Mom Monday - the emergence of a literary expert

     Last November, I blogged about spending the day at the Children's Festival of the Book in Bozeman. My 10 year old Wyatt's favorite writer was Jeanne DuPrau - especially since she signed his books. Even though he was laying on the floor when she was giving her presentation about how City of Ember came to be, I knew he was taking it all in.

sample Paper Bag Report

     Fast forward six weeks and he's about to turn in his quarterly project in language - the "Paper Bag Book Report". For 4th graders it helps if they break a book report down into section cards and tape it to something that they can decorate. The fun part is filling with things that relate to the character. Sometimes it's a box or a coffee can that becomes Tony Hawk (his project from 3rd grade).  Over the Christmas break he agonized over building his paragraphs - even asking for a thesaurus to find the right words. So exciting and excruciating it was watching this young writer at work!

     When he finished he was on top of the world. We took a minute to talk over the steps he took in making it and when we looked at the big picture, this is what HE ended up accomplishing (not me, he was in charge of this whole endeavor):

• met the author and got signed books
• listened to the author present on how the book came about
• read the whole book (which is a selection more than double the AR reading level for 4th grade)
• read the graphic novel
• watched the movie (he had seen it when he was 7 so it was a faint memory)
• compared the three and found the differences

He has become an EXPERT on City of Ember and I am SO proud of him!  

What other ways can you help kids make that connection?

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Techy Stuff

Takes you to my blog

     Here's a fun techy-thing I learned at the Montana Teacher's Conference from Mrs. Fleming from Billings Public Schools: 

Making QR codes. 

     What's a QR Code? It's those square dot-boxes we are seeing on packaging. What do they do? If you have a Smartphone, you can load an app that is a Scan reader and instead of typing long web addresses like mine, you can just scan it in and BOOM! You are on the page. Kids are so fast at picking this up, teachers use it to get their attention during lessons. I used it to make a "techy" birthday card for my husband. I had him scan in one and it played a funny birthday song from Hoops and Yoyo, another took him to a page I made that looked like a birthday card (you have to make a page in a "public" folder for this one).  Mrs. Fleming had a great idea to  print these out and hang them around the school for a fun scavenger hunt. 

To make your own - You can go onto www.qrstuff.com , copy a web-page address and paste it into the box that starts with http:// and click download QR code. It will go into your downloads folder on your computer or iPad and then you can print it out. To read it, I use the ATT Code Scanner for my phone, but here's one for anything starting with an "i" . (iPad/iPhone). You can even scan the QR code that's on this screen!

What other ways can you think of using these?  Contests at work? Sharing Skype addresses? 

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Making the case for graphic novels

     You either love them, hate them, or love to hate them. So many people just assume reading a graphic novel is like reading the comics. BUT, could there be more to it?  

     My young adult lit class started off with a doozey - Zahra's Paradise  by Amir and Khalil

     Like most people I started off thinking - oh, quick read - likely little real content and probably just a cultural interest book. Then a few chapters in I was mortified!  Foul language, disgusting pictures, immoral situations - how could this be in a young adult class?

     Since it was going to be for our first class discussion, I hung in there and finished it, but by the time I was done - it had won me over. I see a huge shift in graphic novels - they are more like art.

     How many people try to impress you by interpreting art? How it gives you a feeling about something - that's what I saw in Zahra's Paradise. You could feel the character's fear through what you hope are over-exaggerated drawings, but then you have to process that the torture that Iranian's went through for challenging their government was real. Also it was easy to see the characters as representations of Iran and their government- like impressionist art.

(Still, I would not recommend this book to any young people unless I was certain they were emotionally mature and would have to be sure their parents were okay with it.)

     I also bought Outlander- The Exile  graphic novel version. When I first heard it was going to be a graphic novel I was horrified. Then I found one in a bargain bin and have to admit, it was fun to read, but to my disappointment, still had the characters drawn like barbie on steroids.As an Outlander fan, it lost so much of its character depth, it really is more just for a change.

       Our class wrapped up with another graphic novel with a much lighter tone Middle School - The Worst Years of my Life by James Patterson. This might make you think Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but it's a got a plot and deeper topic. It was fun to read, but you still got a better feeling for how a middle school-er sees his world - especially the dragon-lady detention teacher.


Anyone else recently converted to graphic novels?  Any recommendations? Love them? Hate them?

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Anyone read Chinese or Arabic?

We found this at work in a box of cloth wine bags. The box says "Made in China", but by the curves of some of these symbols I keep thinking this is Arabic. The double underline makes me think it was important. Does anyone know what it says?

How about....

Save me, I want to go back to my homeland in Saudi - I can't understand these people and it's been 14 months!

or.......

The mother ship will be landing at 14-hundred. 

anyone????? 

Did you reach your goals in 2012?

Reading goals for 2012:

Gah! Why can't I EVER make my goal?  47 and a half books and I'm still 6% short!!!  The average is 58 for Goodreads. The only thing that makes me feel better is that my stats on Goodreads show I have 13815 pages for the year PLUS at least 35 children's books I didn't count. At least I have that.....

Anyone make their goal????

2012 Reading Challenge

Montanamarynotmartha has read 47 books toward a goal of 50 books.

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47 of 50 (94%)

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Meet Morris Lessmore

I have to share with you the most amazing children's picture book ever. And if you are not into picture books, how about an award wining Pixar "short" video or an iPad/iPhone App or an interactive webpage?  

This story has the best opening line and the narrator brings it to life..... 

Morris Lessmore loved words.  He loved stories.  He loved books.  His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another.  He would open it every morning and write of his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped.

The picture book goes on to show Morris living out his life with books.. He lives with them, reads to them, fixes their covers, and grows old with them. Meanwhile he's writing his own book to leave behind to keep his book-friends company. 

On the iPad App, you can listen to the narration while you create the action on each page. Or, if you want less interaction and more focus on the paper book, you can use the other $.99 iTunes IMAG-N-O-TRON app to experience "augmented reality". It's a fancy word for mixing a 3-d image with your surroundings. You can print off an 8 1/2 by 11 inch page like above and hold your iPad or phone over it and it will mix the images as you move the device - it looks like books flying around you. The app is only a few dollars and the printouts are available with it. I used the iPad app with my boys and book club students and they loved it, but the print outs would have been fun at the club, too.

What fun for under $10!  And what an amazing way to share the love of books than with a mash of old fashioned writing and artwork and modern technology - no matter your age, it just draws you in!

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Did I just fulfill a global prophecy?

Hey Bloggy-World! I have missed you!! I am recovering from a very exhausting semester - but IT'S ALL GOOD because I had TWO literature classes and I am now "edge-u-mucated" in Young Adult literature and Children's literature - my TWO favorite things.  Hopefully I can share what I learned about strategies and choosing quality books and maaaybe I'll share link to my Literacy Strategies website I created.  Onto the good stuff.....the B-L-O-G.

    First off, I have to thank Susan Kaye Quinn, author of the amazing Mindjack Trilogy for the email suggesting some fantastic and FREE newer titles available in e-books. Somehow I got carried away and now have 26 new FREE ebooks! Visit Susan's Blog

And that brings me to my deep-thinking, question of the order of the universe.......

If I downloaded a free e-copy of H.G. Wells' Time Machine 

did I just fulfill a prophecy?

Remember this bookshelf???

EEERRRRIEEE!  (click to cue creepy music)

Have you ever had that happen??  Ever fall down a well and send your dog for help?

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