Egghead

EGGHEAD
by Karla Oceanak
illustrated by Kendra Spanjer
Bailiwick Press, 2012
review copy provided by the publisher

Aldo Zelnick is ESTRANGED from his best friend Jack in this fifth book in the Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel series.

The series is alphabetic, and we're up to the letter E. (My reviews of the other 4 books are here.) Aldo's laziness gets the best of him in this book -- his refusal to put forth enough EFFORT to do well in ESPAÑOL...even to accept Spanish as worth the effort...understandably causes a rift between him and his best friend, Jack, a native Spanish speaker.

I wasn't as patient with Aldo as his parents and his other friends were. I didn't like this completely EGOCENTRIC side of Aldo. But he came through in the end, even sacrificing his Halloween candy, which, if you know Aldo, was a huge sacrifice.

There were lots of fun subplots in this book -- Aldo is reading A WRINKLE IN TIME, and he even makes a "Bacon Boy" (his own original comic character) cartoon retelling of the book. It is raining through most of the book, and Aldo and his friends build dams in the gutters, just like I did when I was a kid. And, because Aldo is doing a report on EINSTEIN and dressing like him for Halloween, there are lots of fun Einstein facts and science EXPERIMENTS woven into the story. (Make sure you don't miss the nod to EDWARD Gorey on the last page of the book!)

Next up in the series are FINICKY (looks like Aldo might need to start eating more healthily) and GLITCH (looks like a take-off on the Grinch).

IT'S A TIGER!

I was thrilled when I found a review copy of IT'S A TIGER in my mailbox from Chronicle Books. The book is written by David LaRochelle and illustrated by Jeremy Tankard. I immediately recognized Tankard's illustrations as he is an illustrator whose work I love (Me Hungry!).

This is a fun book that would make a great read aloud, especially for primary students. In the spirit of WE'RE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT, the narrator takes us through a jungle. We don't go looking for a tiger, but soon into the journey, readers spot a one and must run from it.  Readers are instructed to follow the narrator past vines, up a ladder, and onto an island in order to escape the tiger.  But at every turn, the tiger seems to appear.

This book is due to be released in August.  Right in time for the beginning of the school year!  Young readers will love the surprise and the predictability of this book. The illustrations make it an enjoyable kind of scary and the ending is a treat.  Definitely a great read aloud for primary classrooms. Kids will be dying to join in this journey!

GIANTS BEWARE! A Fun New Graphic Novel

I bought a copy of GIANTS BEWARE by Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre at our Selections Book Fair. I hadn't seen it but it was a hit with the kids.  The cover grabbed my attention immediately and I knew it was a graphic novel that I wanted to read.  I read it last week as one of my #bookaday books and I LOVED it. It might be my new favorite graphic novel. It is perfect for middle grades and middle school. This is the story of Claudette, who lives in a town safe from evil. The town is walled in and no one can go out and one main reason is the giants. But Claudette isn't afraid and she wants to fight the giants rather than hide behind walls. She convinces (slyly and a little dishonestly) her brother and her best friend to accompany her on her journey to slay the giant.   I love this book for so many reasons:

1. I love the characters.  I love the way they are drawn and I love the development of each of the characters' personalities.

2. Claudette is a funny heroine--a female fighter at heart.  She is definitely one of my new favorite characters.

3. The graphics are engaging--I have trouble with graphic novels because I don't often spend enough time with the visuals. This book makes that part easy to do. Lots to look at and make sense of throughout.

4. I love Marie's hair. Marie is Claudette's best friend and she is an aspiring princess.

5. The humor is brilliant. And surprising. Throughout the book, there were these great lines that made me laugh out loud.

6. The combination of scary adventure and fun is perfect for middle graders.

A great read and I am hoping to see more Claudette books sometime soon!

Poetry Friday: Directions

DIRECTIONS
by Connie Wanek


First you'll come to the end of the freeway.
Then it's not so much north on Woodland Avenue
as it is a feeling that the pines are taller and weigh more,
and the road, you'll notice,
is older with faded lines and unmown shoulders.
You'll see a cemetery on your right
and another later on your left.
Sobered, drive on.
                   Drive on for miles
if the fields are full of hawkweed and daisies.
Sometimes a spotted horse
will gallop along the fence. Sometimes you'll see
a hawk circling, sometimes a vulture.

(the whole poem is at The Writer's Almanac)

Today is a traveling day, and this poem seems apt. Especially the part about the horizon (you'll have to read the whole poem).

Happy Friday! Happy Poetry! Jama has the roundup this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup, and as usual, it is drooliciously wonderful!

Go, Go, Grapes!

Go, Go, Grapes! A Fruit Chant

by April Pulley Sayre

Beach Lane Books, 2012

I said it last year when I reviewed Rah, Rah, Radishes!, and I'll say it again this year: April Pulley Sayre is the queen of chants!

She's chanting to the choir with both of these books, but a quick peek at my counter and refrigerator will show that I don't need ANY convincing on the subject of fruit! (How on earth am I going to eat a pint of blueberries, 2 mangoes, a pineapple and a bag of bing cherries before I leave on Friday?!?!)

As with Rah, Rah, Radishes!, Go, Go, Grapes! features vivid photos from farmer's markets and groceries around Ohio and Indiana, along with some guest appearances from a Vietnamese farmer's market in New Orleans for some of the most exotic fruits.

Word study? Check out these JUICY words!

Science? Use this book with your plant unit!

Writing workshop? Go gather up a collection of words on a topic and try writing your own chant!

Creating Ignite Presentations with 4th Graders

One of our big 4th grade projects was our MADE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE PROJECT. As part of this integrated project, each student created an Ignite presentation on a topic/cause they cared about.

I wrote a bit about this during the process but we wanted to capture the process and some samples as a reflective piece as teachers.  I used Kevin Hodgson as a mentor for the Wikispaces we ended up with. I had learned so much from his Video Game Design site and I loved how he captured so much for us to see. Often, especially with new technologies, the learning that leads to the final product is often not easily visible.  When I visited Kevin's site and learned all that went into the gaming unit he did with his 6th graders, the learning was so much easier to see.

Using his site as a type of mentor text, we worked to create a site that captured the 4th grade project. You can visit it here.  It is not quite finished but close enough that I felt that it was worth sharing.

I think as teachers, the messages we are getting from the standardized testing environment seem very different from the messages we are getting from the 21st Century Learning things out there. But if we can capture all that we do and the way that it relates to standards, if we can make the learning of the process more visible for students, community and ourselves, I think we can teach well and students will learn what is needed, no matter what standards we are responsible for.

One of the important things I learned is that putting a wiki or site together after the project is over is nearly impossible.  We were not able to collect and share all that we wanted to because we waited until the end to post and the task was overwhelming.  I think it would be a far better idea to involve kids not only in the project but also in creating a space like this where they can capture their own learning.  So much happened on a day to day basis, that it would be smarter next time, to post daily or every few days and then reorganize as needed.  This site is not exactly as we imagined but it is our first attempt at capturing some of the learning that led up to a final project.  For us, this is a site for us to reflect on the process and to revisit when we plan for future learning.

It is my hope that Kevin Hodgson started something--gave us, as teachers a way to capture the learning that our students do in long-term projects.  If we can all make it a point to share these projects--the learning rather than only the final products, we can help each other and ourselves to teach better. I know Kevin's gaming site helped me incredibly and I am hoping that sharing our Ignite project helps someone else.

Big, Big Plans

gocomics.com

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

(Thanks to Jen and Kellee at TEACH MENTOR TEXTS for creating this great tradition and for rounding up the week's reading!)

It was a good reading week. I started #bookaday and am excited about having a little more time to catch up on reading.  I finished GRACELING by Kristin Cashore which I loved. I love a good fairy tale/fantasy and will probably read the next two in the series too. Definitely as good as Jen and Kellee told me it was when they convinced me to read it!

My #bookaday choices have been mostly short books as the days are already busy. But I created a stack of quick reads for this purpose.  This week I read two graphic novels. FANGBONE by Michael Rex is one I heard about on a few Twitter chats. It is a fun story of a Barbarian who travels forward in time to a school in order to protect an important treasure. It was a fun read and one that middle graders will love. I also had the chance to read the new SQUISH (The Power of the Parasite). This might be my favorite of the three. I like that I can come to expect certain things from these books and the humor has a sophistication that I love.

I also finished my first professional read of the summer:  PUBLIC TEACHING: ONE KID AT A TIME by Penny Kittle. This was one that I just recently discovered. I am a huge fan of Penny Kittle and her work and had somehow missed this book. It was the PERFECT book for summer and one to re- energize teachers. Even though it was written in 2003, it is very timely.  It is really a reminder of who we are and why we teach. Penny shares story after story of students --the stories are genuine and honest.  It is a book of both reflection and celebration and one that helped reground me.

Next up:
CAPTURE THE FLAG by Kate Messner
KEEPING SAFE THE STARS by Sheila O'Connor

May Mosaic

To view on Flickr, go here.

Happy May. Happy June. Happy Summer.

Caine's Arcade in the Library

I had a hard time deciding how to end my time with kids in the library. I am excited to go back to the classroom, but leaving Riverside and the people there was hard. I feel lucky to have been part of the Riverside community.   I thought back to my four years in the library.  I started off my time in the library thinking hard about the spaces for kids, reading and learning. And I redesigned various spaces several times based on evolving goals. I wanted the kids to see the library as a place for more than just checking out books. I wanted them to see it as an energizing place for learning, one that was full of tools and possibilities.  I had big yearly goals, visions for 21st Century Learners, visions based on professional reading and pieces I shared with kids to help expand their view of what the library could be.

I started my time in the library creating a space that welcomed kids and learning.  We shared great books and laughed together a lot. We learned about favorite authors, enjoyed surprise endings and read and read and read.  We added computers and iPads, iPods and ebook readers.  We learned that there were so many tools for learning as we spent time using building toys, games and cameras.  By the middle of this years, students were pretty independent.  They came to the library with an idea of how to spend their time. We usually started our time together with a book, a new website, a game or a new tool I wanted to share. Then kids could choose how to spend their learning time. It looked simple, but it took years to build an environment that welcomed this kind of learning.  I loved standing back and looking at the variety of things kids were doing.

So, as we moved into the last week of school, I couldn't decide how to end our time together.  My gut was to read a good book. How could I go wrong with that? But I wanted to give them more than that.  I knew that I wanted to give them 20 minutes of choice time during their last library class -- they had come to expect it and to use it well. It was important to them as learners and there were really no choices they could make that didn't support their learning in some way.

I finally decided to end the year with each class by sharing the video of Caine's Arcade. Our art teacher had shared it with me and it had inspired us both.  It seemed the perfect way to end the year and our four years together in the library.  Better than a book, it was a message that I thought matched all that I'd been trying to say with our work in the library over four years.




So, I shared the video in the first 10 minutes of our last library classes.  Kids were glued.  They didn't move or make a sound. They smiled as big as Caine smiled as they watched the customers appear in the video. And they were inspired.  I told them at the end of the movie, that I had picked this to show them to kick off their summer. That I hoped they had a summer filled with with reading and writing of course. But to also fill their summers with creating and making and playing.  I felt that it was the right message to end my time with these amazing kids, who I will miss incredibly.  I felt that it was a message I hoped they would remember, one that would inspire them somehow.

I have to say, the impact was immediate. I gave the children 20-25 minutes of choice time after the video. In almost every class, someone created something different BECAUSE they had watched the video. Kids who had been building with straws and connectors for weeks, created games for others to play with these same building tools. They began to look at the building toys with new eyes. Kids who often spent their time writing books, instead created menus for restaurants they planned to create over the summer.  Some students created extensive drawings of dollhouse furniture they might make or cardboard statues they envisioned.  It was amazing and it happened within minutes of watching the video.

I wanted the library to be about possibilities as learners and I hope that it was for many children.  I hope that something in Caine's Arcade helps them to understand that creativity matters and that they have the capacity to create amazing things and to have fun while doing it.

I knew the video would be powerful but didn't realize how powerful it would be. I may start my year in the classroom with the same video. The message it has for our children is a powerful one. It is a video that invites, inspires and validates. It is a video that gives me a vision for what learning is all about.

(Today, I received this link via Facebook from Riverside's amazing art teacher, Drew Jones.  Caine seems to be inspiring learners everywhere!)