Writing Around the Text

After reading Buffy Hamilton's post detailing children having written conversations around a selected text, I knew I had to try it. However, Buffy's students are in high school and I only have a thirty minute time frame so I knew I needed to tweak the idea. 

Currently, our 4th grade is working on a Body Systems unit and our 5th grade is researching the American Colonies. I was looking for something to spark interest in these units before the formal research began. This seemed like the time to try this strategy. For the Body Systems unit, I found an article about exercise benefits from Time for Kids, a diagram with an explanation about the new My Plate, and two short chapters from our library books about the digestive system and how the brain sends nerve signals throughout the body. With the American Colony unit, I found a political cartoon that shows the Native American view point, an article about the lost colony of Roanoke, an article of how a colonial kitchen was set up and run, an article describing African Americans being sold as slaves and a time line from Jamestown to the Revolutionary War. I pasted each text on large bulletin board paper that span our library tables.

The children in 4th and 5th grade needed more guidance with their discussion than Buffy's high school students. I am in love with the Fountas and Pinell prompting guides and use them to help create open ended discussion questions for my book clubs and my lessons. I selected four discussion questions and displayed them on the Promethean board. The questions focused on author's message, text features, prior knowledge and any new questions the text may have raised.

The directions were simply...
1. Read the text at your table as a group.
2. Write about one of the discussion question prompts.
3. Read and respond to any table's article or any comment that a classmate wrote.

Each class was different. Some needed more guidance with which question to respond to while other classes jumped right in. Some groups chose to have one person read while other groups wanted to break up the articles so everyone would get a chance to read. The discussion questions did seem to focus the student's responses.

I will definitely use this strategy again. My goal of sparking interest in a topic was obtained. The children also seem to dig deeper in the text and enjoyed commenting on classmates answers.

Olympics and the Library Triathalon

Over the summer I was reading, The Tibrarian Handbook: A Teacher-Librarian's Guide to Transforming the Library Into a Center of Learning by Christine Varachi. She had a wonderful idea for a school-wide library Olympic contest where the children earn points for reading minutes, activity minutes and researching facts. I fell in love with the idea and realized that the Winter Olympics were this year! Ideas began on my iPad immediately. 

The library, in both schools, hosted a Library Triathlon! Each homeroom was given a country that was competing in the Sochi Winter Olympics. The children would turn in forms for nightly reading and activity minutes along with facts they researched about their homeroom country. Each of the events were weighed equally in a spreadsheet, created by my principal, that gave a daily point count for each country. The country's flags were moved on a large horizontal wall chart in the hall for all the kids to see. Each country had a larger vertical chart paper hang in the hallway as well. The information the children research about their country was pasted on those posters. This way the children could read all the new facts! Here are templates that I used. 

Three weeks of library lessons focused on the background of the Olympics, the contest rules, the town of Sochi and all they did to make their winter games unique and biographies from some of the Olympic athletes representing Team USA. The students truly enjoyed learning about the symbols, traditions and especially the athletes stories. 

At Allen, the Library Triathlon ended with a school wide celebration. Each county ceremoniously walked in to the event with a country flag and a "torch". We "lit" the large Olympic flame with the Olympic theme playing in the background. Our principal, Mr. Clarke, reminded us of how our school behavior is similar to the Olympic spirit and explained the rules to our first activity "Ballius Uppius in the Areaius (from the Greek/Latin: Ball Up in the Air). So much fun! The second activity activity was Olympic Trivia based on the library lessons. Mr. Clarke added more suspense by adding in a relay race with the Olympic rings before the questions were answered. A huge hit! 

In both schools, the top three classes earned Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals from Oriental Trading Company. The Gold class will also receive a Pizza Party, the Silver a Popsicle Party and the Bronze will enjoy a Popcorn Party.   

This is a movie from our closing ceremony at Allen. 

Pumpking Night @MHA Library

I wanted to create a small intimate family night at our library this fall. The answer was Pumpkin Night. I asked families in grade Kindergarten, first and second to design a pumpkin based on a character from a book. The families were so creative! The pumpkins were on display in the library for two days. In that way, each class would be able to see their classmates work. The library offered several pumpkin activities for families to participate in that night including a story time with the librarian and the principal!
Here is the link to the film that showcases the pumpkins and the joy the kids had coming back to the library at night.

Click here to see the film. 

Here are the documents that I created to organize this pumpkin night. Feel free to download and edit them to make them fit your pumpkin night.

Parent Invite

Pumpkin Centers 

Back In The Library!

It is official... I am back in the library! Through a series of district movement a library position opened up. I have left my home school, Allen and now dance between our newest schools, Kirby's Mill and Chairville. I know that this is a challenge sharing schools, but oh how I love the library environment! The staff and children in both buildings have been so welcoming. I am also following a super star librarian who has left things in perfect working order! How fortunate for me! There are so many projects going on right now that I want to share here. I hope there will be enough time to blog!

NJEA Classroom Close Up

This film was made by NJEA Classroom Close Up about the Literature Links program that we created to help parents read with their children strategically. The producer, Adam Bauser, wrote his thoughts about the Literature Links program and how it changed his own reading time with his kids in a post entitled, Unlocking the Keys to Reading with Your Child. His post was the "ripple effect" I was hoping for when I sought out the Target grant over a year ago!

Race To Nowhere

I wanted to share a link to a film, Race to Nowhere, I watched with some friends last night at Haddonfield High School. It was a powerful film about the effects of the demanding educational standards parents, teachers, colleges have on some kids. It looked closely at what kids are doing to their bodies to keep up with not only their academics, but also their religious classes, sports and community work. Stating that kids don't get into good school just because of academics. They need to be almost perfect at everything in order to be considered at some colleges.
A large part of the movie was devoted to the research that did not support hours and hours of homework. Yet, homework seemed to be the single thread that was stressing the kids out and causing them to take stimulants, not sleep and cheat. The film also looked at what these kids were learning. Many kids pointed out they can't remember what information they learned on tests or homework because they just needed to "cram it in and then let it out". Doctors and lawyers spoke about how the young adults coming into their profession can't think. They are so used to being "coached". This was a scary thought for them because who will be the leaders in their professions if no one is thinking.
I took a lot away from this film as a Mommy. "What homework do you have tonight?", will not be the first thing out of my mouth when I greet my 2nd grader anymore! As a teacher, I am looking into my homework practices. Two books about the homework topic in the film.
Librarians have a role in adding inquiry into their collaborative projects. Leading the way to show the importance of critical thinking for our students not simple recall.
It was quite a powerful film. Please leave a comment if you have seen the film and it moved you as well.

Literature Links

The MHA library was the recipient of an Early Childhood Reading Grant from Target stores this summer. Whoo hoo! With budgets shrinking and programs being cut, the grant was welcomed news. The grant allowed me to create a program called Literature Links. The goal of the program was simple: To Help Parents and Kids Connect with Books through Strategic Reading. Research shows that when parents become involved in their children reading their children reading achievement grows and stronger families of readers are built. (Darling, Westberg 2004)

The Literature Links parent book club studied the book 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann. In the book, 7 comprehension strategies were examined to help readers make meaning from the texts. At the Literature Links Book Club, parents learned about these strategies each week. Through interactive activities parents were encouraged to “Try It!” with their own children.

In order to help parents continue to utilize the strategies they learned in the book club and to reach out to other families unable to attend, a library backpack program was developed. The MHA library now offers 30 backpacks to circulate among K-2 students. Each of the 30 backpacks contain two library books based on a theme. The backpacks also include a prompt sheet that should be used when families are reading and discussing the theme’s literature. Parents are able to use these prompts before, during or after the reading of the literature.

The program has been so successful at our school. Parents have been quite vocal of how much they have learned from this program. Literature Links will even be featured on an upcoming segment of the NJEA show Classroom Close Up! I am presenting this idea to other NJ librarians this Thursday at our local Barnes and Noble. I have included the website that I will be sharing with them. It contains resources that librarians could use to begin a similar program in their library.

http://web.me.com/amylking/BN/Welcome.html

Happy Reading!

Colaboration in the Real World

I am thrilled to be co-presenting at the NJASL fall conference on Friday with two amazing ladies. Jackie Albright Pugh and Katie Eagen-Casale are two librarians that work in my district. This year they have the daunting task of maintaining not one, but two school libraries. I am in awe of how they daily meet many challenges and yet still aggressively seek collaboration opportunities in both schools! Our presentation provides many strategies for librarians that are struggling to keep the collaboration part of their library program and those who are looking to start collaborative efforts within their district. We share many examples of what has worked for us. The Power Point and other resources are available here.
I will be honest and say it was wonderful to collaborate with other librarians and to participate in conversations surrounding the happenings of school libraries again. I am looking forward to a great conference. At the top of my NJASL list is getting the opportunity to hear and meet Buffy Hamilton finally! My former professor and friend Shayne Russell will be presenting “New Technologies for Program, Promotion & Productivity @ Your Library.” Look for my tweets!

The End of the Year

This year's annual report will be almost entirely digital. Once again I have been inspired by Buffy Hamilton. Mine is not as fancy, but I think the opening movie is a perfect way to sum up our year.

I love the idea of the annual report. It allows me to look back and see all the learning that has taken place not only by the students and teachers, but myself! The library in my school has made such a transformation in the last two years and I feel honored to have been a part of it. The administration, teachers, parents and students have been so willing to allow change to happen!

This year will be my last year in the library. Due to the dramatic funding cuts in New Jersey my district will not have a full time librarian in each building. I am fortunate that I will be returning to the classroom. (2nd grade!) Although I am embracing this new opportunity, I will miss this position terribly! I have only been a librarian for two years, but it has been the most rewarding two years of my 16 year career.

This is the link to the report. As always, I welcome any feedback.
http://web.me.com/amylking/EOY2010/Welcome.html

Sandwich Board Research

Many classes have been collaborating with me in the area of Reading Workshop. Some classes come to the library once a week to have their reading workshop time in the library. The kids love the change of space and the teachers love the team teaching opportunity. Some classes focused on non fiction texts at the end of the year. After reading Collaboration and Comprehension by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels, I was so excited to try out some of their suggestions. Mrs. Demski was one of the teachers who shared her class with me for a non fiction unit. In the book, there are specific lessons about instructing children to code the text, take notes and write summaries from what they learned. We used these lessons over several weeks with much success. The kids were truly engaging with the text. They were writing notes in their own words unlike the straight copying we had observed in the past. We were so excited about their learning we wanted them to share it with other classes. In the book, it had mentioned the idea of a sandwich board to convey your message to others.

We thought it would be a great visual to go along with the oral information the children would provided the visiting classes. We had her class be creative with their art supplies and decorate the front with the factual information they learned. The back was to be an advertisement to encourage children in other classes to approach them. We decided to just invite the other 5th grade students due to limited time. Mrs. Demski's class was positioned around the library ready for the approaching students. It was amazing listening to the students explain their research and answer questions from the other classes. The visiting classes were impressed with the knowledge of their friends. Some even checked out books about topics that were discussed because they wanted to learn more! How exciting! This text is our teacher book club choice for next year, so stay tuned for more posts about this great book.

End of the Year Survey Questions

I am knee deep in data right now compiling the library's end of the year report. As I am sharing some funny statements from the kids on Twitter, some of you have asked for the questions I asked them. I felt that the easiest way to share the tools was a quick blog post. I created a quick Google site to share the word document that I used for grades one and two. (I use some of the drawings to jazz up the report.) I included a link to my website that has the Zoomerang survey questions I use with grades third through fifth. I also have attached the results of the Zoomerang survey I gave to the teachers. These questions are specific to my school, but please feel free to use them as a springboard for your own survey questions. I will post the final report soon.
http://sites.google.com/site/endoftheyearforms/

Family Literacy Night

Long before I became the librarian at Allen, I wanted to have a Family Literacy Night. This year, as the librarian, I was able to make it happen. Literacy nights are a wonderful way to spread the love of reading with your school families along with promoting the your libraries services. This year we connected the Family Literacy Night to our year long Geek Campaign. Here is the website I created to be used as a "How To" guide. I hope others will be ready to create their own Literacy Nights in their libraries. I welcome your comments and suggestions!
This is the url:
http://web.me.com/amylking/Family_Literacy_Night/Home.html

My Trip to Second Life

On Tuesday night, I participated for the first time in a Second Life meeting. I had received an email from the Teacher Librarian Ning I belong to that read “Make plans to join your colleagues on Tuesday, March 16^that 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT for a very special event, “A Chat with Sara Kelly Johns”. Sara is a candidate in the election for ALA President and she will speak to librarians about her platform and her vision for ALA.” I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out this environment and hear Sara's platform. I had to create an avatar for myself first and got my husband to help. Shopping in second life was just as frustrating as in my real life even with a thin avatar! I didn’t want to spend any real money, but there only seemed to be inappropriate outfits for free. I couldn’t possibly meet the future ALA president looking like a “lady of the night”! We eventually got an appropriate outfit and Tuesday night I transported to the location of the meeting. I was able to sit right next to Sara Kelly Johns. My cyber friend Buffy Hamilton was there for a bit too. Sara’s power point was available for us and a chat box appeared so we could ask her questions. I went back in forth between Twitter and the meeting so I could share some of Sara’s message. I loved her push for more collaboration between the public libraries and school libraries. She stated, “strong school libraries make stronger public libraries.” It would be a huge boost for school librarians if Sara is voted in as ALA president.

I have to be honest and say I am not really sure about the whole Second Life thing for use in education. I know that some schools have purchased islands and students create things in Second Life as projects. I am not a fan of video games, so the whole set up was uncomfortable in that way. I will say it was great “seeing” people while we chat. I feel isolated in the postings of my online Rutgers class because it is just words. I am visual and enjoyed watching the others participate in Second Life. Sara had a mic and spoke about her power point, which made the meeting more personal. I could also hear the passion in her voice something that would not have been achieved through just typing. So maybe teachers could have kids go to a class in Second Life even though they would be in the same real room in real life? Is anyone using Second Life in their library? Does anyone have any experiences in how this could be used for projects? Any examples they would like to share with me?

I am not sure if I will attend another Second Life event, but I am glad I had the experience. I feel if a parent or administrator questions me about the Second Life environment I will have a small background to answer. I enjoy trying out these new tools and seeing how the can benefit our students.

Prezi - Dr. Seuss

I have been looking into a new site called Prezi. This site allows you to create more visually appealing presentations rather than just a standard PowerPoint. I saw one that Dianne McKenzie created on her blog. It was so cool! The upcoming Dr. Seuss biography lesson seemed like a great time to try this out. I found the site a bit confusing at first. Their online tutorials were not as helpful as they could be, but I was able to figure it out. There are some parts of my presentation I would like to improve such as layering more artwork under the text and adding my talking points in a note section. I feel this is a good start. The presentation will be used with all of my classes this week when they come in for a book exchange. One of the ways we celebrate Read Across America is with a daily triva question read over the loud speaker of our school. The first homeroom to buzz in with the answer wins a book from the library for their classroom library. This year, we will use the information in this Prezi to create the questions for the kids. The embedded version here does cut off some of the words in the show. If you click the Dr. Seuss link directly below the show it will take you to the Prezi site where it can be viewed full screen.

Dr. Seuss Biography on Prezi

Promeathean Board Workshop

Our district has always been wonderful in professional development for the teachers. I feel they listen to our needs and find excellent presenters. This week was no exception when we had a two hour delay for an in-service. Our presenter, Ms. Susan Eley, provided a valuable workshop for us on practical tips for using our Promethean boards.

I came up with 12 new things I learned and have listed below.
1. "Drop a copy" feature
2. Placing obj into "My collection" instead of recreating them from scratch
3. Locking and unlocking obj
4. Making objects translucent
5. Using a camera tool to make a worksheet a picture and paste it into the flipchart
6. Attaching sound to an obj
7. Use the paint bucket to change the font color
8. Creating a hyperlink
9.Selecting multiple obj and clicking the trash can throws them away!
10. Create a "ticker tape" message
11. Changing the colors in my toolbar up to 24
12. Using the ink drop tool to create new colors

I am planning on turn keying this new knowledge with the staff in a morning workshop. Susan provided valuable handouts and was flexible with her agenda when we stopped to ask questions. She created a wiki space that shows videos that she created for us to refer to in the future! Amazing! She was a wonderful resource! You can tell that she put a lot of thought into our needs and set things up for continual learning. As a bonus she works close to my district so it will be nice to actually see her face to face!

Resources:
Promethean Board Information
Promethean Planet
Susan's Wiki
Susan's Website

Dr. Joyce Valenza

Keynote speaker this morning at NJASL was Dr. Joyce Valenza. What an amazing woman! She provided us with her first singing keynote presentation down the yellow brick road to search for the Wizard of Apps. She led us on the road to many online resources to provide our students with tools to build their digital citizenship, information literacy and foster their creativity. As she provided examples through video of her students living out their research, I was in awe of her work and wanting to move to her district for my son. Her presentation will be on Slideshare and her Wiki is a path of resources that she discussed. I was brave at the end to ask for a picture. She obliged with a kind smile.

Dr. Valenza is such an empowering woman in our field and I feel fortunate to have been one of the lucky ones in the audience. Last year, it was her annual report that inspired me to write my own at the end of my first year. I am trying to slow my brain down to one thing to take away from her keynote, besides the Wizard of Oz theme song that is still playing in my head. I think what I am walking away with today is the message to be a leader in my school for the benefit of the children. Be knowledgeable of the tools that they will be using and get them to dig deeper in their research process. So much to think about!

Collaboration - A Journey

The library has been quite a buzz this year! We have hosted our book fair, begun our "Geek" campaign, started our morning book club "Book Chomp" and continue to be knee deep in many collaborative projects. At Allen, I have the benefit of having a both a fixed and flexible schedule. This assures, I meet with each class for an isolated library lesson and have open spots for collaborative lessons during classroom teacher's content times. Isolated library lessons would include book talks, Destiny instruction or lessons on the Dewey Decimal system. Collaborative lessons include the classroom teacher's content area being infused with the research process. When this happens, students benefit from a team teacher model and are able to make real world connections to the content. I am thankful that our school's technology teacher, Maureen Schoenberger and I work very closely. In most of these collaborative projects, Maureen is the facilitator of the end products that make us all go WOW! There are many librarians out there that also fill the tech teacher role. Not having to wear this hat all the time, allows me to dive deeper into the research process and continue to make sure meaning is in the front of our research goals.
Collaboration has not always been a part of our curriculum at our school. We have experimented with different models, created a planning form and had some bumps along the way. Our school is not at the point of true collaboration, but we are definitely headed in the right direction. We have a supportive principal, who makes collaboration a priority and a knowledgeable staff, that seeks ways to improve student achievement. Maureen and I were asked to clarify our collaborative journey with the staff at a past faculty meeting. We wanted to share our presentation to others on this collaboration journey.

Collaboration: A Journey

View more presentations from mschoenberger.

I geek mha library

When I moved into this position, I was unaware of the amount of marketing came with the job. I was so amazed with the amount of literature and conversations in the library community about how important it is to promote your resources. I really thought people just knew about the library and of course they would come. So naive!
In August, Buffy Hamilton brought the geek campaign to my attention. I have been thinking "geeky" thoughts ever since! It is a brilliant campaign that I have tried to embrace at my school. I slowly started to use the term, hang signs, place "geek" stickers around and definitely created a buzz. We officially unveiled the geek campaign this week and it was the talk of the school.
Here is an outline of the geek lessons
1. Shared why I geek mha library.
2. Led them to define geek using geekthelibrary.org site.
3. Viewed a slide show of what their teachers geek from my geek website.
4. Students then created black signs to display in the library to share what they geek.
5. Challenged them to find their geek at our library!
The kids were excited about the geek idea and were proud when they found what they geeked on our shelves. It was such a valuable way to gain insight into their interests! Teachers told me that the students were coming up to them and saying, "I didn't know you kayaked." or "You geek bats?" "Why?" It created a lot of dialogue and excitement. Some students reported talking about it at dinner with their parents!
I am thankful the the library community at large is creating these tool kits to help librarians like myself. I feel that even my little school is doing its part to promote the importance of libraries on a larger scale. My hope is to carry the theme throughout the year and keep the excitement going! So look for more "geeky" posts.

Kathleen and I finding our Geek @MHA Library this Halloween!

Making a difference

Throughout my teaching years, I have had the experience of feeling I made a difference in a child's life. I have to say it is one of those things that keeps me going when I am frustrated with the "details" of being a teacher. When I was a classroom teacher, I had parents tell me their kids constantly talk about my class, loved a lesson or were so happy their kids could read now. I am finding you don't always get that immediate feedback from parents as a specials teacher. Recently I did and I wanted to share!
Kate Fitzgerald is my contact at the public library near our school. We collaborated in June in hopes of increasing the number of students participating in the "Be Creative @ your library" summer reading program. Two students from my school logged over 124 hours of reading and were honored this week for their accomplishment! Kate and I were thrilled for many reasons. We are both looking at the success of our collaboration and making plans to continue the relationship between the school and public library. We also have formed a relationship with these girls around the love of reading. Getting to discuss books with kids is a perk of the job! Kate and I love to hear their thoughts, opinions and suggestions about books. One of the girls is even interested in "working" in the library for a girl scout badge!
This little interaction has helped me to see the stepping stones of making a difference in kids lives one book at a time.

Library Goody Bags

I am always impressed by the creative ways librarians get the word out about what their libraries have to offer. A request on Twitter is met with so many replies from generous librarian willing to share their ideas in hopes it will help others reach their patrons. Two such people from my PLN have been instrumental in helping me prepare for my upcoming year. Fran Bullington is a librarian in South Carolina. She sent me a pamphlet example of what she distributes to her teachers. The layout was simple and clear, just what I wanted. Fran outlined resources the library could offer, along with how to schedule a class, and where to find materials. With her permission, I tweaked it to meet my needs and could not be more pleased with the results. Buffy Hamilton is an amazing librarian in Georgia. Recently she wrote about goody bags for her teachers. As soon as I read her post I knew I wanted to do this for my staff too. However, Buffy had started collecting in May from her vendors, I had two weeks. Before I even finished gathering items for my bags, Buffy introduced me to the Geek The Library campaign happening in the Georgia libraries. So I did my best to combine the two.

The Goody Bags contain:
My pamphlet about the library
Lanyards from Britannica Online - New for us this year!
EBSCO stickers and magnets
Apple candle in a reusable wicker basket
Hersey kisses

I followed Buffy's packaging with brown bags with self adhesive book pockets on the front. I created stickers from avery labels that said I geek mha library. In the pocket, I created another label with our contact information to affix on our old library cards. My six year old son was such a trouper! He helped with the stickers and loved filling the bags.

Thanks to Buffy, Fran and all of the many librarians who share ideas through their blogs, twitter and nings. Look for more GEEK stuff soon.