Nevada Reading Week

Nevada Reading Week starts today! This year’s theme is “Read It, Dream It, Do It!”
This weeks activities include:
Monday: Backwards Day

• 9:05 - Mystery Book (An adult reads a passage from their favorite children’s book during the opening flag ceremony. Students guess the title and submit their guesses in box during lunchtime.)
• 12:35 - Reading Bingo (Each class prepares a bingo sheet with authors and character names.)
• ???? - Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) (Sometime during the day an alarm will sound and everyone in the school will stop what they are doing and read until their teacher tells them to stop.)
• 2:55 - Whole School Story Time - Geronimo Stilton Book 1: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye (Everyone will listen to a book read over the intercom. We will start the book on Monday and finish on Friday.)

Tuesday: T-Shirt Day (READ IT)

• 9:05 - Mystery Book
• 9:10 - Storyteller Indiana Bones (Assembly in Multi-Purpose Room)
• 12:35 - Reading Bingo
• ???? - DEAR
• 2:55 - Whole School Story Time
• - Geronimo Stilton Book 1: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

Wednesday: Pajama Day (DREAM IT)

• 9:05 - Mystery Book
• 12:35 - Reading Bingo
• ???? - DEAR
• 2:55 - Whole School Story Time - Geronimo Stilton Book 1: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

Thursday: Live Your Dream Day (DO IT) (Dress like your future self – Dream BIG)

• 9:05 - Mystery Book
• 12:35 - Reading Bingo
• ???? - DEAR
• 2:55 - Whole School Story Time - Geronimo Stilton Book 1: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye

Friday: Extreme Red, White & Blue Day

• 9:05 - Mystery Book
• 12:35 - Reading Bingo
• 12:55 - Whole School Story Time - Geronimo Stilton Book 1: Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye (After Bingo so kids have time in the afternoon to take AR test)
• ???? - DEAR

READING CHALLENGE:
4 Million Words read during Reading Week!
If we meet the challenge, Mr. Paul, our principal, will make pancakes for everyone who contributed.

Information Problem-Solving

Oh my! time really got away from me. I knew it had been a while since I last posted on my blog, but 3 months? I’m so ashamed. Oh well, the new year brings new resolve. There are a couple of books and series that I want to review, but I’ll save those for another post. Today I want to write about what we’ll be doing in library for the next several weeks.

One of the big pushes in education right now is for students to be able to read and use informative text materials in order to solve information problems. Simply stated that means kids need to know how to do research. It doesn’t have to be research on a grand scale. It can be for a school assignment or it might just be finding information about something that interests the student personally. The steps to solving these information problems are the same.

The process we’ll be using is called the Big6. The Big6 was developed by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz way back in the 1990s. The process consists of six steps (the name was a big tip off).

1. Task Definition

2. Information Seeking Strategies

3. Location and Access

4. Use of Information

5. Synthesis

6. Evaluation

The fourth graders will use this process to learn more about a historical figure of their choosing while the fifth graders will use it to learn more about a specific country that they will pick.

The kindergarteners, first, second and third graders will use a simpler process called the Super3 to learn about animals. The Super3 was also created by Eisenberg and Berkowitz and includes the  three steps: Plan, Do, Review. Each of these three steps include one or more Big6 steps. Plan is a combination of steps 1, 2, & 3. Do combines steps 4 & 5. The last step, Review, is pretty much the same as step 6, Evaluation.

Moon Over Manifest

Clare Vanderpool won the 2011 John Newbery Medal for her book Moon Over Manifest. “The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year.” (http://www.ala.org)  I think any author would be excited to win the Newbery Award, especially when it was their first book. When asked how happy she was to win the award, on a scale of 1-10, Clare Vanderpool answered, “15!” Sounds pretty excited to me.

Moon Over Manifest is pretty interesting. The main story is about a young girl, Abilene, that is sent to live with her father’s friend in the small town of Manifest, Kansas, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. She tries to learn what her father, Gideon, was like when he was a little boy living in Manifest. When she finds a box of mementos, letters, and a map that she believes once belonged to her father, Abilene pieces together much of the town’s history and secrets. Part of the story is told from the perspective of a boy named Jinx who lived in Manifest during the time of the United States involvement in World War I (1917-1918).

When I first started reading Moon Over Manifest, I have to admit, I was not immediately hooked. But as I kept reading I became very interested in the story’s characters and in the history of Manifest. The more I read, the more it felt like the town itself was the main character of the story, not Abilene or Jinx. I believe that where we live and grow up has a major influence on our lives and how we turn out as adults. I’m sure that I would be a very different person if I grew up in a big city rather than the small town where I did. The people and customs of the area gave me a different perspective of life than that of many other people that I know. We’re lucky at our school that we live where we do.

I’m glad I didn’t give up on this book in the first couple of chapters, because I would have missed out on a wonderful, heart-warming story. It was a good read, but perhaps not for everyone. As is so often the case, just because you can read and understand the words in the book, doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to follow and understand the deeper meaning of the story. And that’s OK. That’s why there are so many books out there.

Quick Contest

1 FREE POSTER from the Book Fair to the first one of my students to leave a comment on this post. Remember to be polite and safe when online. Never use your full name or give out personal information without your parents approval. Personal information includes your phone number or address. When using your name online, just give your first name and the initial of your last name or make up a screen name that you like. Use Your Netsmartz (UYN)!

This contest ends Friday, September 21.

Book Fair Time

It’s time, once again, for the Scholastic Book Fair. This is an exciting time of the year when we get to buy new books. We’ll be running the fair in the library from Wednesday, September 12 to Friday, September 21. Every year as I unpack and set up the fair I look through the books to see what’s new and this year’s batch of books look pretty fun. So come on in and look to see what you can buy for yourself or for someone special. Remember, “a book is a gift you can open again and again” (Garrison Keillor, 1942 -).

This year you can also shop our Online Book Fair. Go to the website (search by state and town or just enter our zip code, 89025) and shop away . Although it’s not as fun as actually holding the books and looking through the pages, there are more selections online than they can actually pack on the truck to send to our school. There are books for all levels, preschool to adults. You can send wish lists and eCards to family and friends that live far away and they can buy too. Whatever you buy online gets shipped to the school at the end of the fair. That way you don’t have to pay shipping.

I appreciate all that you buy at the book fair. Not only do you put great, fun literature into the lives of your kids, but the profits from the fair go to buying more books for the library, thus putting more literature into the lives of your kids.

9/11 - Patriot Day

Tuesday, September 11, 2012, will be the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attack that crashed 4 large passenger planes, 2 into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, 1 into the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and 1 into a field in Pennsylvania. Most adults can tell you exactly where they were when they heard the news, but most of our elementary students weren’t even born yet. A couple of years ago I put together a little video to commemorate the event and to educate our students about what happened on that dreadful day. I used photographs that were posted on the Internet and set them to Mariah Carey’s song: Hero. I hope you are touched by the video and that we never forget 9/11 and how it changed all of our lives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgrAWnAjOtc

Inheritance Cycle

Over Labor Day weekend I finished reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. This was the fourth and supposedly last book in what the author calls the “Inheritance Cycle.” Most people I talk to just call it the “Eragon Series.” This is the story of a poor, orphan, farm boy (Eragon) that discovers a dragon egg while out hunting. The dragon hatches and grows and Eragon becomes a Dragon Rider. He is thrust into a giant struggle against the evil emperor Galbatorix. Eragon must learn to control magic as well as his own mind to fight the emperor’s army and other magicians.

I really liked the story. It was exciting and full of interesting characters. What makes it even more amazing is that the story was started when Christopher Paolini was only 15. After he wrote the first book, Eragon, his family helped him publish it. After selling the book on their own for a while it was finally picked up by a major publishing company that was able to really sell it worldwide. Christopher went on to write the sequel, Eldest, and then what was supposed to be the final book, Brisingr. He had too much story to just fit into three books so Inheritance became the fourth and final book.

As I already said, I really liked the story. I didn’t always like the writing, though. I thought that the author got a little long-winded at times. He would go on and on about things that maybe provided some background, but didn’t really move the story along. But just when I was about to give it up because I was frustrated with the story, Chris Paolini would save the day with some really great action. I would definitely recommend this book and this series, but only to those who are not afraid of sifting through tons of pages to pull out a real gem of a story.