Read Across America Week

Aside from dressing up as book characters, my library and school participated in Read Across America by decorating bulletin boards and doors and by having a "DEARathon" in the library! I had students signed up to read silently in the library all during that week. Unfortunately, we had two snow days the week of RAA, but we continued it the next week and had a lot of fun doing it. Teachers and students worked really hard to come up with creative ideas.

Here are some pictures of our spectacular boards, doors, and some of our littles reading in the library!

DEARathon readers

PreK littles in Cat in the Hat hats!

Library bulletin board

Fifth grade

Roald Dahl - Fourth grade

Laura Numeroff - Fourth grade

Fairy Tales - Fifth Grade

Fairy Tales - Fifth Grade

Patricia Polacco - 4th Grade

Fairy Tales - Fifth grade

 

 

Read Across America and WRAD14 "Read It Forward"

For World Read Aloud Day 2014, this is my week four post. I am very behind in my blog posting due to spring break and very busy with pet sitting, planning for digital citizenship lessons, and on and on and on!

Anyway, the final post for WRAD was to be a video of yourself reading aloud. Well, I am very self-conscience about being video-taped, but I did it. Then I accidentally ;0) deleted the video. So, here is a picture of me on WRAD 2014 reading aloud a book from one of my favorite series for young girlies, Silverlicious! I dressed as Pinkalicious that day at school and had a blast reading to many littles during the day. I chose to read Silverlicious because I knew that I was going to dress as Pinkalicious, the main character, that day.

I love to dress up, and so for every day we were in school that week (Sadly, only 3 days.), I dressed up as a book character! I've included pictures below of all of my fun costumes. 

Fly Guy!

 

Kids and adults alike love to try and figure out who I am dressing as when I decide to do it. I think it adds to the story as I am reading and it makes people laugh and be entertained. I did get some funny looks driving to and from work!



Miss Viola Swamp

The two days I didn't dress up, my costumes were to be of Harriet the Spy and Amelia Bedelia. I will just have to save them for another time! I hope you enjoy my pictures. If you like to dress up as book characters, please tell me about it in the comments below!
 

Teaching is Theater

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.” –Gail Goodwin

I found this quote on the Two Writing Teachers blog page of quotes and it struck me that I've been a really good actor for many years! I've been acting teaching now for 24 years, and sometimes I think I deserve an Oscar!

How many times, on extremely difficult days, do we paste a smile on our faces for our kids? All of us do that more than we probably admit. I've known educators, school nurses, teacher assistants, cafeteria workers, custodians, secretaries, and administrators who have had to "buck up" and "man up" when they were diagnosed with a devastating medical condition or lost a family member. Did they give up or show up angry or mad? No! They continued to put on their happy face and dedicate themselves to their art - teaching and caring for kids. This kind of behavior deserves recognition. So, to all of you who show up, even when you're down, you deserve this:

 

 

 

A Snapshot of My Reading Life

This is Week 3 of the World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge. We are to post a picture that gives readers a glimpse into our reading lives and share a short narrative explaining why the picture is meaningful. Honestly, the picture isn't all that meaningful, but the books certainly are!

Here I am in my school's library with a display of books that have, in one way or another, shaped my life. Some of them are by favorite authors, some are books that helped me see another's point of view, some are from my childhood, and some are books I have come to love just recently.

Someone once said that every book you read helps to shape the person you become. I truly believe that. I have tried to instill this type of "book love" to all my students (and other teachers and friends) for the 23 years that I have been a teacher and librarian. I really wanted to take a picture of me completely buried by books. I didn't do that, though, because I didn't want to re-shelve all those books!

Please share your favorite book or books with me in the comments below!

World Read Aloud Day Week 2 "Now & Then"

This post was meant for Week 2 of WRAD14: February 17-23

This week's post:

Answer the following questions twice. The first time, answer how you would have when you were 10 years old (or any age from elementary school that you remember clearly) and the second time, answer in the present.

1. I think everyone in the world should read ... (because they teach you how to treat others)

When I was 10: Harriet the Spy
Now: The Hundred Dresses

2. If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be...

When I was 10: Mrs. Shuck, my second grade teacher
Now: My grandma

3. When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is...

When I was 10: Violet in The Boxcar Children
Now: The little bird in Are You My Mother?

4. The genre that takes up the most room on my bookshelf (or e-reader) is...

When I was 10: Realistic Fiction
Now: Nonfiction on all subjects: gardening, crafting, life lessons, etc.

5. The last book I wish I'd written or inspired me to write my own story is...

When I was 10: Follow My Leader (About a boy who becomes blind. I wanted to train seeing-eye dogs after reading that book.)
Now: The Happiness Project at Home (I actually began a blog after reading that book, but I don't have time to keep up with it.)

This was a fun post! I had almost forgotten about a few of these books!

 

World Read Aloud Day 2014 Week 1

The question posed to bloggers in the reading community is "What do you think is special about reading aloud"? This post was meant for the Week of February 10-16.

I believe what makes reading aloud special is the intimacy that is created between the reader and the audience, whether it be one person or many. Some of my favorite memories as a child were of my mom and dad reading aloud to me and my sisters. I felt cherished in these moments as I sat on their lap and later, next to them on my bed or in a cozy chair.

Me, my Dad, and my sister with our cat, Pretzel.

 



A great thing about reading aloud a book in your classroom is the shared vocabulary that you can create with your students. Over the years, my classes have gotten to know characters like Charlotte, Harriet, Brian, Miss Viola Swamp, and Clifford. Read aloud books have helped us become a community by learning how to get along with one another and supporting one another just like Brother and Sister Bear; being scared together reading Skeleton Man; learning about death in The Tenth Good Thing About Barney and Bridge to Terabithia.

As a librarian, I am lucky enough to get to share read aloud books many times a day. It is my very favorite thing about being a librarian. I am planning to celebrate World Read Aloud Day 2014 by simply reading aloud to all the classes that I can. This is the first WRAD I have actually celebrated in my library, so I am looking forward to it very much.

Shelving- the bane of a librarian's existence

Every day in our library, my library assistant and I check in and out an average of 300 or so books in the library. It doesn't occur to many people what happens to those books after they return them. I'll tell you: they stack up! On my lucky days, I have a most wonderful assistant who does the work of the "magical shelving fairy" and puts all those books back in their cozy little spots on the shelves. No! Book characters don't climb out of the books and drag their bound volumes across the expanse of carpet and place themselves between their shelf mates. Library fairies do that! It is the most thankless and least thought of job in any library.

I visit my local public library about once a month for various reasons and I've seen those fairies there, too. Pushing heavy carts full of picture books, adventures, mysteries, poetry, and thick novels bound for their proper place among the tomes. To these volunteers and employees, and especially to my assistant: I give a humble THANK YOU for a well done job. Your fairy wings and magic wand are deserved and we librarians and library patrons are grateful.

New Resources in the Library

I'm always excited to receive new books for our library. Mr. Larry Miller donated three new books to our library . He shared his love of the history of Harriet Tubman by reading Moses to a third grade class. It is already checked out to one of those students.

I have found that when someone else recommends a book because they read it and loved it, people choose to read that book. A case in point: I read Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper because it was on the Oklahoma Sequoyah Book Award list for 2013. It is a fantastic book! I did a book talk on the book after I had finished it and several students checked it out. They recommended that their teacher read it aloud to the whole class and they returned the book today - many tears were shed for the main character and how she was bullied and a lot of good discussion was had in the classroom.

Our principal, Mrs. Templeman purchased sets of books that will be used with the school's math curriculum. They are very interesting and informative. They integrate reading with math seamlessly!

I just finished reading the first book in the Seekers series by Erin Hunter. It was wonderful! Now I feel confident in referring students and teachers to that series. I had read the Warriors series several years ago because a third grade student of mine recommended it to me. The fantasy stories are so creative and the characters are deep!

What are you reading?

Read Across America DEARathon

It has begun! The COE Library is hosting a Read Across America DEARathon this week. Every 10 minutes during the school day, a student is coming in for their own personal DEAR time! This is our third reader this morning! If you are in the area and would like to join in, please come by! A big thank you to teachers for allowing their students to miss a few minutes of the wonderful lessons they have prepared for this week! READ FOR YOUR LIFE!

Encyclopedia Inspiration

When I was a young girl, my parents purchased a set of encyclopedias one at a time from the grocery store when we made our weekly shopping trip. It was the Golden Book Encylopedia set:

This set is on sale on ebay today for about $50! I loved reading those things! They inspired me to want to learn about all different kinds of things, especially famous people. Mrs. Hall's second graders came in this afternoon for an impromptu lesson about encyclopedias, and they even went so far as to check to see if the sets were in order - what a great lesson! Thanks so much, Mrs. Hall and students!

In middle school, I read all the biographies that the school library had on the shelves. Many of our fifth graders have become interested in biographies in the "Who is/was..." series. I'm so glad to see them following in my footsteps! Here is a picture of a couple of books from that series:

Have a wonderful weekend, and happy reading!

New Books at the Library

We are so blessed to have Larry Miller in our school! He brought two new books for the library's collection. They are both very popular books with our students when they are studying China or reading fairy tales. Tikki Tikki Tembo is a personal favorite of mine. Thank you so much Mr. Miller!

Ground Hog Day Prognostications

Some students from Central Oak listened to stories about Ground Hogs and made their own predictions as to whether Oklahoma would have an early spring, or have six more weeks of winter. They learned about real ground hogs and about Punxatawney Phil from Pennsylvania. Here are their predictions:

Colonial Day at the Capitol

I was so honored to be asked to participate in the Colonial Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol and celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute. I was able to meet people who do interpretations of famous people from our history, participate in activities like dancing and debating, and be energized by others who love American History as much as I! There were many children there in full costume to participate in the day's activities. Here are some pictures from the day:

Capitol Dome

We had to outside for a bomb threat!

Meeting "Ben Franklin"!

Colonial Boys

Colonial Girls