Saturday, January 31, 2015

More Great Books!

                                Max Explores Chicago
Laberje, R. 
 I just read this cute book to all my K-1-2 students to get FIRED UP for Reji's visit, who is the author of this book. The whole series of books is really neat if you have been these places. Chicago's book talks about Navy Pier, the Willis Tower, Chicago style pizza, and much more. I bought the New York version for my kids and had it signed by Reji. Image from bn.com



                                Doll Bones
                                Black, H

This book isn't "new" but I just had to say how much I love it! I read this book because it came to my library with a creepy doll on the cover (unlike this new design) and then I found this awesome QR code activity about it, so I had to preview it before sending it out to the students. I really loved the mix of creepy and adventure as these kids go on a quest to put a ghost at rest. This book is always checked out of the library because it is unlike anything I have read before. I have read it twice! Image from bn.com but my cover is more like Scholastic's!

Anyone else REALLY excited about Monday's book award winners?!
I always try to predict and hope that I bought and read the books that win...



Wednesday, January 28, 2015

We Are "Fired Up" for our Author Visit: Reji Laberje

This month we are "fired up" for our author visit! Reji Laberje is going to come to our school to do a reading and writing workshop with our students.

Max Explores...

Grades K-2 are going to do a version of her book series Max Explores called Max Explores Rolling Hills. So we all designed a book cover of (name) explores (place). We thought of some neat places like China and Niagra Falls, and local places like Walgreens and McDonalds too.

Make Room for Jake McNair

Grades 3-4 and are going to write some sequence poems based on Reji's book Make Room for Jake McNair. So to get ready, we worked on shields (our dragon breathing defenses!) that had poetry on them about us.


Cooper Ridge, The Wonder Kid

Grades 5-6 will be writing through a presentation called "Drawing Fire" where students will work on action scenes and climaxes. We each wrote something that we are "fired up" to read on a hand tracing to create our fire.  We read part of Cooper Ridge to get us fired up!

What I'm Reading



Hello everyone!
This is my first official blog. I want the purpose of this website to be sharing ideas, projects, and books that are great for elementary students. I am a K-6 Library Technology Specialist in Wisconsin and I am always looking for new ideas, websites, tools, and books to share with my classes.

I am usually reading both a chapter book and dappling in a few picture books. Here are my top two right now (images from bn.com):

Uni the Unicorn Uni the Unicorn: A Story of Believing
Rosenthal, A.
Ages 4-8

This book is really neat, as it's about a unicorn who believes in little girls. In a parallel story, a little girl is believing in unicorns and hopes to meet one. This is truly a great fantasy book for younger readers.


Curiosity
Curiosity
Blackwood, G.
Ages 9 and up

This book about chess prodigy Rufus is set in the 1800s. I am intrigued by it but find that it might be a difficult read for students as there is a lot of French and the time is hard to relate to. It is interesting enough, but it needs the right audience.