Golden Archer Award - Wisconsin's Student Choice Award

Golden Archer Award

The 2016 winning Golden Archer Award winners are:

Primary: The Book With No Pictures by B.J. Novak
Intermediate: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney
Middle/Jr. High School: Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

I am excited to have the elementary students (grades K-5) in our district participate in nominating, reading, and voting for the Golden Archer Award.  With this, let's work together to encourage students to nominate their favorite picture books for the Primary level and chapter books for the Intermediate level.  As explained on the WEMTA Golden Archer Awards website there are three learning level categories, specific criteria for students to consider to nominate books and nominating procedures as indicated below.  I would like to see each of the elementary schools nominate five (5) books.  Students will share their favorite titles with the media assistant in your building by Friday, April 29, 2016 so I can send in the nominations over the weekend.  Please contact me via email if you have any questions.

CATEGORIES
Primary: Students in kindergarten and early grades
Intermediate: Students in upper elementary grades
Middle/Junior High: Students in upper grades, middle school, or junior high school

CRITERIA
Books must be...

• recognized as noteworthy and of special interest to students. 
• now in print and readily available.
• published within the last five (5) years.
• individual book titles, not series names.

NOMINATING PROCEDURES
The library media specialist and/or classroom teacher solicit nominations from their students. Nominated titles are sent to the Golden Archer Committee via the online Nomination Ballot.
Each participating school may nominate a maximum of five (5) books for each category (primary, intermediate, middle/junior high) that is represented in that school.  All nominated titles should have a copyright year within the last five (5) years. 
All nominations should include the number of students nominating each title.
Book nominations for 2017 are due by May 1st. 

I Love Authors!

I Love Authors!

Meeting two nationally known, award winning authors in the same week!  Wow!  It doesn't get much better than this other than attending the ALA Conference.  

On Tuesday the keynote speaker at the WEMTA conference was one of my favorite author/illustrators,  Kevin Henkes, author of 47 books!  I still love Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Owen, Julius the Baby of the World, A Weekend with Wendell, and many more including this year's Caldecott Honor and Theodor Seuss Geisel honor - Waiting.

Today, Paula and I met and heard Kwame Alexander speak about his Newbery winning book Crossover, his picture book titled Surf's Up, and his newly released title Booked.  Kwame shares, "I wanted to write a book about a boy who loves soccer, hates reading, likes a girl named April, unfortunately is being bullied, and his whole life changes when he meets a librarian." I hope to one day be "that librarian" that makes a difference in a student's life.

If you haven't read Crossover, this magnificent story written in novel verse will kidnap you into reading it and not wanting to put it down until you've finished.  April is poetry month, as I posted earlier this month.  If your students like sports, realistic fiction, or poetry, and even if they don't, encourage them to read this award winning story! It is a great read aloud too!

 

WEMTA Conference and Earth Day

WEMTA (Wisconsin Educational Media & Technology Association) Conference

Arriving at WEMTA today as a first time attendee couldn't have started better!  The first session I attended was Cool, Loud, and Everywhere - Being a Book Advocate presented by John Schu (aka John Schumacher).  He shared many books and many ideas for being a book advocate, but the one book that I have read and still love that he spoke about was the One and Only Ivan.  This 2013 Newbery Winning story tugs at hearts to advocate for the treatment of animals especially those kept in captivity.  The amazing thing is Ivan was a real gorilla.  Glenn Close made a documentary about his life titled The Urban Gorilla.  John Schu had the opportunity to meet Ivan prior to his death, and Ivan autographed his book!

If you haven't read this story, check out the One and Only Ivan book trailer to begin the journey of this amazing story.  

Next week I will post more about the WEMTA Conference!

Earth Day - April 22

The inauguration of Earth Day was April 22, 1970.  Forty-six years later, we continue to celebrate Earth Day, and raise awareness of environmentalism and caring for the magnificent resources of our planet.  Here is a list of book titles to review and consider promoting to students (this list covers book titles from elementary to adult reading interest). Booklist: Books to Celebrate Earth Day and the Environmentalist in All of Us  Here are some activities and ideas for celebrating Earth Day: 

Celebrate Earth Day - Scholastic - lots of great ideas!
Green Schools Initiative: Earth Day Ideas and Activities - This includes 5-minute films related to Earth Day
NEA - Earth Day Curriculum Resources for Grades K-5

April is National Poetry Month and School Library Month!

April is National Poetry Month

In honor of the largest literary celebration, this year celebrates 20 years since National Poetry Month was established.  In order to help celebrate a month of all things poetry, below are some links for poetry ideas and activites.

Reading Rockets: Poetry
The Poem Farm
EduPlace: National Poetry Month
TeacherVision: National Poetry Month Kit (grades K-5)
TeacherVision: Poetry Resources for Teachers
Scholastic: April is Poetry Month - Writing prompts, Videos, and more!

Kwame Alexander, author of Crossover, talks about poetry
Kwame Alexander will be at Boswell Books, Milwaukee on April 17th to promote his new book Booked.  If you haven't read or are looking for a great read aloud to your class in grades 4 or 5 check out Crossover written in novel verse.

Kwame Alexander, author ofBooked
Sunday April 17, at 3:00 pm

Boswell is very excited to welcome poet, playwright, producer, public speaker, performer, and author of the Newbery-winning novel The Crossover, Kwame Alexander, presenting the much-anticipated follow up, Booked, in which soccer, family, love, and friendship take center stage while twelve-year-old Nick learns the power of word, wrestling with problems at home, standing up to a bully, and trying to impress the girl of his dreams.

In Kwame Alexander’s latest, Booked, Nick is helped along by his best friend and sometimes teammate Coby, and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives him inspiring books to read. This electric and heartfelt novel-in-verse by poet Kwame Alexander bends and breaks as it captures all the thrills and setbacks, action and emotion of a World Cup match!

About the Author: Kwame Alexander is a poet, children’s book author, playwright, producer, public speaker, performer, and winner of the 2015 Newbery Medal for his novel-in-verse, The Crossover. He conducts creative writing workshops in middle and high schools, often reaching more than five hundred students monthly. He lives with his wife and two daughters in the Washington, D.C., area.

School Library Month

AASL (American Association of School Librarians) Spokesperson for School Library Month:

Megan McDonald, author of the popular Judy Moody series, the Stink books, and the Sisters Club trilogy, is the national spokesperson for the 2016 celebration.

"Before I was a writer, I was a reader, thanks to my school librarian. She saw something in me, and put the Little House books in my hand. She first introduced me to Ramona and Charlotte the Spider and Homer Price and Caddie Woodlawn. And she let me check out a biography of Virginia Dare so many times, (I got to stamp the due date myself!), that she finally had to ask me to share with other readers.

I would not be who I am without the early impact of my school library and librarian. I grew up to become a librarian. I grew up to become a storyteller. I grew up to become a writer. School librarians not only foster a lifelong love of reading and story, they encourage thinking and creativity. They support curious minds. They inspire young imaginations.

School librarians shape lives." 

Happy 100th Birthday Beverly Cleary!

Happy 100th Birthday Beverly Cleary!

April is just around the corner and celebrating a birthday is always fun!  On April 12th, the beloved author Beverly Cleary will be celebrating her 100th birthday.  One simple way to recognize and celebrate her birthday, you and your class can participate in national D.E.A.R. Day on her birthday.  If you are interested more ideas in Celebrating 100 Years of Beverly Cleary, click on this link for some fantastic ways to celebrate with your class.  

Beverly Cleary was a reluctant reader until third grade when she realized her love of reading.  She was a librarian before becoming an author. If you are looking for more author information and an author interview video, Beverly Cleary, One of a Kind - Reading Rockets or Discovering Beverly Cleary 

Safe Image Searching and Free to Use Images

Safe Image Searching 

and 

Free-to-Use Images

As students research for informational writing or other school projects, it is important for students to know how to search safely for images.  Badgerlink Britannica Image database and the new KidsInfoBits database resources are great, safe resources for image searching. An email will be sent out to teachers for the username and/or password for these database resources.

 A couple more avenues include Using Google Advanced Image Search and Pics4Learning. In using Google Advanced Image Search, When using this, pay attention to the SafeSearch and Usage Rights aspects for safer and free-to-use image searching. Pics4Learning is a safe, free image library for education.  This would be a great Digital Citizenship lesson for your class. Contact me if you would like to schedule a lesson.

Pi Day and More!

Pi Day - March 14 - 3.14 - Happy Birthday Einstein!

Pizza pie, fruit pie, meat pie!  Yum!

What a fabulous day for math, makerspace, and celebrating!  Pi Day offers many wonderful learning activities to help better understand pi.  

Check out some of activities, events and the history of pi at this site: Pi Day 2016: Events, Activities & History from Exploratorium

Elementary Library Media Lesson - Website Evaluation

As a part of being a responsible user of the internet, a good digital citizen, students should learn how to evaluate websites.  There are many students and adults that do not consider essential questions to ask when accessing a website for research or general interest.  This article helps to understand this concept better.  Web Evaluation: Does This Website Smell Funny to You? Knowledge Quest

Contact me to set up a lesson for students as young as second or third grade to help them learn more about evaluating websites.