This fall, 1st graders at Brewster School and 1/2 classes at John Lyman explored books with the theme of friendship. First graders begin the year by building community in their classrooms and think a lot about new friends. What does it mean to be a good friend? What kinds of things do good friends do? How do friends treat one another? We brainstormed things we thought were important for friendship and listed them on chart paper. Kindness, caring, sharing, play with friends, include others, and much, much more!

We read books such as Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman, My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann, and Finklehopper Frog by Irene Livingston. Each of these have a little different type of friendship happening and they are all terrific fun to read! After we read each one, we went back and looked for some of those characteristics that we had listed. 

Students then chose the characteristic they felt was most important, wrote it on a piece of paper and decorated it. We then used the Flipgrid app on the iPad to record students explaining their choice. 

Now that I have completed this blog post, I will be sharing the project and inviting other students to add to our grid. We would love to know what is important to you about being a friend. 

Please add to our grids!

Thank you! We look forward to learning from you!

I couldn't wait to introduce Biblionasium to the third and fourth grade classes at John Lyman! I love connecting with other people and Biblionasium gives students the ability to connect and share about their favorite books. 

We started out by talking about being wild readers - those readers that Donalyn Miller talks about in her book Reading in the Wild. There are a lot of wild readers in my schools, which makes my job so much fun! I shared with them my reading habits - reading any time, any place. When I first wake up, while cooking breakfast (sometimes leading to disaster), eating breakfast, waiting for my kids' bus to come, any spare minute I can find at school, waiting to pick up kids at soccer, gymnastics, etc., before bed, with my kids - you get the idea. I challenged students to think about their own wild reading habits and share them at our next library class. I then shared with them my Goodreads account - how I connect with friends and educators to share books, participate in book challenges, and record my reading. They are amazed at my personal goal of 350 books this year. I'll get there. And now they ask every week. They are interested, so I explain next about how I had looked last year for a student version of Goodreads and how I found Biblionasium! Best of all - it is FREE!

The following week when they came to library, we shared some of their wild reading habits on a padlet and then got right to Biblionasium. I always remind them to keep trying if they get stuck and then to ask classmates for help next. 

I set some goals for the day: 1) log in 2) change their avatar (this always generates excitement!) 3) add a book to their shelf 4) recommend a book. Most students get hooked right away. They love sharing books with their classmates. I explain that in order to share with kids in other classes, their parents have to join. Some of the students become experts and are wonderful at helping others out. Their excitement grows as they begin sharing with teachers too. 

In almost every class, we do have to have a discussion about Digital Citizenship, as inevitably someone shares a book like Elmo and the Potty. 

When we come back to library the next week, I reserve most of the class for students to go back on Biblionasium. They love the time to play and learn. After today, they can go on Biblionasium during check out time, in their classroom or at home. 

Happy Reading!

Taking action - this is a critical aspect to global education that we are beginning to be able to incorporate more and more frequently. Andy Plemmons of Barrow Elementary in Athens, Georgia shared about America Recycles Day held on November 15. A Google Doc was created to share ideas for ways to connect, books to share, and other resources. I was excited because one of my 1/2 classes has been focusing on the environment all year. I couldn't wait for them to share. Not all of my classes had things to share, but it was really special to be a part of this and see what others are doing. I look forward to seeing what other projects we can do in the future.

We skyped with 2 classes on November 13. Mrs. MacDonald's class connected with Mrs. Sibiskie's class and shared about the living bulletin board they were just starting to build which showed a forest habitat and the changes that would occur throughout the year. Mrs. MacDonald's class was working to recycle crayons! 

Mrs. Abbott's class had been learning about the environment all year. They had read aloud Marty McGuire Digs Worms by Kate Messner and had many picture books to share. They did not have a particular project that they were working on at this time, but they had lots of favorite books about the environment to share. This class connected with Mrs. Sikes from Forsyth, Georgia and her preschool class. 

November is one of my favorite months in the library because we celebrate Picture Book Month! I could read picture books forever. Each year, simply amazing picture books come out and I love to share these new books with my students. 

Picture Book Month celebrates print picture books as a literacy initiative. Please visit the amazing blog for posts by so many guest authors and illustrators. They are beautiful and inspiring.

This year I connected with the terrific Mr. Schu and his students as well as participating in the Picture Book Smackdown, with Andy Plemmons of Athens, Georgia, Shawna Ford of Weatherford, Texas, Cathy Potter in Falmouth, Maine, Julee Murphy of the ECDC in Texas, Christina Brennan and Kim Kennedy of Coopertown Elementary in Pennsylvania, author Anne Marie Pace, and Dianne de las Casas, founder of Picture Book Month. 

During our Skype with Mr. Schu's class, his students shared favorite stuffed animal picture book characters. My second graders loved seeing some of their favorite characters and squealed with delight! My students had picked out some of their favorite picture books to share and came up to the camera quickly to show the book to the students in Illinois. Together, we read My Teacher is a Monster by Peter Brown! What fun! 

Inspired by Patricia Polacco's book Thank you, Mr. Falker, 

One of the things I love most about working in a K-2 school is the kindergarteners. They are so ready to try anything! When Mrs. Petroski and I came to their classroom rolling the chrome cart with us, Mrs. Kosienski's students' eyes got very wide and were very excited! We passed out the chrome books and added the mice and away they went!

Their first task was to figure out how to open the chrome book - that didn't take long. At this time, they do not have their own login information, so they all logged in as guests. We got them to the website abcya.com to practice mouse skills and they just got busy. 

The following week they were already experts. If they didn't remember what to do, a friend helped out. Mrs. Heckler and Dr. Veronesi came to visit and were amazed that this was only their second time using the chrome books. This time they went back to abcya.com and used mouse skills to connect the dots counting by 1's up to 10, and then took on even greater challenges. I can't wait to see what they will try next!

Saturday night, my son and I headed out to RJ Julia booksellers in Madison, CT for The Long Haul tour. It was awesome! There were lots of laughter throughout! The tour ended with Jeff Kinney signing books. 

Spine poems! A spine-tingling way to celebrate Halloween in the library! First and second graders at John Lyman created some fun ones. 

The idea is simple - take books, look at the titles written on the spines, and create a poem by arranging the spines in an order that makes sense to us. Sometimes we cover up a word or two that we don't need with our finger. In this case, we used the fiction and non-fiction books about Halloween. I gave a quick demonstration and the kids got to work either by themselves or in a small group. When they were ready, they brought their pile of books over and we snapped a picture using the iPad. Enjoy!

Inspired by Mr. Schu's website Watch. Connect. Read., I began using booktrailers in my school libraries. Using the trailers is just another way to share about great books with students. While I love to booktalk many books, sometimes using technology can intrigue a student and get them to try a new book. 

This summer I decided to create a ring full of QR codes. Each QR code leads to a booktrailer (most from Youtube). All trailers are of books that we either have in the library or will be getting this year. The excitement generated is amazing! Each of my 2 libraries has 3 sets of rings (like a sight-word ring). I have iPod touches in both libraries on which the students use to watch the trailers. We use a free app called Qrafter as our QR code reader and the website goqr.me to create the codes.

Later in the year, students will begin creating their own trailers for their favorite books and these will be added to the rings as well.

Students in the 3/4 classes at John Lyman had some fun learning to use the online catalog! Using a letterboxing activity that I learned about from the terrific Kathy Schmidt (@kathyfs24), students worked together in teams using clues to search for "letterboxes" (plastic videocassette cases) placed on the bookshelves. For example, one clue was to search for a book about Harriet Tubman. Using the online catalog, students would search for that topic, find the call number, and go find the book. The letterbox is placed very close by. They take out the stamp and stamp their paper and answer the question that is also in the box. Then they are off to the next clue. 

This is a terrific way to get students using the online catalog. We spent time before they began letterboxing simply talking about how to access the catalog, how to search, and what the call numbers meant. But the best way to learn was just to do it. An activity like this allows me to assist students as needed and do any reteaching necessary. 

In the end, most students have a good understanding of how to use the catalog and are ready to use it pretty independently.