Students at John Lyman Elementary are embarking on an adventure! During library, the 3/4 students started reading the 1st chapter of The Great CT Caper. Other classes may be reading along in their classroom. 

The CT Humanities Council has an amazing adventure for us! Starting in January and being released every 2 weeks is a new chapter in the mystery. There will be 12 chapters in all, each written and illustrated by an author and illustrator from Connecticut. 

If you would like to read at home, click here and select the chapters link at the top.


For ideas and contests, click here.

For fun and games, click here.

I am participating in the #walkmyworld project 2015! It's all about connecting and sharing, which I love to do! For more information, click here. 

Learning Event 1 - Where are you? What do you consider to be your "world"? 

I've included my digital doorway - if it ever stops snowing, I'll include my physical doorways!

The "making" has begun! As I have written about before, I have become pretty excited about the idea of makerspaces and getting kids (and adults) to create and innovate. Last year, I was fortunate enough to have a Makerbot 3D printer grant funded (thank you Makerbot and some amazing donors!) and my third and fourth graders worked hard as they learned about creating and failing and trying again. In the spring, I applied for and was awarded a grant from a wonderful local group, the Coginchaug Valley Educational Foundation, for makerspace items. This summer, I got to work ordering some amazing items such as Raspberry Pi, littleBits, MakeyMakey, and Makedo. The librarian in me could not forget about the books and there are beginning to be more and more great ones available. To complement the maker items, I added books such as Rosie Revere, Engineer, Iggy Peck, Architect, and the Nick and Tesla series (mysteries with some making happening in between chapters). 

EdcampCT took place on August 16th this year and the first session I went to was a Maker session with William Ian O'Byrne (Twitter: @wiobyrne), professor at the University of New Haven. He brought some simple supplies and got people making! The project was a LED nametag. Here is his blog post with ideas and directions. People had a lot of fun experimenting and trying to get them to work. It was a little tricky, because the LED lightbulbs are TINY and you have to get things just right in order for the circuit to work. But that challenge is part of the fun.

One of the first grade teachers at Brewster School didn't get to go to that session, but was so inspired and wanted to try it with her students. So we went for it! We only had 30 minutes that first day, which in hindsight was way too short. When the students arrived in the library, I got them seated and started out by reading Rosie Revere, Engineer. We had to skip some parts, but I wanted to establish a purpose for our project with them. 

I had pre-cut card stock and students selected the color they wanted. Mrs. Loffredo helped the use a craft punch to punch a small hole in the card. Copper tape with sticky backing was given to the kids, as well as a button battery. We helped them place the 2 strips of copper tape parallel to each other and get that LED bulb in the right place so that the circuit works and the bulb lights up! Such excitement on the faces of the kids when that bulb lights up. It is not easy, which makes it all the more worthwhile. 

We only got 4 of the students' nametags completed during that 30 minutes, but Mrs. Loffredo took the supplies to finish up in her classroom. She continued the experience by having students write about it in their journals. It was a wonderful way to begin another year of collaboration in the library! 

Special thanks to the Coginchaug Valley Education Fund for supporting us!

Ms. Hendrix and her 5th graders from Asheville, North Carolina connected with Mrs. Novak's class of 1st/2nd graders. We had a lot of fun sharing trading cards and morse code with them! I can tell we will be doing more connecting in the future.

Mrs. MacDonald was back again with her second graders connecting with Mrs. Sibiskie's 1/2s. We shared Randi Zuckerberg's book Dot together and then shared some trading cards. Off we went to get library books, but then came back toward the end of class to do a quick Skype with Mrs. Reed and her grade 5 students who had a cancellation. Her students did a very quick buzz read of The Dot for the 1/2s! Fastest read ever!

Mrs. Swiantak's class came back to the library for a special treat! A visit with Mr. Winner and his students from Ellicot City, Maryland. His students were in 4th or 5th grade and were thrilled to do a little Morse Code decoding. We created trading cards to send to them, but thought they might be a little small to see via Skype, so we wrote some other messages on chart paper for them. It turned out to be a little easier to read one letter at a time (it almost felt like charades). They were pretty quick at figuring out the words and it was lots of fun for my 1/2s to challenge them! One of the favorites was --•   ••    -   -•  -         -••  ---    -• ••-   - which came straight from the fact that our town will be having our annual fair in just a week. Mr. Winner's folks gave us a short challenge: •-••    ---     •••-    • which summed up what we feel for all of these connections and fun: LOVE. 

Mrs. Ciccone's 1/2s were connecting today with Mrs. Schmidt's class from Dacula, Georgia. Mrs. Schmidt is a New Englander living in the south, so it is always fun to talk with her about the Red Sox. We had made trading cards for this class as well, but we decided to share some of the messages on the chart paper. What fun!

Our final Skype of the day was to be with a school in Alberta, Canada, but unfortunately they were having some technical difficulties. I hope that we can connect with them soon!

Today was a day of meeting several new friends from new places! Mrs. Ghoreyeb's class of 2nd graders connected with Mrs. Crook's class from Gaston, North Carolina. We shared some of the Morse Code messages we had written on the trading cards! 

Mrs. Lundt's 2nd graders met some 4th graders from Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was wonderful to meet Mrs. Kapp their library teacher as well. We read The Dot and shared Trading cards with them. We also learned some interesting facts about their school, such as that it is round!

Mrs. Lundt's class came back after lunch to meet with Mrs. Reed's 1st graders. We read The Dot together and are going to create buddy dots to send to them in Newton, Massachussetts.

Our final Skype of the day brought Mrs. Canning's kindergarteners connecting with Jerilynn Schaefer's kindergarteners in Hawaii!!! We shared art work with one another and also talked about our locations. Both groups were amazed at the time difference. It was 2:30pm EST in Connecticut, but only 8:30am in Hawaii. My students loved the fact that we were getting ready to go home, when our buddy class had just arrived at school. 

I truly cannot think of a better way to have my students develop an understanding of different areas of the United States and the world. Next week in library, we will begin looking at maps to see where our connections live. A great way to learn and grow!

Connecting 1st graders with a shark scientist was one of the most amazing skypes in which I have participated! Jillian Morris, founder of Sharks4Kids, met with Mrs. Burns' class on Friday, June 6. They were so excited to be talking to a real shark scientist. This spring, the students had been learning about oceans and all of the different living creatures that live there. When I saw Jillian's offer to skype with students, I jumped at the opportunity! What better way to learn?

Jillian is a marine biologist and videographer located in Bimini in the Bahamas and is passionate about shark education. Sharks4kids began because she wanted to help create "the next generation of shark advocates through education, outreach and adventure." This came through clearly throughout our skype!

As soon as we connected, Jillian's passion for sharks came through! She shared all kinds of facts and information with the kids, asking them questions and showing them amazing photographs! You couldn't help but get excited! Students were fascinated by all the different kinds of sharks she showed them and the equipment that she uses. They took to heart her message about protecting sharks and many times explained how these creatures are not looking to eat people. Patience is essential when speaking with 6 and 7 year olds. I think the jumping sharks were a favorite!

At the end of the skype, Jillian asked students to work hard to take care of sharks. She challenged them to create posters to share things that they had learned. We got started during library that day. You can see some of the completed ones in the photo gallery below.

Connecting with a scientist inspired my students to take action! Jillian and the other folks at Sharks4kids have a wealth of knowledge, resources and passion for educators to take advantage of. I hope you take some time and take a look. 

Sharks4Kids website

Living right between New York and Boston, baseball is a big deal here in central Connecticut. When I saw on Twitter that Ballpark Mystery author David Kelly was doing skypes this May, I emailed him right away and was thrilled when he was able to connect with us! Miss Montepara's 3rd graders at Korn School were a perfect fit since they love reading AND baseball! They read one of his books together in class and came ready to learn and ask questions.

David got started by telling a little about himself and how he got into writing books for kids. My students are always curious about the author's life - how many kids they have, pets, etc. He talked about his first books and shared about Miracle Mud, a really neat book about the mud that is used to make baseballs not so "new" before they are used. We loved how Mr. Kelly shared about how he got his ideas and how he did his research. I love the picture of the mud below! He shared next about his series, the Ballpark Mysteries. These books take place in various baseball stadiums around the United States and star cousins Kate and Mike. There is always some kind of mystery that goes on that they have to solve. Once again, David shared his writing process and how he researches the facts and information that he adds to the story. We had time for lots of questions at the end. 

The students were very excited and left the visit wanting to read ALL of these mysteries. I ordered Miracle Mud for them to read as well. 

I was so pleased to connect with David Kelly and bring his passion for reading, writing, and baseball to the students of our school! I can't wait to share his books with more readers this fall!

A GIANT thank you to the Coginchaug Valley Education Foundation! I applied for a grant this spring and tonight was thrilled to be one of ten amazing grant recipients. My grant was titled Follow Your Passion and Make It! Through this grant, elementary students will be learning, growing, and creating in a Makerspace. We will be making cardboard come alive with Makedo and littleBits. MakeyMakey and Throwies allow students to tinker with circuits. All of these resources give students the ability to design, create, tinker, fail, and try again. In addition, we will be adding books that involve making or crafting to inspire kids! For a great example of a library Makerspace, take a look at the Westport Public Library. 

Come back to read more about what we are doing in the Makerspace next school year. We also will be having a mini-Makerfaire to show all the amazing things!

I love to see what books kids recommend to other! Today the grade 4 classes brainstormed ideas using Padlet. I loved seeing all the great titles they have gobbled up this year. Really good titles. These kids are readers.