I am in awe.

I have a new student. His family has been in the country since November. On his second day in our class, he started teaching me Arabic.

A little with our alphabet, then a little with his.

On the way to the bus at dismissal, we traded words: bus, car, the numbers on the buses.

That was day two.

Yesterday, he taught me manners -- how to say please and thank you.

This morning, he heard us sing happy birthday in six languages to a classmate. He was able to play the multiplication game with me and Google Translate by his side. He practices listening to sounds and spelling simple words with an app on the iPad, followed by a break to play a video game online. I say "10 minutes iPad, 10 minutes video game." He says, with a mischievous smile, "15 minutes video game." I say "15 minutes iPad," and he says, "20 minutes video game!"

This afternoon, he told me, "You America (hand over heart). Me Iraq..." and then he sang me the Iraqi national anthem all the way to the bus. Before he boarded, he told me, "YouTube -- Matahni (spelling is mine) -- you go." So I did, and there it was (Mwtini).

This is a kid with spunk. This is a kid with grit and perseverance. This is a kid who is not going to let school be done to him -- we will work together and there will be learning on both sides. He will see to that. I'm sure he won't let a day go by for the rest of the year that he doesn't teach me something. He already knows that education isn't a one-way street, from the teacher to the student. He knows he has power. His native language gives him power, his ability to learn gives him power, his willingness to collaborate gives him power.

I am in awe of this young man, and thankful that his boat washed up on my shore.

Slow

The Slowest Book Ever
by April Pulley Sayre
illustrated by Kelly Murphy
review copy provided by the publisher
Boyds Mills Press, April 2016

This book is the perfect antidote for the hurry-scurry of the modern world. In order to enjoy it, you must sit on the couch and meander through the chapters in no particular order, spending an entire afternoon learning about and thinking about slow plants, slow animals, slow geological processes, slow art, slow music and imaginary slow motion movies, to name a few topics in this fun book!

At the end of the book are two pages where you can lay your head down while you "mull over the mysteries of inner ears or dark matter."

After that, for the reader who loves to keep going even after "The End," there is an excellent glossary of "Chewy Words," the funnest acknowledgements ever, and entertaining endnotes for "snailish sorts."

And even after you have come to the end of the last page, you won't be finished with your foray into SLOW if you follow April's advice -- you'll be picking up a field guide and heading out into the world for a leisurely walk, ready to stop frequently and gawk appreciatively at the world around you.

Poetry Friday -- Rare

RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

I ran across this video on The Kid Should See This. It filled my heart with love (and concern) for this ball of rock and water upon which we float through space.

beautiful world 

everything we do matters

every single thing

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

And this behind the scenes bit made me laugh out loud:

RARE: Behind the Scenes from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.


Tara has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at A Teaching Life.

Information in So Many Forms

This week, a new episode of The Yarn was released. In this new episode,  author Anne Ursu talks about her book, The Real Boy. I LOVED The Real Boy and read the ARC as soon as it was available. I am a huge Anne Ursu fan so I loved having a bit more information on her process in writing this book. If you do not subscribe to The Yarn, I would definitely recommend it!

This interview with Anne Ursu is the first in a 3 part series. Keep your eye out for the next two in this series where Colby and Travis talk to Tracey Baptiste and Matt Tavares.

The podcast got me thinking about how many interesting ways there are to share information online that weren't available just a few years ago. There are such fascinating little pieces of information out there to share with students around books and literacy.

These little snippets of information really have me thinking about how I approach informational reading and writing in the classroom. They are crafted in a much more informal way and I think there are different skills needed to produce things like this. It is interesting to me, that with all of the ways to share information out there, there is still a lot of "report type" writing and big finished products when it comes to informational writing. I am wondering how I could better spend my time studying pieces like this and helping kids learn to create smaller pieces whose format matches purpose so clearly.

Here are some of my new favorite informational pieces--some for me and some for my students:

Emily Elizabeth Smith was given the Donald Graves Award at this year's NCTE convention. Her classroom sounds amazing and when I visited her class website I found some incredible podcasts on their HIVE RADIO link.  There are many different genres and topics created by her 5th graders.

I recently loved this short interview with Charlotte Huck Award winner, Sharon Draper. In this clip, she talks a bit about her book Stella by Starlight. It is fun to hear an author in person and to hear some extra background about a book I love.

Information like this is everywhere when we know where to look. I love this clip of Loren Long sharing some thoughts about his new book, Little Tree.

Ruth Ayres has created a series of videos that teach writers strategies for better writing.  How much we can learn in these short clips is incredible.

My 3rd graders are huge fans of Steve Harpster's drawing books. Recently they've discovered his YouTube channel and are learning how to draw so many things with these quick videos.

Friends with Fins has been extremely popular with my 3rd graders this year. So much information about the ocean and ocean conservation packed into these short, engaging videos. I especially like this one because Jaclyn talks about the research and how there is not yet a definitive, agreed-upon answer for this question--Do Fish Feel Pain?

I am in the process of collecting things like this for our work informational reading and writing that will begin in January. I am not sure where we'll go with it but I know that I want to think a bit differently about the study this year.

Poetry Friday -- Community

I'm writing a haiku-a-day again this December (inspired loosely by Bob Raczka's The Santa Clauses). I wrote a haiku-a-day last December, too, but it was different last year.

I wrote alone.

This year, I invited my Poetry Month Partner in Craziness, Carol (Carol's Corner) to join me. I put my links out on Twitter and one of my other Poetry Month Partners in Craziness, Steve (Inside the Dog) agreed to come along. Kevin (@dogtrax) is joining in on Twitter. A new writing partner, Leigh Anne Eck (A Day in the Life), has joined in. My students (well, some of them) are writing a haiku-a-day between arrival and morning announcements/beginning of content time.

I am not alone.

And as if I needed to be bludgeoned repeatedly with the idea before it would truly sink in -- I am learning (again) that while the writing habit opens my eyes to the world, encourages me to NOTICE (my One Little Word for the year), and instills discipline, it is the community and the conversations that make it a writing LIFE.

My haikus and the rich conversations in the comments are at Poetrepository, and you can also find us on Twitter: @carwilc @insidethedog @dogtrax @Teachr4 @LoreeGBurns

Here is my haiku for today:

Birthday Wish

I'll be a ginkgo--

golden leaves circling my feet,

one ring wiser.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015

Buffy has the roundup today at Buffy's Blog. The Call For Poetry Friday Roundup Hosts (January-June 2016 edition) post is live here.

Poetry Friday -- Call for Roundup Hosts

It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between January and June 2016, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? I'll post it in the files on the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, and I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. Speaking of the the Kidlitosphere Yahoo group, I'll try to set up reminders on the calendar there (currently it's not letting me in). Plus, I'll put the schedule on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

And now for the where and when:

January

1 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

8 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

15 Keri at Keri Recommends

22 Tara at A Teaching Life

29 Catherine at Reading to the Core

February

5 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

12 Kimberley at Moran Reflections

19 Donna at Mainely Write

26 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass

March

4 Linda at TeacherDance

11 Irene at Live Your Poem

18 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge

25  Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

April

1 Amy at The Poem Farm

8 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

15 Michelle at Today's Little Ditty

22 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup

29 Buffy at Buffy's Blog

May

6 Sylvia at Poetry for Children

13 Violet at Violet Nesdoly | Poems

20 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche

27 Julie at The Drift Record

June

3 Jone at Check it Out

10 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink

17 Carol at Carol's Corner

24 Diane at Random Noodling

Two Great National Geographic Kids Books

Edible Science: Experiments You Can Eat
by Jodi Wheeler-Toppen with Carol Tennant
National Geographic, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

This book is going to be in high demand for Genius Hour projects! How much fun will it be to do science that you can eat?!?

This will also be a great mentor text for Technical Text.

The chapters include Mixing and Unmixing (with projects like Ice Cream in a Bag and Ricotta Cheese); Solids, Liquids, and Yum! (with projects like Baked Alaska and Maple Candy); It's a Gas (with projects like the ever-popular Egg in a Bottle); Actions and Reactions (Jiggling Gelatin and Banana Bread); and Biology in Your Kitchen (Mock Apple Pie and Mealworm Brownies).

All of the instructions are clearly laid out, with the things you need, the things to watch for, the steps to take, and the science behind what happens.

Brain Games: The Mind-Blowing Science of Your Amazing Brain
by Jennifer Swanson
National Geographic, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

This is a great book for browsing. It is organized with challenges for your brain, an explanation of what is happening in your brain during the challenge, and lots of extra information on the topic in the sidebars.

I was fascinated by the sections on long and short term memory, and what happens inside your brain when you try to multi-task. Hmm...wonder why those sections popped out at me?  :-)

2 Books to Help Children Think About Changing the World

I am exited to share these two books with my 3rd graders as we learn about our own community and ways we can help make our communities and our world better.

31 Ways to Change the World  is based on the idea that "Small Actions X Lots of People = Big Change".  The book is filled with ideas of things kids can do to make things better. They are small things such as "Make Someone Smile" and "Don't Charge Your Phone Overnight".  Each idea gives an explanation of how this helps.  The layout for each idea is different so kids can read the pages in any order they wish. This is not a book that needs to be read cover-to-cover.

Can We Help: Kids Volunteering to Help Their Communities by George Ancona shares many ways kids help in their communities.  The book is filled with the ways kids of all ages can help in their communities and the photos show them in action.  There is a good variety of volunteer opportunities that I can see readers being inspired by one or more of the ideas shared. The book also gives the  message that volunteering and doing things for your community is a fun way to spend your time. 

November Mosaic

November is always such a gallop, what with mammo/onco appointments, parent conferences, report cards, 5th grade concert...but lookie there...I took time for a coloring page at The James, a concert at Natalie's, a bonfire,  and a bike ride before NCTE, plus a lovely afternoon at the Audubon Metropark as our Black Friday #OptOutside after NCTE. And of course, NCTE was all kinds of loveliness in the middle of all that other craziness!

You can see the images in this mosaic on Flickr here.

A Fine Dessert....What Does This Mean for Teachers?

Last month, there was an online conversation around the picture book, A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall that expanded my thinking about the idea of teacher-as-reader/teacher-as-decision-maker.

A Fine Dessert was published earlier this year and has received several starred reviews by major reviewers such as School Library Journal and Booklist. It is a book that is loved by children and teachers everywhere. It has been talked about as a possible Caldecott contender on the blog Calling Caldecott (here and here).

Then issues were brought up about the book and its depiction of slavery (A Fine Dessert: Sweet Intentions, Sour Aftertaste).  Sophie Blackall responded, explaining her process and the thoughtful choices she made as illustrator.  Honestly, it was something I completely missed and overlooked and like the author of Reading While White, I am a bit disappointed with myself for missing it.

(To catch up on the entire conversation, you can find many of the posts and a timeline of many events on Debbie Reese's blog.)

The conversation last month was a long, intense conversation that happened mainly through blogs and Twitter.  I listened in to the conversation daily and tried to keep up with all that everyone was saying about this book and the issues surrounding it. Social media is a tricky way to have conversations like this because lots of people jump in and out of conversations and sometimes 140 characters isn't enough to dig into a topic this big.

So, what does this mean for teachers?  As teachers we need to be readers. But we also need to be readers of discussions like this one so that we understand as much as we can about the books we put in our classrooms and in the hands of children.  Here are the big take-aways I had after thinking about this for a few weeks.  These are the things I've learned from the conversation:

1. This is one reason many of us are on social media--to hear different perspectives, to learn from people we did not always have the opportunities to learn from, to grow in our thinking.  I've always believed strongly that teachers need to be readers, but this online controversy reminded me of the reasons I spend so much time reading book reviews, blogs, etc. Not only do I need to be a reader of books, but I need to be a reader of all that surrounds a book if I am going to make good decisions about the books to share with my students.  Whether you agree with the opinions of others or not, being aware of perspectives of others is important in our work.

2. This is not about one book--it is much bigger than that.  Even though the conversation felt focused on a book and individual people, this is really a bigger issue than that.  And it has been an issue for a very long time.  If you aren't aware of the campaign, We Need Diverse Books or the NCTE Resolution on The Need for Diverse Children's and Young Adult Books, they are important to know about. I also think Roger Sutton's piece, We're Not Rainbow Sprinkles, in last month's Horn Book is worth a read on this issue.

3. There was very little teacher voice in the conversation. And I believe that our voice needs to be part of this conversation.  We need to respect the teacher-as-decision-maker in these and all conversations and I didn't see that happening in this conversation. Ultimately, we are the ones who make decisions about which books are in our classroom libraries.  I remember years ago, reading the issue surrounding an Alvin Ho book. I realized then how many things we need to think about as teachers when we choose books for our classrooms.

4. Change happens because of the conversations. It doesn't  happen overnight but it does happen. Betsy Bird recently shared a post about the new edition of Ladybug Girl and Debbie Reese shared many books whose stereotypic depictions have been changed in recent years. This is all good news for children.

5. Social media is a tricky place to have hard conversations. Conversations without judging is key--we can have heated conversations that help us all grow and understand our own biases. It seemed that early on, as people were making sense of the issue, some people were unintentionally shut down a bit when they didn't agree immediately. And this was a conversation between a group of people who ultimately spend their lives working to get diverse, quality books into the hands of children.  This was a group of people working toward the same goals. I learned that there will be missteps in language as we each make sense of our own biases and make sense of some of these issues.  It seems we have to be a bit more careful when we are having conversations on social media--careful so that we broaden the conversation--so that we invite more people in instead of unintentionally shutting people out.