On the first day of Poetry Month...

What a day!  No April Fools for me...I was lucky enough to see Mo Willems read his newest books Listen to My Trumpet and The Duckling Gets a Cookie (and I got to pick up some signed books for the library!)

First things first, the packed theater sang Happy Birthday to the Pigeon.  That stinker (as Mo Willems calls him) turned 9 today!

Then there was the photo shoot, before Mo encouraged everyone to put down their phones, hold the hand of the kid next to them and ENJOY and EXPERIENCE the moment.

He also went on to field questions, with the answers geared to adults as well as kids - like this gem:  (The question was where he got his ideas.)  "An idea is not an animal you hunt, it's a seed that you plant. And then sometimes you cut it down and burn it for profit."

Finally, we waited in line for him to sign some books.  He was friendly and very much a fan of teachers and librarians.  He is fast with his Piggie and Pigeon drawings!

Also, it being the first day of poetry month, I settled down with a stack of books that I will be sharing in different ways in the library this month.  I am so excited for the poetry madness that is about to begin!

Book titles + Stacking = POETRY!

I heard of book spine poetry for the first time a few years ago, thanks to Travis Jonker over at 100ScopeNotes.com.  I tried it with 5th graders for the past 2 years and they came up with some amazing poems.  This year, my student teacher and I decided to try it with first graders - and we were very impressed with their creativity!

A selection of the 1st grade book spine poems, ready for sharing!

They had been learning about the Super3 (Plan, Do, Review) and we decided to make creating book spine poems an activity to practice the process of planning, doing and reviewing.  Honestly, I was a little worried about the chaos that would ensue, but it was totally worth it!  We preselected some titles for them (just for the sake of time) and put them out on tables all over the library.

The rush to pick titles!

The book spine poems they came up with were witty, insightful, funny and silly. It was a great experience for all.  As a follow up, each class reviewed what they did to create their poems and planned out a lesson to teach to first graders in a different school.

Class brainstorm to plan the Skype lesson!

Yesterday we held a Skype session to teach those first graders about book spine poems and how to start making their own - it was a huge success!  The kids felt invested in the process and proud to be the "teachers" - giving directions and sharing their examples.  I can't wait for more poetry fun in April!

Here's some of their work:

Rose 1H

Niamh 1W

Daniil 1W

Gaby 1W

Owen 1H

Vivi 1M

Lyanna 1W

Amanda 1M

Sam 1M

Ross 1M

World Read Aloud Day!

One 5th grade class had the perfect connection to WRAD:

Over the course of the day, I got the chance to connect with 10 different classes of students - 6 in my own school and 4 through Skype! We read stories together, I jumped in to take over their read aloud books, or I simply talked about WRAD and took pictures! It was an amazing day of stories, laughter and even disbelief (that there are so many in the world that don't know how to read). It made me realize that we have to do even more in my school and district to really make our students global learners.

Some of the books that were read aloud over the course of WRAD:

I had a great day- here are some highlights:

• Read one of my 1st grade classes from another school a story (they LOVED Pete the Cat) - Thank you Mr. Gaita!
• Read a few chapters of Wonder aloud to a 5th grade class 

• Witnessed a dictionary race in another 5th grade class when I read the word "curtailing" aloud
• Shared I Want My Hat Back with Ms. Lightfoot's 4th grade Animal Ambassadors via Skype (and had them each come up to share if they were more Team Bear or Team Rabbit)

• Observed 1st graders reading aloud to each other in small groups (Henry and Mudge!)
• Connected with Mrs. Reed and Mr. Schu via a double Skype session!

It was a whirlwind day, but worth every second of running around and troubleshooting connections.  I even got to learn about sharing my screen on Skype so I could use the ELMO to make the book easier for the other classes to see!

Hope everyone had an amazing World Read Aloud Day!  Thank you LitWorld!

It's almost World Read Aloud Day!

First Annual ZervCott!

This year I decided to extend my Caldecott lessons to include voting in a Mock Caldecott election for my 1-4 grade classes.  It was great fun.  The Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to the illustrator of the "most distinguished American picture book for children." We learned about the history of the award, looked at past winners, and spent time looking through potential winners as a class, individually, and in small groups.  I collected 24 books from our school library and public library; culled from other Mock Caldecott lists I researched, librarian reviews and my own personal favorites.  This was our master list:

Erin's mock-caldecott-2011 book montage

Erin's favorite books »

Neville

A Nation's Hope
Shout Shout
Mouse and Lion
Blackout *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Stars
Grandpa Green *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Swirl By Swirl
Orani
Blue Chicken
Red Sled
Subway Story
Naamah
Drawing from Memory
A Butterfly is Patient
Perfect Square
All the Water
Bone Dog
A Ball for Daisy *2012 Caldecott Medal Winner!
Me Jane *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Balloons Over Broadway
Ice
The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred
The Watcher

I tallied the votes for each class and each grade level so I could share those results with them - and then I took the grand totals (332 total votes!) and revealed our TOP 6 (Grandpa Green, Bone Dog, Blackout, Me Jane, Blue Chicken, and Swirl By Swirl). [What I thought was fantastic was that of our ZervCott Top 6 list - 3 of them received Caldecott Honor Medals!]  Finally, all of the 1st and 2nd grade classes voted AGAIN for just one favorite from the Top 6 list.  First graders were also tasked with designing medals to be used for the ZervCott medal and honors.  It was wonderful to see how invested they were in each book and the deliberation they went through.  Some were really hard pressed to make a decision.  As a final step, a class of 5th graders helped me chose the winning ZervCott medal designs by using their SmartBoard clickers to respond to a poll I created with 6 finalist designs.

Here are the final results for the first annual ZervCott Awards!

ZervCott Honor Books (and their medals):

Medal by Sylvie

Medal by Annie

And the 2012 ZervCott winner!

Medal by Kettie