Two Fables

The Clever Stick

by John Lechner

Candlewick Press, 2009

review copy provided by the publisher

This is a story about the power of art.

The stick is clever. He's one sharp stick, making up algebraic equations and poetry in its head. But the stick is silent. He has no voice. No way to describe the sunset or tell the chipmunks where there are more acorns. The stick is so depressed that he drags himself home in the sand...and notices the beautiful lines he makes. The stick creates a beautiful tapestry in the sand that is "the most magnificent sight the forest had ever seen. The animals cheered, the insects buzzed, and the trees swayed their branches in approval." Even though a rainstorm washes the tapestry away, the stick knows it doesn't matter -- he can make another. "He knew at last he had found his voice."

John Lechner's (author*illustrator*animator*designer) website. Be sure you watch the book trailer for The Clever Stick.

Spoon

by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

illustrated by Scott Magoon

Disney Hyperion Books, 2009

review copy provided by the publisher

This is a story about accepting yourself.

Spoon feels like his friends have it so much better than him. Knife gets to cut and spread, Fork gets to go everywhere and do everything, and Chopsticks are cool and exotic. What Spoon doesn't realize is that his friends are jealous of him. Spoon's mom reminds him that he's the one who gets to dive headfirst into a bowl of ice cream and relax in a cup of hot tea. And in the end, when Spoon can't sleep, there's something he can do with mom and dad that the other utensils can't!

Amy Krouse Rosenthal's website, where I learned that "Chopsticks" (follow-up to "Spoon") is forthcoming in 2011.

AMELIA BEDELIA'S FIRST VALENTINE by Herman Parish

I don't often focus on events or holidays when I choose books to share with the kids in the library. But I couldn't resist the new Amelia Bedelia book, AMELIA BEDELIA'S FIRST VALENTINE by Herman Parish. If you don't know these new "little" Amelia Bedelia books, they are quite a treat. . So far, there are two books in this new picture book series. (The first in the series is AMELIA BEDELIA'S FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL that I learned about from Katie at Creative Literacy.)

I read this new book to our first and 2nd graders but I think the 3rd graders would also enjoy it. Amelia Bedelia is a little girl in this new book but she has the same issue with language and literal meanings as she does when she gets older. Amelia, as a child, is quite adorableWhat I like about these books is that they are so kid-friendly. The stories are school stories that the kids can relate to and the play on language is done in a way that young children can understand. In many of the instances, when Amelia misunderstands something that someone says, we see her thinking in a thinking bubble. A great invitation to conversations about the literal meaning vs. the intent of the language.

I think these books are a great bridge to the more difficult Amelia Bedelia books for transitional readers. I am looking forward to more to come out in this new series.

Gooney Bird is So Absurd

Gooney Bird Is So Absurd

by Lois Lowry

illustrated by Middy Thomas

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009

review copy provided by the publisher

Gooney Bird and her classmates are learning to write poetry. They write very short three or four-word poems, haikus, couplets, limericks, and list poems. We get to watch Gooney Bird help Barry revise his list poem. At the end of the book, the class is just about to start writing poems for two voices when their teacher's mother dies. Together they write a poem for MANY voices for their teacher.

This would make a great read aloud before or during a poetry writing unit.

Gooney Bird's teacher, Mrs. Pidgeon, (who is on our list of 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature) can remind all teachers of the importance of differentiation. I want to be more like Mrs. Pidgeon, starting tomorrow. And I definitely DON'T want to be like the substitute in this book.

TRICKY VIDEOS (KLUTZ)

We've had a great couple of weeks working with FRAMES and Stop motion. The kids are learning so much and their creativity is so fun to watch. I only have each class every four days so kids have only had about two 20-minute blocks of time to work, but their growth is so amazing. I've even had about 15 kids ask to come in during recess a few days this week so that they could work a bit more. That extra time allowed them to problem solve a few things.

I think if you walk in and see what kids are doing, it looks like it is just a fun thing. But in reality, I think creating video can be a key to becoming critical readers and viewers. As I continue to reflect on documents that help us think about how literacy is changing and growing as the tools change and grow, I am trying to figure out ways to get this into our kids' days. All of the 21st Century Frameworks and Standards (NCTE, ALA, P21) address the importance of visual and media literacies. It is going to become more and more important for our students to be critical viewers of information.

What I am finding goes back to what I understand about the writing process. If kids write regularly, they become better readers. And if they read regularly, they become better writers. The same holds true for any type of media creation. If our students have time to create multimedia projects, they start watching things differently. Just as they learn to "read like a writer", they are already learning to "view like a creator". Already this week, kids are coming in with examples from the real world of TV and YouTube telling me about a commercial they saw and thinking about how and why it was created. For our kids to become critically literate, this includes not only text but visual information. I find that giving them the tools to create is the best way into this kind of thinking.

I happened to find a great book at the Scholastic Book Fair a few months ago. I put it aside not thinking much about it but picked it up again this week. I do believe that books come to you when you need them and this one was perfect for this week. This book meets so many of the needs that I have right now. The Klutz TRICKY VIDEO book was a huge hit this week. In the book, there are 20+ video tricks shown with the how-to for kids to try. The book shares some pretty interesting tricks and makes them very accessible to kids. But the best part is the accompanying website. I couldn't have been happier when I discovered it. The site is www.klutz.com/tv and it is an ad for the book. But it leads you to the page that shows you the 20+ video segments discussed in the book. The clips are short and fun to watch. At the end of each clip, you are directed to the pages in the book where the creation secret is revealed. So, this week's lesson was quite fun. I shared the site and we watched a few together--trying to figure answer the question: How did they do that?

Knowing that lots of kids would want the information from the book, I purchased 3 copies of this book. I kept one in book form and cut apart the other two so that I could post all of the pages on foam board posters around the library. This way, lots of kids could use the foam boards to figure out what was going on. Kids picked them up and took them to their spots near their laptops. Other groups gathered at the foamboards and had great conversations about what was going on. I love the invitation that these foamboards created. I will keep these handy in the library, hoping that kids carry them to their work areas when creating film, etc. A great tool for viewing and creation.

TRICKY VIDEOS is one of my favorite finds of the year. I have been thinking about all of this since September when a student asked, "How did they make that?" after watching the book fair video. When thinking about visual and media literacy skills, Klutz has made it easy for us, as teachers, to get kids thinking about these things. The combination of website with videos and book of explanations was absolutely brilliant of KLUTZ. Such a great learning tool for kids. And a great learning tool for teachers too--so many things made accessible for those of us who don't understand how these things work. I can see so many great benefits of film making for kids and this book helped provided has been a great resource for my own thinking as well as my students'.

Poetry Friday -- What Are You Trying To Accomplish?

image by Ségozyme

YOU BEGIN

by Margaret Atwood

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.

The rest of the poem is at Poets.org.

After Tai Chi on Wednesday, I was talking to a retired university professor about teaching. It all seemed very casual and surface-level, until he asked me, "What's the most important thing you hope to accomplish in the nine months you have your students?" Whoa. That kind of upped the ante of the conversation all at once!!!

Whether or not you're a teacher, see if you can come up with an answer right now -- what's the most important thing you hope to accomplish this year?

My answer? That my students will love to read. Love to read and CHOOSE to read. And I want them to learn to THINK. To curb their impulsivity and THINK before they speak or act, to know how to store information in their brains and retrieve it when they need it again, to be able to figure out what to do with new information or information in a new format. ...And I guess, come to think of it in retrospect, I also hope they will be good conversationalists. I hope they'll be the kind of people who will either ask thought-provoking questions, or the kind who will be able to come up with a good answer when asked.

Mary Ann has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Great Kid Books.

If you are interested in hosting the roundup, check out the schedule in the sidebar and pick an open week that works for you. Leave your request in the comments, or email me directly at mlhahn AT earthlink DOT net.

POWERLESS by Matthew Cody

I am trying to spend a tiny bit more time reading books that aren't usually my type. As a K-5 librarian, I have to have books to recommend to all readers and I have discovered that some readers make it easier for me. We have the same tastes. So, I know that in order to do my job well, I need to expand my reading a bit. When I was in the classroom, I had lots of fantasy and sci-fi readers and I could recommend books and series but I didn't feel like I had to know as many as I do now. I only had to know books to recommend to the 26+ kids in my class. If I knew them well, it was easy to read books with them in mind.

Since this is the 2nd year in this school, I am just starting to know many of the kids as readers. I've noticed that there are lots of books that kids are reading that I just can't talk about. The 5th graders can't get enough of The Percy Jackson Series. I am not always a huge fantasy fan and this book didn't look like one I'd like. So, I put it off. But, I realized a few weeks ago, that I really needed to see what all the hype was. I read THE LIGHTNING THIEF and LOVED it. I so understand the excitement and I can't wait to see the movie.

Tony at Learn Me Sumthin' has been reviewing books on his blog that I wouldn't normally pick up. But after I so loved LIGHTNING THIEF that I had so adamantly avoided, I decided to give a few others a try.

I finished POWERLESS by Matthew Cody (recommended by Tony) last weekend. It is about a boy who moves into a new neighborhood. Many of the kids in the neighborhood have super powers. Some can fly. Others are strong, etc. He is the only one of his friends without a power. But there is a little mystery in the town. Kids lose their powers (and the memories of those powers) on their 13th birthdays. No one can figure out why but they decide they need to.

POWERLESS is a fun story. It has the elements of a superhero comic book but is a good story with a pretty apparent theme. The whole concept of the story is fun and I found myself wanting to continue reading to see what happened. This is a longer book--close to 300 pages. I think it would be a great fun read for 4th and 5th graders and I have a few 5th grade boys I'll recommend it to this week.

I am learning to stretch myself a bit as a reader in this new job and I'm glad that I am. I have discovered some great books that I wouldn't have otherwise discovered.

3rd Graders Learn About the SMART Board

With some of our Scholastic Book Fair profits this year, I was able to purchase a SMART Board for the library at school. We couldn't afford the entire system but Scholastic offers the Interactive Whiteboard piece in their Book Fair Profits catalog. Since we have a projector and speakers in the library, I decided I'd add one piece at a time as we could afford them and I am glad that we did. It might take us a few years to get the whole thing pulled together but it works well for now.

As part of the purchase, I was entitled to a one hour orientation. Michelle Wolfe is our SMART Board rep and she contacted me to set something up. Instead of giving me the orientation, I asked her if she'd be willing to give an orientation to a group of 3rd graders. Michelle happily agreed.

Over the past few years, I have been thinking about how we can use these tools to meet the needs of our 21st Century Learners. I keep going back to the documents such as NCTE's Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment, ISTE NETS for Students, and Partnership for 21st Century Skills' Framework for 21st Century Learning. I've been reflecting on ideas in articles like "It's Not About the Tools. It's About the Skills". I worry that we are using some new tools in ways that don't really change learning for our students. This article about the announcements of Apple's iPad reminded me just how important this was. For me, the important points from all of these documents are the focus on creation, communication, purpose and audience. I want to make sure that the SMART Board in our library becomes a tool for students instead of a tool for teachers to give information.

My thinking was that if we want the SMART Board to be used as a tool for learning--as something beyond a teacher tool, it was important that kids be familiar with and able to use the board. So, we put together a team of 20+ 3rd graders who will serve as our initial Think Tank. They volunteered for the position, knowing it would mean giving up recess time throughout the year. They were quite excited about their first meeting learning all they could about the board. Michelle was great--introducing them to many of the tools available on the software. Many had not had much experience with the SMART Board so they loved the whole nature of the touchscreen.

We decided to place the SMART Board on a wall in the library that is a little bit off to the side. Because so many of the "walls" in our library are windows, we were limited in our options. But I think the place that we chose will work well. It is a spot where a whole class can gather if needed. But it is also off to the side so kids can work on the SMART Board while other things are going on in the library. It is not front and center.

The students who were trained will be able to play a bit with the SMART Board over the next few months. I think that tinkering time will be critical. I think it will take a while for the newness of the tool to wear off but I think that as they play, kids will have great ideas for the kinds of things they might create. Another tool to communicate their learning, to problem solve, and to design. I imagine they'll design games, figure out ways to include their own photos, etc. use the software to revise writing, storytelling, and more. I'll plan to meet with the team every few weeks to reflect on things they've learned, share some new things and brainstorm how the boards can be used to better support their learning.

I'll keep you posted!

Discovering the Possibilities of Stopmotion in Grades 2-5

I introduced Stopmotion Animation to several classes in grades 2-5 this week during library time. One of my goals this year is to give kids lots of possibilities for creation. I want them to see how things are created and invite them into the creation process. With lots of new tools, our students will have lots of new ways to communicate their learning. As part of a district grant that we received last year, we were able to put FRAMES on our entire laptop lab in the library. Since kids have had so much success on PIXIE, we thought FRAMES was a great way to expand their work to animation. I think that if our students can see how different forms of media are created, they will become much more critical users of information, which is so important.

FRAMES has turned out to be a great tool for introducing animation to kids. It is easy to use and kids can see the process for creating animation and then they begin to watch animation a bit differently. Because the program FRAMES has a camera feature, and I am working with our art teacher to create a claymation project with 4th graders, I figured it was a good time to introduce the tool to lots of kids.

I have done a lot of reading on Kevin's blog and have been inspired over the year by the things his kids do with animation. He has so many great ways to work with kids in creating stopmotion. I've followed his reflections carefully and need to revisit them.

I started the lessons this week by showing kids several examples of stopmotion. I've been collecting interesting "mentor" pieces to show kids at various stages of the process and picked a few to show them the variety of things stopmotion could do. Some of the clips I shared included:

You Tube Frog and Toad Claymation

Mary Lee's "Setting Up My Desk Area"

Lego Build It Together

A Sample from the Parkway Film Festival

The Making of Frog and Toad Explained (via Kevin's blog post)

I showed a few examples with Post-It notes and I showed my daughter's stopmotion so they could get a sense of how many photos something like this takes. (Hers took 18 photos for this 3 second movie.)

This time around, sharing these were to let kids know many of the things that can be done with this. We will most likely revisit some of these later to look more closely at craft, message, etc. Today was just an invitation in.

Kids jumped in realizing how the things they've seen recently were made with this technique. Many kids mentioned a scene in iCarly in which Spencer creates a stopmotion movie.

Following the samples, I showed them, in just a few minutes, the basics of how to create stop motion with photographs in FRAMES. That meant teaching them to use the camera, demonstrating me taking several pictures of myself with slight changes and then playing the results. The total length of the lesson was about 10 minutes which included examples of Stopmotion as well as the intro to FRAMES.

My best teaching has always happened when I throw a few basic ideas out to kids and let them play. I can then use student work and discoveries in future lessons. I find that if I am too focused on product at first, kids produce things that look like mine. In order to let them explore and find new ways to use the new tools I've been introducing, I want to give them lots of play time with little direction so they are free to figure things out and open up possibilities for everyone. Just as I expected, this 10 minute minilesson really gave kids a way into this type of creation. Kids jumped right in and had a ball. And, they came up with things I would never have thought of. It was fun to watch different classes and different ages approach the same introduction. I learned so much watching different kids' spin on the software.

Kids came up with such great ideas and kids began to build on each other's thinking. The younger kids immediately began to do what they do best--tell stories using props such as puppets, magnetic sets, etc. Some students used legos to try to capture the sequence of building. Others used board games to try to capture the moves on a strategy game. Others found some of the dramatic play toys that we have in the library and began retelling old favorites using stopmotion. Others used books, objects sitting around the room, a train set in the building toy area of the library, their own faces, and more. They were able to see so many possibilities in the 20 minutes they had to play. Many left with plans for their next visit and many asked to come in and add to their creations during lunch. My hope is that these eventually become possibilities for them to share their learning. When they need to share or present information, this gives them a new way to synthesize their learning. A new way to share their thinking with others.

So often, as teachers with new technology, I think we are hesitant about introducing something that is new to us. We feel the need to learn it well first. But I think that might be holding lots of us back from getting our students' hands on these new tools. I learned the very basics of FRAMES--just enough to invite them to give it a try--in about 10 minutes. Then as kids played and I watched, I learned so many more about the tool as they discovered them. I think it was a richer experience than it would have been had I known the entire program well because the kids were in charge. Except for the few things I knew, they had to problem solve to figure out the others. I also think that because I didn't have much experience with it, kids were able to go off and try a variety of things rather than only the 1-2 things I shared. They knew it was open tinkering time and I think that is critical.

Even as I write this, I am amazed at how much kids did in just 20 minutes. I can't wait to see where they go next and what they do when I introduce ideas such as storyboarding, clay animation, etc. It will be interesting to hear their conversations about the things they notice outside of school--times when photos are manipulated, etc I didn't realize how much they would learn from this one tool.

Kevin Hodgson will be doing a session for teachers on digital storybooks at our Dublin Literacy Conference later this month. He is also doing a parent/child session on stopmotion that is getting huge response. Looking forward to learning more from him and the other speakers then.

Artist Michelle Stitzlein visits Our School

We have a great art teacher at our school. He is always busy doing great work with kids and is always thinking about big picture. This year, he organized a visit by a local artist, Michelle Stitzlein. She visited our school for two days last week and kids were able to work together to create pieces that will be put in our school courtyard.

Much of Michelle Stitzlein's art is art with recycled materials. We began the two day visit with a whole school assembly where Michelle shared her own art. It was amazing to see the creative process and the places she gets her ideas. As part of her slide show, she talked about her travels and the inspirations she finds for her art in different areas of the world. She also shared examples of other things she's found in her travels that have been created from recycled materials. Shoes, houses, etc. created from things that once had a different use. It was a fascinating presentation for both children and adults. She had so much to say about art, creativity, inspiration, taking care of our world, and more. All in such a short time.

For months, to get ready for the visit, our kids have been bringing in plastic bottle caps. Creating sculptures with children, using bottlecaps is one of her specialities. And her book LITTLE BOTTLECAP BOTTLECAP gives families lots of ideas for more projects they can do at home. It was amazing to see how many bottlecaps we collected at our school over the course of the last few months. And it was amazing to see how many sizes and colors bottlecaps come in.

For the two days that Michelle visited, each class was able to join her in the gym to work on one of the community pieces that were made. Before her visit, classes painted the pieces. During her visit, the kids worked in small groups to choose the best caps for each space, decide on the placement of the bottlecaps, and use drills to secure the caps to the pieces.

We ended up with several great large pieces, many of which will be placed around our courtyard and other places in the school.

This was a great visit. Michelle was amazing with the students. I am sure she opened up lots of possibilities for our students in terms of creativity. I love community projects and the focus on recycled art was a great theme, I thought. I think her work with kids will have a lasting impact in so many ways. We are lucky to have such an amazing local artist to work with our students.

January Mosaic

Eleven of this month's pictures feature food or a food-related event. (hmmm...)

Ten are about the cold and dark of winter.

Four pictures are of animals. One dog is peeking out of the curtains. Only the cat is ours.

Three were taken at school.

Which one is your favorite?