I hope that you have all enjoyed listening to the audio book of Charlotte’s Web, and that your students are excited to attend the play this Thursday. Here is an online activity and corresponding lesson plan that you might want to use. It is a comic book creator that lets students create their own comics based on the book.

Let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

I hope you all enjoyed our author visit from Carolyn Crimi as much as I did. I heard lots of positive, excited responses from the kids, and Carolyn had so many wonderful things to say about our school.

As you are trying to fill the last days of school with meaningful activities, it might be fun to incorporate some of Mrs. Crimi’s writing tips for the kids. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Have the students write a “calendar story”
  Encourage the students to bring in a calendar from home that has interesting pictures (especially ones that have pictures showing “trouble”) and select one of the pictures as the theme for the story. If finding calendars doesn’t work, you as the teacher could go online to Flickr and find some interesting pictures to use as story prompts (don’t send kids to search for pictures online). I have an example of using some Flickr images as prompts on a Voicethread project I use with my eMINTS teachers. This will show you some of the interesting photos you can find online that make great writing prompts.
• Create a story idea treasure chest
  Have the students go on a story idea treasure hunt around the school (or you could have them do it at home) and collect interesting objects that they could use as writing ideas. They could bring in shoeboxes and decorate them and add the objects to their box. Of course, have them select one of the objects to use to write a story.

Again, I hope you enjoyed our author visit and found it beneficial to the kids. I hope to continue bringing in an author each year. Sell that Cookie Dough and bring in Community Cash!

Your Library Lady,

Cindy

Believe it or not, it’s almost time to think about summer reading! This summer, Scholastic is offering a summer reading opportunity for your students and their families. The details will be shared on April 30, and they are kicking off their event with a live game show that will be broadcast online. Right now, they are accepting question submissions for the game show. This would be a great activity to do with your kids in the afternoon after MAP testing. Have them come up with questions and answers about their favorite books and authors. Then, check back on April 30 to watch the show! Find all the info on the Scholastic Summer Challenge website.

April is National Poetry Month, and what better way to get your students excited about poetry than hearing about a new poetry book by that book’s author! Laura Salas, the author of the new poetry book Stampede! Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School, is having an online book launch party today. Check out her launch site to hear her read some of the poems, watch some silly videos, play some games, get teacher resources for her new book (including a readers theater script!), and chat with the author! If you don’t get a chance to visit the site today for the “live” launch, be sure to visit sometime soon as the site will still be posted. Enjoy!

The people from Google are back again this year with another contest to create a Google Doodle! This year’s contest theme is “What I Wish for the World”.

You can read the contest details on their website. Like last year, I registered our school as a participant. If you would like to have your students participate in the contest, just let me know. I would be glad to help you develop this as a project with your students. We can only submit 6 entries in the contest from our school, so I will have a panel of teachers help select the entries to send in from all of the classes that participate.

Entries are due March 31, so start planning now for this fun learning opportunity!

Here is a VoiceThread project I did in the LMC with Mrs. Sheets’ and Mrs. Vejraska’s classes during flexible time. The students made their own Field Guide based on the Spiderwick series. Check it out! If you would like to try a VoiceThread project, just let me know. I will also be teaching a workhsop on VoiceThread on April 24th.

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Have you ever noticed those fancy Google logos they have on special holidays? Google calls these Google Doodles, and they are having a contest for kids to create a Google Doodle! How cool would it be for one of our kids to come up with a design that would be featured on the Google website? Well, here’s their chance.

Doodle 4 Google is a national contest that asks kids to come up with a logo based on the theme “What if…”. You can read the contest details on their website. Here are some examples from past contests in the United Kingdom and Australia.

I already registered our school as a participant. If you would like to have your students participate in the contest, just let me know. I would be glad to help you develop this as a project with your students. It would be a great activity to do during those stressful MAP testing weeks, and it would definitely keep our students engaged in learning. We can only submit 6 entries in the contest from our school, so I will have a panel of teachers help select the entries to send in from all of the classes that participate.

Entries are due April 12, so start planning now for this fun learning opportunity!