California Young Reader Medal- 2.0 Style

Tomorrow is my day at IMC, so I’m presenting another Saturday Matinee. Topic: California Young Reader Medal- 2.0 Style. In this fast-paced one hour session, participants will learn a little bit about the CYRM and the resources that are available for including it into their curriculum or library program.

Launched in 1976, this reader’s choice award program has 5 different categories: Picture Book (K-3), Intermediate (3-6), Middle (6-9), Young Adult (9-12) and Picture Book for Older Readers (Grade 4 and up). It is the only national reader’s choice award to be sponsored by four different professional organizations: California Association of Teachers of English (CATE), California Library Association (CLA), California Reading Association (CRA), and California School Library Association (CSLA). A committee of representatives from each organization coordinates CYRM activities at the state level.

California children and teens can read the nominated books from May through March and vote for their favorites. Teachers and librarians introduce the nominees, often reading them aloud. They provide ballots for voting, compile vote totals, and submit results to the CYRM committee. CYRM ballots must be postmarked by April 1st of each year. Winning titles are announced in May. New nominees are announced on February 1.

Saturday Matinee Focus
The class focus will be on reviewing and voting for the nominated books. We’ll review using Photo Story and Power Point games. We’ll look at the free resource booklet that is available at the program website. Reader’s Theater scripts are available for all awards.

We’ll also look at how teachers and librarians can use their whiteboards for interactive voting. Even without all the bells and whistles, educators who have access to computers can create online surveys that take the counting out of voting and put the fun back in.

Looking Ahead
Though this class is only an introduction, we are planning more training for teachers and library staff. Mark your calendars now for our Second Annual SDUSD CYRM workshop. Wednesday, November 16. From 2:30 to 3:00 we’ll have poster sessions, door prizes, shopping with Yellow Book Road and refreshments. The program will be from 3PM to 4:30PM with continued door prizes, poster sessions, shopping and refreshments until 5PM. All are welcome!

Resources
Destiny
California Young Reader Medal official site- (complete resource guide available)
100 Web Resources for Teachers
Libraries Matter wiki CYRM page
TeachingBooks.net http://www.teachingbooks.net/quicksearch.cgi

And the nominees are…
PRIMARY K-3
On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole. Greenwillow Books, 2007.
Let’s Do Nothing by Tony Fucile. Candlewick Press, 2009.
The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2009.
Princess Hyacinth: The Surprising Tale of a Girl Who Floated by Florence Heide. Illustrated by Lane Smith, Schwartz & Wade Books, 2009.
I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll. Illustrated by Howard McWilliam. Flashlight
Press, 2009.

INTERMEDIATE 3-6
Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning by Danette Haworth. Walker & Co., 2008.
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look. Schwartz & Wade Books, 2008.
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O’Conner. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009.

MIDDLE SCHOOL/JUNIOR HIGH 6-9
Revolution is Not a Dinner Party: A Novel by Ying Chang Compestine. Henry Holt, 2007.
Waiting for Normal by Leslie Conner. Katherine Tegen Books, 2008.
Every Soul a Star, by Wendy Mass. Little, Brown & Co., 2008.

YOUNG ADULT 9-12
Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Harcourt, 2008.
Beastly by Alex Flinn. Harper Teen, 2007.
If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Penguin Group USA, 2009.

PICTURE BOOKS FOR OLDER READERS Grade 4+
Goal! written by Mina Javaherbin. Illustrated by A.G.Ford. Candlewick Press, 2010.
Henry’s Freedom Box written by Ellen Levine. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Scholastic Press, 2007.
Wabi Sabi written by Mark Reibstein. Illustrated by Ed Young. Little, Brown & Co., 2008.

Orientation 2.0 Style

One of the first things we “do to” our students is bore them to death with an Orientation. Rules, procedures, what we will learn this year… Yak. Yak. Yak. Snore. Snore. Snore. Sometimes, I think we should just herd them all into the cafeteria and do it all at once. Get it over with- like ripping off a band-aid. It’s a necessary evil. We have to do it, right?

Maybe we do have to do it, but it doesn’t have to be boring- for your students or for yourself. They only have to hear it once. You may have to do it 6 to 25 times! Enter a solution. Orientation 2.0 Style. On Saturday @ the IMC I’ll be teaching a Saturday Matinee about modern ways to teach the same old thing. We'll look at websites that offer free digital tools. For example, we’ll learn how to make a Voki, like the one here (click on the play button to get your homework assignment). I'll show you how to work smarter by looking at what other folks have done. For example, my class for elementary teachers has its own website- Best of the Best- Top 100 Web Resources for Teachers or a wiki like Web 2.0, Cool Tools for Schools.

During our quick hour, I’ll introduce you to PowerPoint games that you can adapt for Orientation- Jeopardy, Millionaire and Smarter than a Fifth Grader. These interactive games can be adapted by your older students and played by your younger students. They can be used later in the year as pre or post tests for your curriculum units. The more students are involved in the learning, the more likely they are to remember.

We can also take those same slides, add some pictures, and create movies in Photo Story or other video programs. One of the best uses of this media is that it saves your voice (and retains your enthusiasm). You can play it all day long without having to repeat yourself, ensuring that all students get the same message. Once your movie is created, you can also place it on your website and students or parents can watch it when they need to do so. Be sure to do “best practice” and introduce your video as well as discuss it afterwards.

You can also use your interactive whiteboards for your orientation. You could create a flipchart that has students take a test. Use Inspiration and have older students create a chart of rules and procedures. You can easily use it with the PowerPoint games you created.

Online voting is another interactive way to use 2.0 technology is You can create a survey that students have to complete online. As the creator, you can get their compiled answers. It’s a great way to test students who ought to know the answers. There are many free online sites for creating surveys- Survey Monkey, Google, or even your school website. Our district uses School Wires which has surveys as a component.

Another fun way to use technology is to create a QR code. Anyone who has a Smart Phone can scan the QR code and it will take them to your website. It’s a great marketing tool. Once you create it, put it on your brochure or newsletter. How about a bookmarker for your parents?

And because I am a firm believer in working smarter by collaborating, I have added a page on my wiki- Libraries Matter for Orientation. As folks create their orientation, I'll invite you to post yours to my wikispace page. Then, as we add projects, we can borrow what someone else created and adapt it to suit our needs.

And yes, I know everyone doesn’t have a Smart Phone, interactive whiteboard or even an LCD projector, but just like everything else we do, we need to reach out in all manner of ways. Different fish are caught with different bait. Why not try some new bait this year? You never know who might actually bite.

Developing New Seminars

On Monday- was that just yesterday?- I sent in my handbook for my newest seminar, How School Library Staff Can Impact Student Achievement: Collaboration Ideas that Work. (See Institute for Educational Development to find out if I am coming to your area. Like most other things in my life, one deadline follows another.

Now I am working on another seminar on Using Technology in the Library. I have my own ideas about what to include, but I am curious as to yours. What would you like to learn about in a 5 hour seminar? Though there will be breakout exercises, this seminar will be mostly show and tell. Participants won't necessarily bring their laptops or have internet connectivity. So, put in your two cents and let me know.

July = Summer Musical

It's almost July, so that means a great many things. Summer is here. Almost all of my schools are out until September. I have another book due in two weeks. Yikes! And for me it also means the summer musical opens in two weeks. This year’s Vanguard Productions @ Westminster Theatre is “Damn Yankees.” With a cast of almost 50 and most characters with multiple costume changes, it’s been a challenge for this costumer. I’m also in the show as Gloria, the reporter who makes Joe famous and then tries to find out who he really is.

There are many other SDUSD folks in the production. Bill Cobb, musical theater teacher at Dana Middle School, returns to the Vanguard stage as Joe Boyd. Consuelo Goodman, Super Lead Teacher @ CDC, stars as Lola. JoDarlene Reardon, retired from SDUSD, is our Doris, part of a laugh out loud sister team. Lesley Pearson, Administrator @ CDC, is producing the show. We also have lots of SDUSD students.

The show opens with a rousing song, “Six Months Out of Every Year,” that sets the stage- Joe Boyd would love to save his beloved baseball team, the Washington Senators, and lead them to the pennant. Enter Applegate- the devil who grants his wish. What Joe learns is that home and the life he had is worth more than his favorite pastime.

“Damn Yankees” opens July 15 and runs for 3 weekends. Tickets sell out quickly, so go online (new for us) and order yours today. Bring your family for a heartwarming and fun show.  You don’t want to miss it!

Bribery… Works Every Time

It’s the end of the year and you’re trying to get the library and textbooks returned. How do you get them back without feeling like a nag? Though you have to face the fact that some books won’t ever return, there are many ways to encourage folks to play along. One of most important ways is to think positive: try “rewarding” those who do before harassing those who don’t. For example:

• Brownie Party: Have a drawing for the classes that return all their books. Reward them with a party- pizza, brownies. Maybe you could save money by having them bring their school lunches to the library and eating there with you.
• Class Stars: In a high traffic area, post the names of the teachers (or students) who return their materials. People don’t like to be left out.
• Library Lollies: Give kids who return their materials a lollipop, etc. when they return their materials. It could also be a trinket. Oriental Trading has cute, inexpensive things.
• Return One-Get One: Students who return their materials get to choose a free book, magazine or lottery ticket for a door prize.
• Book Return Countdown: Get the whole school involved. Post a thermometer in the hall. Use construction paper to fill up the thermometer. As books are returned, add more color until the thermometer is full and all materials are returned.
• Amnesty Day: For those of you who charge late fines, announce an Amnesty Day and excuse fines for one day. Kids will bring them back because they won’t fear the fine.
• Bring a Can-Feed the Needy: Collect food for the needy. If students bring in dry or canned goods, you can excuse the fine when they return the books. This works especially well in November and December.
• Collaborate: Work with your PE teachers. Ask them to award extra points for field day if the class has returned all of their books.
• Little Red Wagon: Go to where they are. Take a little red wagon and go from class to class picking up books.
• Return Bins: Have a book return outside your secondary library. Sometimes kids just won't take the time to go inside.
• Lunch Encounters: Go to the lunchroom and have them return books there.

Sadly you have to be realistic. Not all books will come back. Some students just have too many things going on and can’t find their shoes, much less a library book. Some of your students just don’t have the money to pay for lost materials or overdue fines. For those students you may want to try the following options.

• Payment Plans: One of our Teacher Librarians has her kids bring in a dollar a week until it’s paid off. Little by little students can clear up their fines.
• Work it Off: Hold students accountable by “hiring” them to work in the library at minimum wage until they pay off their accounts. Talk to them about the cost of the materials and how long they will have to work to replace it. Putting it in real world terms also teaches them a valuable lesson.
• Replacement: Especially with paperbacks, you might take a different paperback for the one that was lost.
• Paperwork: In actuality, handing out notices to teachers is rarely effective. They get buried in the bottom of the backpack. It’s more effective to hand a student an overdue notice when the rest of his class is getting to take a book or a prize. His paper can be exchanged for a prize when he clears up his record.

Do the best you can. Know that some loss is the cost of doing business. At some point you should forgive the students and move on. Clean up records after a year or so. Certainly by the time he graduates, his record of losing Brown Bear in Kindergarten should be off his record. Let it go and move on. Focus on the positive.

Just in Time for Summer

With all of the end of the year stress and the staffing situations, this weekend I was dying to read something far from my real world. I wanted something light. Maybe something funny. Something that takes me away from it all and lets me relax. So, Saturday night at dinner, I grabbed a book off the big pile in the hallway. Alex Rider: The Final Mission- Scorpia Rising.

Fans of Alex Rider are probably laughing now. If anything, Rider books are certainly not light. I feel exhausted after reading most of the first chapters. Alex Rider is the James Bond of 14 year olds. His life is far from ordinary and full of adventure. It will take you away from your real life. Dishes will go unwashed. Homework will go undone. The world will fade away when you are reading books from the Alex Rider series. Scorpia Rising is the last of his missions- and it’s just as good as its predecessors.

Set mostly in Cairo, Alex again finds himself in the employment of M16. It seems, however, that he has fallen into the trap that Scorpia set for him. Having been twice defeated by Alex, Scorpia has no intention of letting a 15 year old boy get the best of him a third time.

Like every other book, Horowitz hooks you in the first chapter. There is no easy stopping place. If you wait for the end of the chapter, you’re too hooked to stop. Needless to say, on Sunday, when I should have been writing, I was reading. I sat on my patio-porch-balcony in the sun of the day and consumed it. In just a matter of hours, I was finished. Mouth open. Really? How can that be? Are you kidding me? Did that really happen?

Ah. Intrigued? Your turn to read Alex Rider’s final mission. Haven’t started them? Run to your library- and check it out. And thank goodness, it’s just in time for summer.

It's a Present, But it's No Surprise

Once in awhile a book comes along that warms your heart and teaches you a lesson. Enter True.. Sort of by Katherine Hannigan. Delaware Pattison “was trouble: little trouble on the way to BIG TROUBLE, and getting closer to it every day. Delly’s trouble wasn’t mean. It always started with her thinking something would be fun and good. It always ended with somebody yelling, ‘Delaware Pattison, to your room!’ or, ‘Welcome to detention, Ms. Pattison. Again.’ And there Delly’d be, wondering how something that had seemed so right could go so, so wrong.”

Delly is a kid who has heard “bad, wrong, trouble” until that’s all she can see about herself. That translates into a heart that only feels sadness until one day she feels the coming of a “surpresent.” What she gets is not only a surprise but could be a present not only to herself, but to all those who get close enough to be touched by someone who can’t bear to be touched.

Just like she did in Ida B., Hannigan writes a story that pulls at your heartstrings. It makes you laugh out loud. It makes you cry real tears. As an adult it makes you look twice at the “gray children” you teach- those kids who are quiet. Those kids who stay on the fringe of the crowd. Those kids who act out and seem uncontrollable. Like Ida B., this is a must read for any adult who works with kids.

It’s also a great read aloud. It has boy characters. It has girl characters. It has adults who pay attention. For kids who struggle, it will give them hope. For kids who harass, it can lead them to a higher path. They can see past their own weaknesses and choose to lead the underdogs out.

Hannigan's latest book is certainly a present to all who read it, but considering her track record, it's no surprise.