J. K. Rowling just completed a new book, a book of fairy tales called “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” which is of course the volume that (WARNING SPOILER!) Dumbledore leaves Hermione in his will. (OKAY SPOILER OVER). Only seven copies have been made, one of which will be on sale in an auction house for charity.
Read the story
Sadly our entire book budget for the year probably wouldn't buy it. We could pay the starting price, but it is going to rise so fast...
Also, Ms. Rowling is suing to block a publication from a “lexicon website” because she plans to publish her own HP Encyclopedia. So that is good news for all the die-hards out there.
Read that story
I see another party in our future… Or at least a massive trivia night.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
State Award Nominees
The 2008-2009 nominee list for the William Allen White Award is now available. Right now it is primarily for ordering purposes for teachers and librarians. Remember this is the award voted on by students in Kansas. I see some of my favorites on it:
2008-2009 William Allen White Award Nominees
Of course, I'm not a Kansas librarian anymore. I'm in Missouri now. That means I wait upon the Truman and Mark Twain Awards. The Mark Twain award which for years covered grades 4-8 is being split with slightly older than the Mark Twain Award and younger than the Gateway (high school award). Books can appear on multiple lists though. So it should be interesting.
There is a preliminary reading list available and I see many favorites on there as well.
2008-2009 William Allen White Award Nominees
Of course, I'm not a Kansas librarian anymore. I'm in Missouri now. That means I wait upon the Truman and Mark Twain Awards. The Mark Twain award which for years covered grades 4-8 is being split with slightly older than the Mark Twain Award and younger than the Gateway (high school award). Books can appear on multiple lists though. So it should be interesting.
There is a preliminary reading list available and I see many favorites on there as well.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Words to remember
Too late for Banned Books Week, but always good to quote again...
"All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us."
-- Katherine Paterson, American author of childrens books (1932-)
"All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children or any other children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf - that work I abhor - then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us."
-- Katherine Paterson, American author of childrens books (1932-)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Book Club - Bailey School Kids
Remember that I do book club for 1st through 3rd graders. So we stick to simpler books. This time, for our pre-halloween meeting, they got to read any book in the Bailey School Kids series by Debbie Dadey. This was a bit harder because everyone read different books (well some books were read by multiple children, but not many). So the discussion questions were vague and the activities less tied-in. This is the most purely "let's just have fun" book club that I have ever run. Here basically is what we did. (Personally I read Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips and Mummies Don't Coach Softball).
Discussion Questions
Activity: Compare and Contrast with Venn Diagrams
In each of the books, the Bailey School Kids have to decide if an adult is or is not some sort of unreal creature. What type of mythical creature does the librarian most seem like? (With no prompting whatsoever from me the children chose angel). I had a big sheet of paper on the wall and we talked about Venn diagrams (the two circles that overlap) and how they could be used to compare and contrast. So we wrote down the things that were true only of librarians, only of angels, and true of both (we're both smart, and we both like to read). At the end, most things were not in the overlap of the circles, so it was decided I was probably not an angel. In a really intense book club, you could do this with the characters in the book.
Activity: Games
I read Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips in which they play poker. I didn't think I had enough time to teach poker, plus I wasn't sure about parent reactions. So I just pulled out board games for some fun.
Craft: Monster Masks
We designed our own monster masks (or cat or dog or angel or whatever). Cardstock or paper plates, markers, feathers, pompom balls, scissors (though I ended up cutting out most of the eye balls) and a jumbo craft stick to glue to the mask to use to hold it up. And we were good.
Snack: Potato Chips
Discussion Questions
- Tell me in three sentences or less about the book you read.
- What sort of "unreal" creature were they investigating?
- Did the children decide that the adult was that creature?
- Do you think that adult was that creature?
- Are the Bailey School Kids brave? How were they brave (or not brave) in the book you read?
- When was a time you were brave?
- In Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips, they learn to play poker, what is your favorite card game?
Activity: Compare and Contrast with Venn Diagrams
In each of the books, the Bailey School Kids have to decide if an adult is or is not some sort of unreal creature. What type of mythical creature does the librarian most seem like? (With no prompting whatsoever from me the children chose angel). I had a big sheet of paper on the wall and we talked about Venn diagrams (the two circles that overlap) and how they could be used to compare and contrast. So we wrote down the things that were true only of librarians, only of angels, and true of both (we're both smart, and we both like to read). At the end, most things were not in the overlap of the circles, so it was decided I was probably not an angel. In a really intense book club, you could do this with the characters in the book.
Activity: Games
I read Ghosts Don't Eat Potato Chips in which they play poker. I didn't think I had enough time to teach poker, plus I wasn't sure about parent reactions. So I just pulled out board games for some fun.
Craft: Monster Masks
We designed our own monster masks (or cat or dog or angel or whatever). Cardstock or paper plates, markers, feathers, pompom balls, scissors (though I ended up cutting out most of the eye balls) and a jumbo craft stick to glue to the mask to use to hold it up. And we were good.
Snack: Potato Chips
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Off to MLA
MLA (an oft used acronym, in this case the Missouri Library Association) Conference is this week. Tomorrow morning early (very early considerintg I work until 9pm tonight and haven't packed) I leave for Springfield Missouri for this year's conference. You can catch me as part of the blogging team over at the official blog. I may try to double post/cross-post back here, but you never know. This is my first conference (PLA was a symposium) and I've heard they can get pretty crazy...
Happy Reading!
Happy Reading!
Monday, October 01, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Secrets of Droon - book club
Last week my first through third grade book club read The Hidden Stairs and Magic Carpet by Tony Abbott which is the first in The Secrets of Droon series. My kids are fairly active so here is some of what we did...
Nametags:
As they came in everyone got a nametag with their name written backwards (like the code Princess Keeah uses). After two kids ruined nametags, it was easier for me to write the nametags out.
Quick vote:
Who would go down the stairs? All of my kids decided that they would go down the stairs...
Introduce yourself
We said our names, our ages, and if we had the head of a person and the body of something else (like Max the spider-troll), what would your body be?
Discussion Questions:
Activity: Droon Bingo
I used words from Droon (such as groggle, keeah, etc) and made bingo cards. Then we just played regular bingo. Bingo Card Maker
Activity: Droon match/memory
I made two sets of cards up with words from Droon (though not necessarily magic words) such as soccer, stairs, carpet, etc. On one set the word was written forwards, and on the other set they were written backwarsd (like Keeah's code). Both cards had the same clip art on them to be identifiable. The kids played Go Fish with them and also the memory game. (The one where you lay the cards out in a grid and turn over two at a time until you find matches).
Magic Candy Dust
We had some leftover Sandy Candy supplies (test tubes and the candy) from the Harry Potter party so we used that to make our own tubes of "magic dust" (just like Keeah used to heal Eric's ankle).
I didn't do anything specially book related for the snack. Nor did we do a craft since we made the candy tubes.
Nametags:
As they came in everyone got a nametag with their name written backwards (like the code Princess Keeah uses). After two kids ruined nametags, it was easier for me to write the nametags out.
Quick vote:
Who would go down the stairs? All of my kids decided that they would go down the stairs...
Introduce yourself
We said our names, our ages, and if we had the head of a person and the body of something else (like Max the spider-troll), what would your body be?
Discussion Questions:
- Would you have gone down the magic stairs?
- What sport do Eric, Julie and Neal play? What sports do you play?
- Eric, Julie and Neal work together as a team? How?
- When do you work with other people as a team?
- Max is a person’s head and the body of what? (Spider). If you could have a person’s head and an animal’s body, what animal would you choose?
- Where would you go and what would you do if you had a magic carpet?
- There was a bird following Keeah, do you think it was a good bird or bad one? Why?
- What did the Red Eye of Dawn disguise as? (A jewel) How would you disguise a magical object?
- How do you think that Eric, Julie and Neal could tell that Keeah was the good guy and the guys on the lizards were the bad ones?
- In this book, they fly on giant flying lizards, what sort of animal would you fly on if you could?
- Why do you think they can’t leave anything behind in Droon? (If they do something from Droon will appear in our world…) How could that be good? How could it be bad?
- How do you think Lord Sparr learned about our world from the soccer ball? What do you think he learned?
Activity: Droon Bingo
I used words from Droon (such as groggle, keeah, etc) and made bingo cards. Then we just played regular bingo. Bingo Card Maker
Activity: Droon match/memory
I made two sets of cards up with words from Droon (though not necessarily magic words) such as soccer, stairs, carpet, etc. On one set the word was written forwards, and on the other set they were written backwarsd (like Keeah's code). Both cards had the same clip art on them to be identifiable. The kids played Go Fish with them and also the memory game. (The one where you lay the cards out in a grid and turn over two at a time until you find matches).
Magic Candy Dust
We had some leftover Sandy Candy supplies (test tubes and the candy) from the Harry Potter party so we used that to make our own tubes of "magic dust" (just like Keeah used to heal Eric's ankle).
I didn't do anything specially book related for the snack. Nor did we do a craft since we made the candy tubes.
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