Category Archives: Uncategorized

Hooray for Mistakes!

As the Creative Librarian, I am always looking for interesting ways to get my students’ creative juices flowing. Today, my kindergarten and first grade students explored their creative side after reading the book Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg, an ode to those who make mistakes – and how they can be turned into something beautiful.

Tying in the importance of recycling and reusing our resources, we discussed risk-taking and challenging oneself to make the world a better place. One of the many wonderful things about teaching elementary age students is that they generally are willing to explore an idea and embrace it fully with abandon.  My students were given scraps of ripped, wrinkled, and worn construction paper, scissors, glue, markers,and crayons, and began creating their own Beautiful Oops– inspired artwork. They selected just the right pieces of paper, and began crunching, coloring, cutting, and ripping. Within a few minutes their scraps transformed into art. I was thrilled with their excitement, and impressed by my students’ masterpieces!

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Beautiful Oops book trailer

Beautiful Oops – A Program to Foster Creativity

I hope you and your students will be inspired to make your mistakes beautiful, too!

 

GBF – The Greatest Book Festival!

As an enthusiastic member of the Gaithersburg Book Festival Committee, I was thrilled to see our lineup of featured children’s authors and illustrators, which included: Dianna Hutts Aston, Cece Bell, Gennifer Choldenko, Paul Czajak, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Laura Gehl, John Green, Steve Light, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Dave Roman, Aaron Reynolds, Syl Sobel, Maris Wicks, Timothy Young among others.

Paul Czajak reads Monster Needs Your Vote.

A family oriented event, the GBF also offers outstanding  (if I do say so myself!) series of children’s and teens workshops and other entertainment in the Children’s Village and Young Adult Pavilion.

2016 Children’s Workshops included:

 

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Despite the rainy (and cold) weather, our dedicated guests arrived in full rain gear.  And stayed.  And listened. And participated in the many author talks and workshops.  It was a wonderfully creative and enthusiastically attended community event, led by a group of totally awesome lovers of literature…Cannot wait for next year’s event!

Gaithersburg Book Festival

The 2016 GBF Children’s Village:  About  100 Reasons to Bring the Kids on 5/21

 

Awakening the Imagination

As we head into March – National Reading Month – my thoughts wander to the sights and sounds of spring, and the awakening of the earth, and our imaginations, after the cold winter snows have melted away.  New books that are ‘blooming’ this year (and one from last year) with themes of new beginnings and awakening the imagination are …

When-Spring-Comes

When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes, Illustrated by Laura Dronzek, HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2016

Kevin Henkes uses striking imagery, repetition, and alliteration to introduce basic concepts of language and the changing of the seasons. And Laura Dronzek’s gorgeous, lush paintings show the transformation from quiet, cold winter to the joyful newborn spring. Watch the world transform when spring comes!  –– HarperCollins/Greenwillow
Parachute

Parachute by Danny Parker, Illustrated by Matt Ottley, Eerdsmans, March 2016

This compelling book, perfectly complemented by Matt Ottley’s expressive artwork, lends a sympathetic ear to children’s fears while simultaneously assuring readers that they can overcome them.  –– Eerdsmans

 

Rain-Fish

Rain Fish by Lois Elhert, Illustrated by author, S&S/Beach Lane, April 2016

Complete with an author’s note explaining how Ehlert collected the found materials she used to make the book over the course of a year, Rain Fish is a spirited celebration of imagination, creativity, and observing the world in your own way—and it invites you to discover your own rain fish.  –– S&S/Beach Lane

 

SkyPig

Sky Pig by Jan L. Coates, Illustrated by Suzanne Del Rizzo, Pajama Press, September 2016

In Sky Pig, Jan Coates weaves a story of sweetness and whimsy, ingenuity and empathy. Plasticine artist Suzanne Del Rizzo brings dimension and energy to the tale of a pig who wants―against all popular truisms―to fly. He may never reach the sky on homemade clockwork wings, but Ollie still dreams as hard as ever a pig can dream. And Jack, a true friend, realizes that just because a pig can’t fly in the ways they have tried doesn’t mean he can never soar. An uplifting picture book for anyone who has tried and tried again. –-Pajama Press

This-is-Sadie

This is Sadie by Sara O’Leary, Illustrated by Julie Morstad, Tundra, 2015

O’Leary puts Sadie at the center of her own story, and invites her audience to follow Sadie’s lead. “Sadie has wings, of course,” we learn — “Maybe you have them too. Have you checked?” In Morstad’s quietly delightful gouache and watercolor illustrations, black-haired Sadie looks both delicate and strong, pretty and at times androgynous. She’s a mermaid and “a boy raised by wolves,” howling at the moon; she carefully chooses dresses and artfully hammers nails into wood. It’s an appealingly rounded glimpse of girlhood that’s somehow both timeless and modern.” —The New York Times review

There are many wonderful books about spring, imaginations, and new beginnings! Below you will find three different lists of books to explore – you are sure to find the perfect book to read with your children, or your students!

11 Children’s Books About Spring

http://www.delightfulchildrensbooks.com

Chidren’s Books for Celebrating Spring

pbs.org/parents/adventures-in-learning/2014/03/spring-books

Ten Books for Spring

http://www.readingrockets.org/articles/books/c346

Happy spring and happy reading!

 

A Mayor & Two Authors

First off, I have to say I love being a school librarian.  I love that I get to teach all of the kids in my school, can be creative and think outside the box,  and that I have amazing people in my professional learning network.

Last week, just two days before the Blizzard of Winter 2016, I had two visitors to my library.  Author Harold “Corky” Logsdon visited our 3rd graders to share his new children’s book, Marsh Mellow – a lovely poem about exploring nature “was penned while walking the stony lane through the marshland at Karen Noonan Center on the shores of Bishop Head along the Chesapeake Bay. (Absolutely stunning watercolor illustrations by Kristen Egan).  Corky, a retired high school teacher of environmental science, pulled my students into the story with his infectious joy of the  natural world.  I am so pleased that he will be coming back to share his book with my 2nd grade students, who just finished their inquiry projects about biomes and ecosystems.

Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman also visited with my 4th graders, as an extension to their marking period 2 inquiry project, “Maryland Economics”.  In this project, my students researched the demographics of our Flower Hill community, and based on the information they found, created a plan for a business that the community needed.  Since 65% of our community members are families with children under 18, many of my students created a business plan with a family-friendly theme.  I helped the three classes generate a list of questions, and we had a Q&A session with Jud, and ended with five students sharing their business projects with him.  It was a great experience for all involved, and we found out you can run for mayor of Gaithersburg as early as 18 years old!

 

Jud is also the founder of the Gaithersburg Book Festival,   which “is a celebration of the written word and its power to enrich the human experience. [Its] mission is to foster an interest in reading, writing and literary conversation.”  I am pleased to be a volunteer on the 2016 planning committee.  I am the coordinator of the Children’s Workshops and the helping fill the Story Time Tent with awesome readers, and hope you’ll visit the festival on May 21, 2016!

Mary Amato

Children’s Author Mary Amato

 

 

I also attended the Montgomery County Council of the International Reading Association
( MCCIRA ) author event on January 21, and met the delightful local children’s author Mary Amato, and learned great tips on classroom management using mindfulness techniques, and how to excite students to write.  From her I also picked up a copy of the first three books in her new series Good Crooks and I am looking forward to sharing them with my students!

Happy reading!

Oh, the Places You’ll Go this Summer!

Oh the places you'll go

I would like to thank my students, their parents, and the entire Flower Hill staff for a fabulous first year at Flower Hill Elementary School! We’ve learned a lot, had many adventures and had fun, too, and I am looking forward to another great year beginning in (late) August!

I came across an interesting article in the Washington Post, written by Deb Werrlein, an adjunct professor of English, and include an excerpt here, and link to the full article.  In it she says, “A few weeks ago, my son and I finished reading Stephen King’s “11/22/63: A Novel.” The unusual part is the fact my son will be 18 years old in less than a month. I also read with his sister, who is 14. I didn’t plan to read aloud with my kids for this long. It just happened. As a former adjunct English professor who tutors students with dyslexia, I am an ardent lover of literature. Our home is packed with magazines and novels for all interests and ages. But these days, having a parent who loves and promotes books is not always enough. Reading competes with busy sports schedules, homework, and the ever powerful screens that dominate our kids’ lives. My kids have trouble saying no to the incessant flow of Netflix entertainment that draws them away from books. While they love a good story, they are not bookworms the way I was as a kid. Consequently, I discovered early that reading together encouraged an activity that my kids may have skipped altogether. It’s well known that reading aloud benefits infants, toddlers and emerging readers. Aside from introducing children to a love of literature and storytelling, reading exposes them to written language, which differs from the spoken word. Writing contains more description and typically adheres to more formal grammatical structures than speech. When you choose books that exceed your child’s independent reading level, you promote language acquisition, increase vocabulary, and improve comprehension. These benefits foster literacy in young people, but the pluses don’t diminish just because the kids grow up. When we finally turned the last page, I was sad for the end of an era. My son will graduate this June and leave for college in August. But I’m so grateful for the stacks of books and memories we’ve made over the years. From “Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?” to the Magic Treehouse series, to classics like “Huckleberry Finn,” to fantasy series like Harry Potter, to dramas like “Ordinary People,” and of course, to Stephen King, we’ve shared a lot. Many parents already understand it’s never too early to start reading with their kids.—and it can never go on too long. Reading aloud isn’t only about teaching literacy, it’s about sharing stories, and we can do that at any age. So if you’ve already got a good reading ritual going, don’t stop. And if not, consider plowing through some of that summer reading list out loud. You never know what you might discover together.”

I encourage everyone to read this summer, and for inspiration, provide links to several book lists below:

For more family reading-together ideas, be sure to check out Matthew Winner’s “Let’s Get Busy” podcast!

Wishing you many fun summer adventures through books!

Melissa

Steadily We March Along

We’ve been very busy learning in the library!

In early January, members of my 4th grade Technology Rocks Information Literacy group were treated to a video chat via Google Hangout with author Chris Grabenstein – author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library – we had a wonderful visit with him, and am so very thankful of his patience and flexibility while I frantically tried to fix our technology issues – we could see and hear him on our Promethean board, but he could neither hear or see us!  In his typical good-natured way, he offered his phone number so that we could speak to him via cell phone.Flower Hill ES 044WP_20150107_15_49_41_Pro

Just for fun, we celebrated Rubber Duck Day on January 13th and learned about the meaning of friendship.

Students learned about Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. and importance of the Civil Rights movement.   Dr. King once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”  In honor of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. National Day of Service, Flower Hill students decorated 288 Valentine’s Day cards that were to be distributed to wounded soldiers at Walter Reid Hospital by WP_20150203_17_03_11_Provolunteers of Operation Second Chance. GWGVFD

My students also created four thank you posters that I delivered to the Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Volunteer Fire Department.   The firefighter second from the left, Charles Fowler, was especially pleased

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Dr. King is well known for his “I Have a Dream” speech, and I posed the question to staff and students …. “What is your dream for the future?” on an interactive bulletin board.  Some of their sweet and thoughtful dreams are here:

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In February, in addition to our regular lessons and work on inquiry projects, students also learned about many black history makers in celebration of Black History Month.  Every morning during the announcements, we spotlighted an important person, and students were encouraged to come down to the library to learn more about them by checking

WP_20150131_15_01_09_Pro out a book, researching on our databases, or completing one of the activities at our library learning center.  I have also had a display of books by Jacqueline Woodson, and students have been reading many of her thought-provoking books.

March promises to be another exciting month in the library.  Lots of learning, research, and creativity – including a week-long celebration of World Read Aloud Day where my students will be connecting with other classrooms around the United States to share information about each other’s state and read aloud to one another.  For more information about World Read Aloud Day, please visit www.litworld.org/wrad.    My students and I are looking forward to connecting with schools in Vermont, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas!

Dr. Seuss’ birthday is March 2, and his birthday is celebrated with Read Across America Day, sponsored by the National Education Association (NEA).  Maryland offers Read Across Maryland, and students are encouraged to take the Radical Reader’s Pledge to read 30 minutes each day for 30 days.  For information about Read Across Maryland, please visit the website here: http://www.readacrossmaryland.org/read-30-30/.

…and let’s not forget Pi(e) Day on March 14 – who says you can’t have fun with math in the library?!

Celebrating in the Library – December Edition

Here in the Flower Hill Media Center, my students enjoy celebrating in BIG and small ways!

We began December by decorating my “Reading is Snow Much Fun” bulletin board with handmade snowflakes.

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National Cookie Day – December 4th:

Although I didn’t have actual cookies for the students to eat (I did for the staff, however!), I did have a poster for them to sign with their favorite cookie flavor noted, as well as a variety of cookie recipes for them to try at home with their parents.

Dewey Decimal System Day – December 10th:

WP_20141208_15_09_58_ProDiane Creel, my predecessor here at Flower Hill, had left me her Melvil Dewey puppet, so I set up a learning center with him as the centerpiece so that I could remind my students how and why the Dewey Decimal Classification System was created.  I finished up the mini-lesson with  Melvil Dewey, the International Library Hip Hop Superstar’s Dewey Decimal Rap – a student favorite!

Celebrating the Hour of Code was the highlight of the month – my students absolutely loved learning the basics of computer programming during the week of December 15-19.  Kindergarten through grade 2 students worked together at the Promethean board; students in grade 4 worked individually in the computer lab, and students in grades 3 and 5 used their Chromebooks. Looking at these pictures you can see how engaged they all were – and how willing they were to help each other when someone got stuck.  My plan is to go “Beyond One Hour”  and continue with an in-school (and after-school, depending on popularity!) programming club to encourage my students to continue learning about programming – and perhaps inspire them to pursue a career in computer science!   Wouldn’t that be awesome?!

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Happy New Year!   I will end this post with a quote from Albert Einstein, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”

Level up! Fighting the Zombie Librarian Apocalypse

In October, Maryland Association of School Librarians (MASL) held its annual conference.  As I always do, I left energized and full of new ideas to bring to my school library.  Although I am far from the level of school librarians like Matthew Winner and Jennifer LaGarde, I strive to be a mover and shaker in the field of school librarianship, and I continue to Level UP my library program.  I follow Jennifer LaGarde’s philosophy … I am NOT a Zombie Librarian – I am definitely fighting the Zombie Librarian Apocalypse in my school library media center!    Each year I challenge myself to submit a proposal to MASL, and again was chosen present this year.  You can see my Session 1 presentation on becoming a Common Sense Media certified educator here.

One of the exciting things I was asked by my administration to create was enrichment programs for our 2nd and 4th graders.  This fall I launched “Technology Rocks Information Literacy” to give my students more opportunities to do more in depth research and create projects using technology.  Students were invited based on their MAP-R scores,  and I have twelve 2nd graders and thirty-four 4th graders participating this session.    I meet with the 2nd graders twice a week for 30 minutes, and with each of the 4th grade groups once a week for 30 minutes.  I chose two MASL 2014-2015 Black-Eyed Susan books upon which to base the programs:    Lifetime cover final_0Lifetime by Lola Schaefer andlemoncellos-library-300h Escape from Mr.Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein.   I have asked the 2nd graders to research one of the animals in the book Lifetime, and create a Google presentation based on their research to be shared with their classmates and teachers.  After reading the book (and working through all the riddles within it), my 4th graders will be creating book trailers and a scavenger hunt for all the Flower Hill students.  We will be culminating our fall session with a Google Hangout session with the author (whom I was thrilled to meet in person at MASL conference after having emailed back and forth for some time)!Chris Grabenstein   MCPS launched Google Apps for Education this year, and rolled out Chromebooks to the 3rd and 5th graders; my goal is to prepare not only these 2nd and 4th grade students, but all of my students (and staff!), to the Google products and to build their computer navigation skills for the rigors of PARCC online testing.

In October, my PreKindergarten through 2nd grade students participated in Read for the Record (a partnership between Jumpstart and We Give Books), and we made good use of the activity guides for the book Bunny Cakes by Rosemary Wells.

Here at Flower Hill ES we also celebrated Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Week , and continued conversations about staying safe on line.  CSM has created two great videos – one geared towards elementary students “Pause and Think Online” and another (with Flocabulary), for middle and high schoolers “Oversharing:  Think Before You Post”,

I  asked all my students and staff to sign the Digital Citizenship Pledge  and shared with them these THINK bookmarks  created by Technology Rocks seriously blogger Shannon Long.  Digital Citizenship Day Digital Citizenship Day2 It is amazing the engagement when you start talking about being safe online, posting on Facebook, Instagram, etc., and discussing the reasons for minimum ages on social media. Even the youngest of students emphatically shares their personal experiences with online games and social media!

Look for another post soon!  Happy November!

Dot-to-Dot Connections

My students and I just completed a fantastic week of dot-to-dot connections as we celebrated International Dot Day with educators and students in Florida, Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and nearby neighbors in Clarksburg!

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This was my third year participating in International Dot Day, inspired by the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds.     This was a celebration of creativity, courage, and collaboration, and we made our mark (and the world a better place) by connecting with new friends around the United States via Google Hangout.

After reading and discussing The Dot, my PreK–grade 2 students created dot pictures using the template in the official educator’s handbook, which we shared with our video chat partners.  A few examples are here …

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My students in grades 3-5 created dot day trading cards using index cards, and these cards were sent to our video chat partners in Florida (a few examples follow).  We’re looking forward to receiving some back from them, too!

Dot trading cards

During our video chat connections, we shared state symbols, read additional “dot-and-creativity- related” books, such as The Dot and Ish, also by Peter H. Reynolds,  Dot by Patricia Intriago, Press Here by Hervé Tullet, Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg, and Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match by Monica Brown.

Thank you Irene Allaire (Wilson Wims Elementary School), Lori Dearmore (Naselle Elementary School), Sue Halbert  (J.F. Tatem Elementary School), Cristol Kapp (Clifton Hills Elementary School),  Meghan Nels (Turtle River Montessori), Cathy Potter (Falmouth Elementary School),  Carol Scrimgeour (Essex Elementary School), and  Esther Uribe (Rutledge Elementary School) for your creative and fun dot-to-dot connections!

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Another blog I encourage you to follow (if you don’t already) is Jennifer Reed’s Reederama.  She posted every day last week about her school’s experiences, and then posted a wonderful reflection – “The Value of Virtual Visits” –  on Monday.  Please take the time to read it (you’ll want to go back and read the others, too)!

If you didn’t connect the dots this year, I highly encourage you to do so next year!   Participating in International Dot Day is a wonderful experience for our students to celebrate creativity, courage, and collaboration, while also developing there digital citizenship skills!

Bulletin Boards – Teachable Art

I consider a well-planned bulletin board not only informational, but a work of art – my media assistants think so, too – and together we have created a variety of bulletin boards over the past few years.  

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Below are a few things to think about as you create your library’s bulletin boards:

In her article Interactive Bulletin Boards – Make the Classroom Experience More User-friendly, Beth Newingham states, “ I can spend hours creating beautiful bulletin boards, but if they are not meaningful or if they do not serve a real purpose for my students, I find they do nothing more than take up important space on my walls.”

Cara Bafile interviewed author/educator Michael Gravois in her Education World article “Pretty” to Practical: Using Bulletin Boards to Teach, and he explained that, “too often bulletin boards are just thought of as decoration, when they really should emphasize the learning that is taking place in the classroom. Those two qualities do not have to be mutually exclusive; a bulletin board can be both educational and decorative.”

From Carolyn Tomlin’s article, Staff Newsletter: Bulletin Boards Make a Difference, is a helpful list of criteria:

As you create bulletin boards for your classroom, evaluate them using the following criteria:

  • Does it convey a message?
  • Is it bright and colorful?
  • Is the children’s work displayed neatly?
  • Is the material related to the children’s level of development?
  • Does it build a healthy self-concept?

Lastly, I wanted to share a wonderful resource with you – Julie Greller’s  blog, The Media Specialist’s Guide to the Internet – and her post “24 Places to Find Bulletin Board Display Ideas”.

Wishing you a spectacular school year!