Have you seen Zigazoo?

 

Have you seen the new app, Zigazoo? Zak Ringelstein, co-founder of Zigazoo describes it as a "Tik-Tok for kids."  I discovered this app early this summer. I discovered it right about the time I was getting disheartened with all of the tech tools that went against so much of what I know about children and their learning.  When I saw Zigazoo, I was so happy to see something that is so grounded in what we know about children and their learning.  This app is brilliant--it shows all that technology can be for kids. It invites playfulness, and creativity and joy.  You can read more here, here, and here. 

Zigazoo is a Video Sharing App that gives kids of all ages (mostly preschool and elementary although it seems fun for adults too!) a daily challenge.  The challenge could be anything from "What's the Weather?" to "Can you make a treasure map?" to "Can you make a hopscotch design?" to "Can you read to a stuffed animal?"  to "What math problems can you make with 5 things around home?" And kids respond with a video.  Every single day, a new question for kids to answer.

I love that the questions are interesting to so many ages. I also love how open-ended they are and how many different ways kids can respond. Kids can work on these alone or with families. They can spend 2 minutes or 200 minutes.  Everyone can approach things in a way that makes sense for them.  For families looking for fun things to do, this seems perfect. 

There are also huge education benefits. The topics cover pretty much everything from music to science to literacy. The app builds oral language skills as kids work to think through and explain.  It invites creativity and confidence. Kids in charge and sharing their own brilliance every single day.  And it highlights the power of technology. Zigazoo has created a safe online environment for kids to use technology to share learning and to learn from the ideas of others.  So many lessons about digital literacy and being a digital citizen in one fabulous app.

Zigazoo has grown incredibly since I discovered it.  They have projects organized in a few different ways and they are adding more exciting components. I see so many possibilities for families and classrooms and it is a piece of pure joy during this pandemic. It seems like the perfect invitation to use this time at home well and to create fun!

With remote learning (or not), I see huge possibilities for Zigazoo in the classroom.  Remember when I started the Solve It Your Way site? I have always believed that when we throw out a question for kids, they have the chance to show their brilliance in ways we could never imagine. I see Zigazoo as an app that does this--invites kids of all ages to show and celebrate their brilliance, to share their thinking and to find joy in learning. 

Zigazoo has also worked on safety and moderation and you can read more about this on their safety page.  

I had a chance to talk with Zak Ringelstein, Zigazoo's developer last week and I asked him a few questions. 

What is your hope for families and classrooms?

During such a challenging time, our first hope is that Zigazoo's projects and video creation tools simply make life a little less stressful by removing some of the planning burden. Our other hope is that families and classrooms can find joy in the learning process together by doing Zigazoo projects that engage them in the stuff that matters. Life is already stressful enough and we feel like students should be exploring and creating and dreaming and growing in their self-confidence with peers instead of doing meaningless busywork quietly over a video call. Zigazoo is built in the philosophy of project-based learning, where children have ownership over their own learning and aren't just regurgitating facts.

Which have been the fan favorites of daily challenge?

Students like hands-on activities in all subjects, but I have really enjoyed watching students fall in love with science! They've loved exploding ziplock bags with chemical reactions and making slime in their kitchen and doing "sink-or-float" challenges and making raisins dance in seltzer water. Of course, students also like to sing and dance and do yoga and find ways to express their emotions through social-emotional learning activities.

What features other than the Daily Challenge are on the app or coming soon?

Starting next week, teachers can create their own private communities where they can assign Zigazoo projects to students. In early September, we have invited museums, zoos, puppet acts, children's musicians, authors, and more to create their own channels on Zigazoo! Teachers will be able to use their media to jumpstart projects with their students.

We know that our students know how to use technology for entertainment. And, as I've said for years, I think it is our responsibility, as schools and families, to help our students see the power of digital tools for learning. Zigazoo is definitely a learning app that is also VERY entertaining. Zigazoo is a free app with so many possibilities for families and classrooms. Check it out!

#pb10for10 10 Pictures Books for the First Weeks of School

August 10 has become one of my favorite days of the year--one of my favorite holidays. And this year, with the pandemic and closed libraries and no book gatherings with friends, I feel like I have not been able to keep up on picture books like I usually do. So, I am especially looking forward to #pb10for10 today. Thanks so much to Mandy Robek and Cathy Mere for hosting this fabulous event each year.  This year, lists are posted on Mandy's blog at Reflect and Refine. I can't wait to see all of the lists!

This year, I've been thinking of how important the beginning of the year is, and how books help us anchor community and literacy early in the school year.  Intentional book choice is always so important during those first weeks and months of school and with remote or hybrid learning, the books we share will be even more important.

I choose books that invite starting conversations that will extend through the whole school year. I want my students to know the joy of readings, the power of rereading, the connections that help you understand yourself and those that help you better understand others. I want them to see that in our intellectual community, their contribution matters.  The books I choose to share early in the year let me get to know my students and my choices also let my students envision what our community might become. 

This year's list is a list of 10 picture books I'd share early in the school year--not necessarily during the first day or weeks, but sometime over the first 6 weeks of school, I'd be sure to fit these in.

Below I've included links to the books as well as a downloadable/printable pdf of the list that you can download if that's more convenient.

You Matter by Christian Robinson

Nana Akua Goes to School by Tricia Elam Walker

A Plan for Pops by Heather Smith

Spencer's New Pet by Jessie Sima

Your Name is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow

Dictionary for a Better World by Irene Latham and Charles Waters

Brave Molly by Brooke Boynton-Hughes

Saturday by One Mora

Be a Friend by Salina Yoon

Lift by Minh Lê and Dan Santat 

(All books are linked to Bookshop. Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. Check out their "About" page for more info.)

Poetry Friday -- Don't Forget to Wear a Helmet

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Don't Forget to Wear a Helmet

We're there.

Top of the ramp,

crest of the rollercoaster's lift hill,

poised to commit to -- submit to -- the will

of gravity.

Let go.

Fly and fall

with stomach-dropping fear.

Lean into curves, anticipate apogees.

Transform possibility into reality.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

This poem was inspired by Seth Godin's post today, Drop In. I especially liked this line, "The worse you can do is half."

Laura has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Writing the World for Kids.

Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Such an important book. So thankful that Kimberly Brubaker Bradley made this accessible for younger readers. Della and Suki are characters that will be with me for a long time. If you have a daughter, make sure she reads this.

From the acknowledgements: "...a novel for ten-year-olds featuring sexual assault, a suicide attempt, foster care, homelessness, meth addiction, and eighty-six uses of the word snow." (She uses "snow" as a replacement for curses.)

This was a work of heart for Bradley. It is amazingly well-crafted and age-appropriate. The parallel storyline of the boy in Della's classroom who harasses the girls with "bra strap snapping" and the way Della finds her voice to get the adults to pay attention and to get him to stop...SUCH good modeling for our girls. The actual words about consent that they can use when it happens to them. 

I also loved finding HOW TO STEAL A DOG tucked into the story doing what books are meant to do  (and what Bradley's book does) -- lets the reader know that they aren't the only one. Not the only one who's been homeless and living in their car, not the only one wears free clothes, not the only one who's been sexually assaulted. 

You will want to read this. It's hard, but it's laced with humor and love. 

Poetry Friday -- Open to Interpretation

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if it's a bow
its string is pulled taut...
summer field

弓と弦なら弓を引け夏の原
yumi [to] tsuru nara yumi wo hike natsu no hara

"A haiku about hunting. Issa paints us a picture (disturbing for the animals in the field and, I think, to Issa too) of every bowstring pulled back, a notched arrow ready to fly." --David Gerard

David Gerard goes with a literal interpretation of this haiku. I see it figuratively -- that brief moment when everything is ripe and full, or any moment when you're holding your breath, waiting to see what will happen. Based on my interpretation, here are a few versions I would propose:

if it's a bow

its string is pulled taut...

return to school plan

if it's a bow

its string is pulled taut...

thunderstorm

if it's a bow

its string is pulled taut...

cat in the window

What's your take on this haiku? I hope you'll share your version in the comments.

Catherine has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Reading to the Core.

Poetry Friday -- Summer of 2020

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Summer of 2020

Happiness is morning light
and -- except for birdsong -- silence.
A book to get lost in,
and a cup of tea to begin

a day soaked by rain.
It will not stay
cool, but at least starts
pleasantly, unmarked

by stress and worry
about all that is unsure.
Hold this moment close.
Capture this fragment of hope.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020


Margaret has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Reflections on the Teche.

Poetry Friday -- Say Her Name

This is SUCH an important book, and it is incredibly humbling to realize that I am not the intended audience. What a (white) privilege it is, that for almost all of my life I could open any book and find some version of me or a life somewhat like mine between the covers. As I read this book, I humbly looked over the shoulder of my BIPOC students and colleagues to read the "Poems to Empower" that were written with them in mind.

In the acknowledgements, Zetta Elliott shares that discovering Black women writers was a recent experience for her, too, but a very different experience from mine: "When you realize that your small, soft voice is actually part of a chorus, you begin to sing with more confidence." From the introduction: "We do have allies, but some days it feels like all we have is each other. This book of poetry is for us. I love us."

The book begins with a trio of haiku, and then every seven (or so) poems there is another set of three haiku. I love how these three short punches slow the reader down to breathe and process. After the final three haiku, there are notes for many of the poems that illuminate Elliott's mentors (Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, James Brown, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Gwendolyn Brooks [her two poems inspired by "We Real Cool" are AMAZING], and many others).

Here is the final haiku:

stop killing us stop

killing us stop killing us

stop killing us STOP

©Zetta Elliott, 2020

This book is best suited for middle school and high school students, and adults.

Jan has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Bookseed Studio.

Poetry Friday -- Fallibility

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FALLIBILITY

I am flawed. I make mistakes. I fail.
Miserably, and in cringe-worthy ways. All
the time. Yet I lift
myself up and flail
away at life, flatly
refusing to give up, refusing to take the bait
of “good enough.” I have the ability
to see the light in my aspirations, so I need to stand tall
and not bail
myself out with an alibi.
I’ll
not be a liability.
I’ll
try
and try
until I fly.
Until we all fly.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

I tried the new poetry form introduced by April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors last May -- In One Word. I started with the word FALLIBILITY. I used an online word generator to find all the words that are inside FALLIBILITY. Then I wrote my poem, using those words as the last word in each line.

Doing the internal work of antiracism is hard. It's painful to unpack privilege, to understand that I have harmed children (and colleagues) with my blindness, to lose my individuality and take group responsibility as a white person for systems of inequity perpetuated by whiteness. No matter how hard the work is, no matter how many times I fail, I have to get right back up and keep going. I have to stick with it for the long haul.

Ruth has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at There is no such thing as a God-Forsaken town.

Poetry Friday -- If

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If it weren't for the fireflies'
Nightly silent
Fireworks
I might have forgotten how much we
Need even tiny sparks of magic
In our lives
To remind us of the size of
Eternity.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020

It has been so delightful to spend the week with the word IF! Thank you, Charles and Irene for the call for poems using IF as the first word of the first line.

I have poem notes and drafts in my writer's notebook between notes from Phil Bildner's talk on BookLove, Dr. Paul Thomas' NCTE/LLA talk "Teaching Without a Deficit Lens," Kelly Gallagher and Julia Torres' talk on BookLove, Cornelius Minor's NCTE Member chat, and April Baker Bell's NCTE talk about her book Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity and Pedagogy. It's been the kind of week that has needed poetry woven throughout.

This poem got a lot of love when I polled adults and former students. But the more I thought about Heidi's feedback, the more I realized that it was the other one that needs to be submitted...after I revise the ending. Thanks, Heidi!

Linda has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at A Word Edgewise. She's got an In One Word Poem for us today.

It's Time to Get Rid of Some "Classics" in Elementary Classrooms

Recently I read this article in School Library Journal--Weeding Out Racism's Invisible Roots: Rethinking Children's Classics by Padma Venkatraman. There is a lot to think about in this article and a lot of actions to take once we do that thinking.

If you follow #DisruptTexts, they've also really pushed my thinking about the books I have in my classroom, the books I read aloud, the books I recommend to students. We are so lucky to have Tricia Ebarvia, Lorena German, Dr. Kim Parker, and Julia Torres pushing our thinking and sharing their expertise. Their mission (stated on their website) it is:

"Disrupt Texts is a crowdsourced, grass roots effort by teachers for teachers to challenge the traditional canon in order to create a more inclusive, representative, and equitable language arts curriculum that our students deserve. It is part of our mission to aid and develop teachers committed to anti-racist/anti-bias teaching pedagogy and practices."

Much of the work around rethinking the canon is connected to secondary classrooms. When we think of the "canon" we think of high school English classes. But there is definitely a canon in elementary schools. There are classic books that we have deemed "must have/must read" titles for our students. There are books that are grade level reads across a school or district. There are books that as individual teachers, we have committed to reading every year in our own classrooms. We hold onto them because we say, "Every child needs to read this book because I loved it." or "Every child needs to read this book because every class I've read it to has loved it."

Much of our commitment to these classics is about nostalgia. I love The Secret Garden and A Little Princess. My mother read both to me when I was in elementary school and I have great personal memories of them. I imagine during my first years of teaching I probably read them aloud to my 4th graders because I believed it was important to share books I loved so my students too could love reading. But when I revisit these books now, I realize the racist (and other) issues in both and would never read them aloud to students now. Dr. Laura Jiménez was the person who helped me understand the role of nostalgia in teacher book choice. In the article, The Overwhelming White, Straight, and Able Face of Children's Literature (Michigan Reading Journal, Fall 2018) she says, "Literacy gatekeepers want to share their experiences with important literature with their students." She then adds, "One major issue literary gatekeepers have is the assumption that a book that was good for them is good for all readers."

I have been thinking about my own personal nostalgia since listening to what Dr. Jiménez says about nostalgia. I have also been thinking of teacher nostalgia. I realize there are several books that were staple read-alouds during my early years in the classroom. I remember reading these books aloud to children and remembering them as anchors for joy around reading. I also remember these books as being popular with students in the years I did not read them aloud.  The Indian in the Cupboard and Touching Spirit Bear are two that stand out to me. At the time, I would have considered these fabulous choices for read aloud and independent reading. They were well reviewed by professional journals, well loved by students and really invited lots of incredible conversations. It didn't take me long to see the racism in The Indian in the Cupboard but in all honesty, it took me a while to give up Touching Spirit Bear. This misrepresentation in this book was less visible to me, but just as harmful. I am thankful for Dr. Debbie Reese's blog for helping me see the things I missed.

There are so many books that we hold onto as teachers and we have to stop. I have learned to recognize and ignore my own nostalgia when choosing books to share in the classroom.  I have learned that I can't let nostalgia get in the way of my professional responsibility. The nostalgia I have for certain books--either from my childhood or as a teacher -- cannot be the excuse I use to justify keeping these books in my classroom. 

Dr. Seuss and Laura Ingalls Wilder are just two authors that elementary teachers tend to hold onto. I recently read this NPR article about the reasons classics have such staying power. One point was, "And when planning lessons from year to year, it's easier for teachers to prioritize books they're already familiar with. But when these books include offensive stereotypes, teachers have to decide whether to continue teaching them and how."

It's time we all take a hard look at our classroom libraries and really look at the books we have, the books we hand to children, the books we use in mini lessons, and the books we choose to read aloud.   We have to ask ourselves questions like --Am I keeping this because I loved it as a child? Am I reading a book aloud because I always start the year with this one? We have to be honest with ourselves about the reasons we keep them.

And then we have to let some of our old favorites go. 

We don't have to let go of the happy memories we personally have of these books, But we must look past our own nostalgia to disrupt the elementary "canon" in our schools and classrooms. 

I am going to end with one more quote from Dr. Laura Jiménez, "You can hold onto the stories that build you at the very same time you are reaching for stories that will help the next generation of readers see themselves and others in this complex world."