatest mystical poet who ever lived," a simple man, a lover of learning who saw God in everyone and everything.

The stories of these two great men intersected in the early 1200's. Rumi's first home was in Afghanistan, but his family was forced to flee to Turkey when Genghis Khan and his Mongol army were conquering their homeland.

Rumi's story tells of his meeting with a great teacher, Shamsuddin, and the three years he spent learning from him. One day after Shams disappeared, Rumi began twirling around and he didn't stop for 36 hours. Those who perform this dance are now known as whirling dervishes.

Genghis Khan had an amazing childhood. Before he could walk, he was strapped onto a horse and taught to ride. When he was four, he practiced archery while riding horses at top speed. At 5, he was responsible for herding large numbers of camel and goats. When he was 6, he took part in the yearly hunt. At 9, his father died and he became the leader of the Yakka Mongols. He went on to become the "supreme master of the largest empire ever created in the lifetime of one man."

What a fabulous pair of books to compare and contrast two of the greatest men of the 11th Century! They just about couldn't be more different, and yet both live on in the stories of their lives.

Bird, Butterfly, Eel

Bird, Butterfly, Eel
story and illustrations by James Prosek
Simon and Schuster, 2009

I knew that birds and butterflies migrated, but I had no idea, until I read this book, that eels do, too.

The story begins in the summer, when bird is raising a nest of babies and butterflies eggs are turning to caterpillars, cocoons and new butterflies. The eel has been in the pond for many years and is eating and storing energy for her upcoming journey.

The bird flies to Argentina for the winter, the butterfly flies to Mexico, and the eel swims out of the pond into the creek and then the ocean and eventually to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda. The barn cat, who is in all the pictures at the beginning of the book when the animals are being introduced in their habitats near the farm (pond, meadow and barn), lays at the window watching it snow.

Spring comes, and bird, butterfly and eel's babies return to the farm.

One of the best things about this book are the illustrations. For most of the book, when Prosek is telling about their differences, each animal gets its own page. But three times during the book (fall, winter and spring), when the animals are similar in their readiness to migrate, in their winter homes, and upon return to the farm, the page is split horizontally into three sections and the animals are shown together. The only illustration I would quibble with is the map that shows where each animal goes for the winter. Instead of doing separate illustrations of the continents (main idea) and the location of the pond (detail), Prosek stretched the northeastern United States, shrank South America, and made it one illustration. Artistic license, I guess. The rest of the book is so beautiful that it can be forgiven.

This is a book that could be included in a study of migrating animals, habitats, Colonial America (didn't they eat lots of eels? didn't you ever wonder about the life cycle of the eel?), similarities and differences, nonfiction with a circular text structure, or just because it's beautiful!

Twitter Mosaic Mug

My good friend Karen (www.talkworthy.blogspot.com) popped over the other day with the best gift!  Check this out--my very own personalized Twitter Mosaic mug.  As you can see, it has my name and then the photos/avatars of all of the people I follow.  I LOVE THIS!  So many faces of people I learn from and think with. What a great thing.  I am so excited about this gift. If you have a Twitter friend who you need to buy a gift for, I am sure this one would be a hit!  Actually, if you visit this twittermosaic site and type in your user name, you will find LOTS OF fun things you can buy!  A pretty fun gift idea, I think.

A Vision for School Libraries

I followed a conversation this week about libraries.  Two people who really have me thinking about literacy these days and about libraries. In a post this week, Doug Johnson shared his thinking on the roles of libraries with the changes in the ways we get information. In his post, he says:

The question our team was to help answer was supposed to be: How can the MS/HS library program and facilities be improved to support student learning and achieve the ISB Vision for Learning?

But somehow it changed in a meeting with school officials this afternoon to: Does a school need a library when information can be accessed from the classroom using Internet connected laptops?

The new question is uncomfortable, messy, and incredibly important and not restricted by any means to one particular school. It is one to which all library people need a clear and compelling answer.

As a school librarian, this is an uncomfortable question. But it is one worth thinking about.  What is the new vision for libraries with things changing so quickly.  And he didn't give us an answer--instead he asked for others' thoughts.

In response to Doug Johnson's question about libraries, David Warlick responded on his blog.  Such a smart answer.  Warlick gives us a lot to think about.  But the one part I keep coming back to is his ending:

...if the library might come to be seen more as a workshop where information isn’t so much a product, as it is a raw material (a “Kinko's for kids,” if you will), then it may remain not only viable, but an essential institution.

In my classroom, I always tried for a coffee-shop feel. I believed that the feel of people gathering to chat about books with people they liked, to have smart discussions and to learn with friends was what I was going for.  It helped me create the environment that I wanted.  I have a similar vision for the library. But now, I have this new vision of a "Kinko's for Kids" to add to my coffee shop vision. I love Kinko's--like a playground of fun tools to help you create what you have in mind.   And I love the idea of it even more than a coffee shop vision by itself.  Can you imagine a Kinko's and a coffee shop coming together? A coffee-shop feel. But with all the tools you need right at your fingertips. A great place to get together with friends to think, talk, learn and create.  I guess I always had creation in my vision but this "Kinko's for kids" idea gives me a better vision for what it is we might be trying to create.

SMARTBOARDS in the Reading/Writing Workshop-Thoughts and Questions

So, I have been thinking a lot about Smartboards/Interactive Whiteboards. They seem to be all the talk these days and I am loving learning about all of the new tools available. We have a Promethean Board at our school and I used it in the library for a week a while ago.  It was very fun and I loved lots about it.  The kids were totally engaged, of course! I could see so many possibilities after playing with it for a bit. I would love to have one for my classroom and for my family room--it is quite impressive. A little addicting, actually.  I can see why it is all the talk these days.

The thing is, I have spent lots of time online searching for great uses of the Interactive Whiteboard.  I think there are pretty amazing things that can be done with it to support literacy, especially in Reading/Writing Workshops.  I can also see huge possibilities for early literacy in general.  There must be people out there doing lots with interactive writing, shared reading, revision, etc.   But most of the samples and things that I am finding are pretty traditional things--a more interactive whole-class chalkboard, I guess.

So many literacy teachers have been looking for the same types of things--clips of Interactive Whiteboards being used in ways to support the way we know kids use reading and writing.

I visited a friend's classroom who did some great things with book previewing (She should  start her own blog so she can write about what she is doing with the board--hint, hint..).  Several teachers in our school are using it in very smart ways.  But the examples I find that really match what I understand about literacy development are not that easy to find.

When we visited our daughter's orthodontist a few weeks ago, I noticed that he has a very cool (small)  Smartboard in his office. He used it to show us our daughter's x-ray, to jot things down and play with the x-ray a bit.  It was very fun to see it being used. But I left there thinking hard about the size of the boards that I am seeing in schools. 

I loved the size of the Smartboard in the office--it was about the size of a 40 inch TV.  I started thinking about all that I could do with a board THAT size in class. I could use it as I do the easel--for minilessons, in small group work, kids could use it in booktalks, etc.  After seeing that small board in the orthodontist's office, I started to think of so many possibilities. I know that they are also possible with the larger board but a different size invites different work, I think.  The possibilities I imagined with the large interactive board focused more on whole group things and limited a bit of the way I thought about its uses.

So, here is what I am wondering--

Why aren't more of the Reading/Writing Workshop people out there writing about ways they use the boards to support literacy development?  How can we somehow collect great clips and posts of great uses of this tool in Reading/Writing Workshops?  I imagine it is out there but, why can't I find these samples easily? Am I looking in the wrong places?

Are Interactive Whiteboards for schools only available in the larger size? Has anyone invented a SMARTEASEL yet?  If so, where can I get one and how much are they? I have seen the tables but would love to find a SMARTEASEL.  Is there one out there?  

Does the size of the Interactive Whiteboard that I am seeing in most classrooms invite more whole class teaching because of the size? Or are lots of people using it with small groups, book talks, etc. I can see huge implications for student-led booktalks and am hoping to do more with that next year.

If anyone knows of sites or blogs that focus on Interactive Whiteboards in Reading/Writing Workshop or have answers to any (or all) of my questions, please let me know. I am fascinated with this tool and see huge possibilities. It seems that for people using this tool well, it is just embedded in all that they do, so they don't mention it much.  It is just an invisible part of their teaching just as all of the tools are.  But I am one who learns and thinks from seeing good teaching and I would love to find more clips/posts that show these possibilities in the Reading-Writing Workshop. I would love to find a place where Reading/Writing workshop teachers can go to see the ways in which people are using these.  (I know the National Writing Project is doing some great things with tech in general in lots of places.)  

Please share!

Poetry Friday -- In Translation

After the rain
A colorful slide is
made by sunlight

雨の後
カラフルなスライド
日光によって作られます

* * * * * * *

Rain falls
7 colors
appear

* * * * * * *

River of 7 colors
Appear after rain.
In the blue sky it
Never ends.
Before it fades,
On the 7 colors let's take a
Walk in the beautiful sight.

* * * * * * *

雨の後に
７つの色
橋が来ます

After rain
the bridge with
7 colors
is coming

* * * * * * *

Colorful half-circle
Is in front of me.
Can I
Climb on it?

カラフルな半円
私の前 にあります。
排除してください
それの上に登ります？




One of my fourth graders used SIDE BY SIDE (a 2009 Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts that features poetry -- in the original language and translated into English -- inspired by art from around the world) as her mentor text for her poetry collection. She wrote some of her poems in Japanese and translated them to English, and she wrote some in English and translated them to Japanese. She struggled with the fact that her English acrostic was no longer an acrostic in Japanese, and her Japanese haiku was no longer a haiku in English. But she learned that such is the nature of translation. The online translator that I used to get the Japanese for her poems was also problematic. The three I've included aren't exactly as she wrote them, and the two I didn't include simply didn't mean the same thing as her poems.

Kelly Polark has the round up this week.

Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli

I am always looking for books that support new readers.  HIGHER! HIGHER! by Leslie Patricelli is a new one that I found that does just that. In this colorful picture book, is having a great time on a swing. As many kids do, she asks to be pushed "Higher! Higher!"  On several pages of the book, the words "Higher! Higher!" are the only two words that accompany the illustration.  With each push, the little girl goes higher and higher--past trees, buildings and more.  Near the end of the book, the words on each page change just a bit.  There are still only 2 very predictable words on each page (thanks to the pictures) but they are a bit different from the rest of the book. 

This is the perfect book for new readers. The pictures tell a great story on their own. They are bright colored and cheerful. This is a story that lots of kids can relate to and the simple text is perfect for new readers. 

The 2nd International Cookbook for Kids

I cannot seem to keep good cookbooks in the library at our school. Kids love them. I shouldn't be surprised. My 9 year old is a huge fan of any cooking show she can find on TV. She is also one who checks out cookbooks often. Even though she doesn't make much from the cookbooks yet, she spends lots of time reading about how to make different dishes.

I was thrilled to get a copy of THE 2nd INTERNATIONAL COOKBOOK FOR KIDS from Marshall Cavendish a while back.  My 9 year old got her hands on it and I just found it in her room again! She had trouble giving this one up.  

I can see why she loves this cookbook. The first International Cookbook for Kids by Matthew Locricchio focused on cooking from China, France, Italy, and Mexico. This 2nd book focuses on cooking of Grece, India, Thailand and Brazil.

This is a well-done cookbook and one that I could see using myself.  The recipes are not easy--they are pretty complicated dishes that don't look like they would necessarily show up in a kids' cookbook.  But the author makes the recipes very accessible to kids who are serious about cooking.  The information is very detailed with instructions on how to cut things embedded right into the recipe. Most recipes have a large photo showing the final dish.   Several categories are included--appetizers, salads, noodles, vegetables, potatoes, main dishes, desserts, etc. There are also sections on safety, cooking terms and utensils. 

For children who are serious about cooking or who are interested in foods from these countries, this is a great book with a huge amount of information along with lots of great recipes.

The Fiesta Dress: A Quinceanera Tale

I just received a review copy of THE FIESTA DRESS: A QUINCEANERA TALE by Caren McNelly McCormack and published by Marshall Cavendish.  I love this book and am excited to add a copy to our school library.

THE FIESTA DRESS is the story about Lola, the baby of the family who gets lots of attention. But on the day of her older sister's quinceanera, no one seems to notice her.  Everyone is too busy getting ready for the big event.  But when Lola accidentally lets out the family dog, who then steals the sash from the quinceanera dress, everyone notices her. Lola ends up saving the day and it is a great fiesta!

There is lots to like about this book. Although it is about the preparations for a quinceanera, all kids can relate to the story of a girl who is just not getting enough attention on a sibling's big day.   There are Spanish words embedded throughout the text with a glossary at the end that defines them. The author weaves in some of the traditions of this celebration throughout the story.

A great new picture book! This is just one of the great new picture books that Marshall Cavendish has out this spring.