Book Trailers

Even though it's summer, I've still been doing a bit of planning and searching the web for new ideas. One really neat blog that I came across was Watch. Connect. Read. Mr. Schu, the author of the blog, is an Elementary Librarian, who believes that video book trailers are one way to connect kids to books. As I've been reading his blog, I was inspired to search out video book trailers. I speak from personal experience that viewing a book trailer can make you want to read the book. I watched the book trailer for Jon Scieszka's new book Spaceheadz, which I have in my collection. I now can't wait to get my hands on it when I stop by school!

This is a youtube video. I know that in my school system, youtube.com is blocked. I have found a website that allows you to download the youtube video so that I can play them at school. The website is Keepvid. It has proved to be very helpful in downloading book trailers.

Stacey

Another Year Finished

Another year is finished. I'm really going to miss some of the 5th Graders. I've taught many of them since Kindergarten. I will admit during the slide show at the promotion ceremony, I got a few tears in my eyes.

But now it is time to start looking towards next year. I've got a lot of things to explore over the summer for next year. I'll keep posting throughout the summer I as begin to plan and get excited over new lesson ideas for next year.

"Kindergarten Rocks"

As I was trying to do a little bit of planning ahead for the rest of the year for Kindergarten, I came across a neat activity on the TLC = Technology + Library + Classroom blog. Tara, a librarian at the International School in Bangkok, Thailand, read about this idea on another blog. We read the book Kindergarten Rocks by Katie Davis, then using Inspiration we created a web about what they thought rocked about Kindergarten this year. Then I had them draw a picture showing what they enjoyed the most. When they were done with their picture I scanned some of them in, with their help. (I will finish scanning them.) The next time I see them for class I will have put the pictures into a Power Point presentation and we will record them saying "This is ________ and _________ rocked!" Many things that were said were Art, PE, and the most was field trips. Once the Power Point is completed the Prekindergarten teachers will show it to their students. I'm really excited to see how this turns out.

Tara used an online program called Voice Thread to create her final product. She didn't have the students draw a picture. She just used a class picture for this product. I had never heard of Voice Thread and it is now on my list of things to explore this summer.