Unplugged summer

Well, that statement is not entirely true - but I was without Internet access for most of my 3 week trek through Massachusetts - but right before I left I got a new toy - a Blackberry pearl phone - through which I was able to keep up with my e-mail, Facebook obsession and Twitter, but found it too hard to type whole blog posts - but I am sure with practice I can update the blog too.

Of course while I am somewhat obsessed with this new toy, I do have to wonder if it is all too much. Do I REALLY need to be connected 24 hours a day/7 days a week, even while at the beach?? One of the strangest things I saw this vacation was at Nauset Beach on Cape Cod, the snack bar area had a picnic table set up that had a sign on it that said Free WiFi - I never saw anyone sitting there with their computer, but gee, if you can't unplug at the beach, where can you? I found that even my kids were feeling technology deprived while we were internet-less - especially my 11 year old daughter (she does not have a phone, so texting was out for her, her 13 yr old brother texted to keep up with his friends). I would love to try and go TOTALLY unplugged one weekend, but truthfully, I am really not sure if I could do it.

This got me thinking about how much technology is too much. I have found that I do tend to spend too much time checking Facebook/Twitter/chatting online at night when I used to use that time to read, but then again using my phone to keep up with e-mail and things while sitting at football practice has been a great thing.

On another note, I am scheduled to give the teachers a short talk during pre-planning (which for me starts Aug 3rd) about what is new in the media center and also give them some technology tips that they may be able to use in their classrooms this year. Not sure yet what I am going to talk about - if you have any great websites/equipment that I might want to take a look at please leave a comment!

Even with my Blackberry obsession I did manage to get some reading in over vacation and I think that we really lucked out and had the best 2 weeks that Massachusetts has seen all summer (it is raining there today - again!). Here are some pictures from our trip.

on the boat going to Martha's Vineyard

Gay Head Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard

Tall ships, Boston Harbor

Jason Varitek up at bat, Fenway Park

Summer reading

School here in my neck of the woods officially ends a week from today - well for the students anyway and I have been busy telling my students about my summer reading program - which really is just putting together reading incentive program from the local library, Barnes & Noble and Scholastic together in a brochure and offering the students a treat from me when they get back to school in August if they participate in at least 2 of the programs.

To check out my program, check out my school blog (which I have ignored since October... I'll try to do better next year...)

I already have a STACK of books I want to read this summer and a list of projects a mile long -but first, we still have baseball games and dance recitals to get to - hopefully after June 15th I can get some good summer fun going! But for now, our neighborhood pool opens this weekend - I see some poolside reading in my future!

My summer reading: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

This is why I LOVE summer - I read outside on my deck for a few hours last night while the kids were out at baseball practice and hanging with their friends (love/hate that I have a child old enough to roam the neighborhood by himself, but at least I can track him down because of the new cell phone we bought him!)

Last night my book of choice was the newest by E. Lockhart (author of one of my fave's Dramarama), The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

This is the story of Frankie, geek, debate club member one year, babe the next. Frankie Landau-Banks is a girl in transition. When she goes a back to her elite Massachusetts boarding school for her sophomore year, she comes back as a babe - and gets noticed by a SENIOR! As she struggles to combine who she is with what she looks like, she falls in love and in the process realizes who she truly is. After realizing that she is being excluded from her boyfriends "secret society" she sets out to topple the "boys club" and she does so without thinking about the consequences, not only with school but also with what might happen if she is caught by her boyfriend.

I love the dialogue that Lockhart writes and I also love how she makes the characters a little quirky (like Matthew's obsession with correcting grammar). The secret society she writes about reminds me of a Gilmore Girls episode when Rory sets out to write a story about (future) boyfriend Logan's association with the Life and Death brigade at Yale. This would have been a book I would have "eaten up" as a teenager - in my early teens I had wanted to live the "preppy" life and go to a boarding school - the closest I got was Catholic school- but I also remember trying to balance who I was with wanting to make an impression on guys - and as my daughter gets older (she is 10) I am starting to think about how I can help her go through these transitions too.

This was a great summer read and a book I know that a lot of teenage girls will relate to.

other reviews:

YA Books Central

3 evil cousins

check out an interview with E. Lockhart at YaYa's

and also E. Lockhart's blog

Required Summer Reading

As I said in yesterday's post about Summer Reading, I am not a big fan of required summer reading. YES it does get kids to read, but it becomes a chore and especially if the books they have to read hold no interest to them what so ever. As an example, at the school I am at now, incoming 7th & 8th graders have to read 3 books. The books for 7th grade are :
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Holes by Louis Sachar
and the books for 8th grade are:
The Giver by Lowry
Tuesday’s With Morrie by Mitch Albom
The Outsiders by SE Hinton

While I like many of the books on the list, I can see that for many of our students they would rather have their fingernails torn off one by one than read these books. Liz over at A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy has a post about Required Summer Reading, where she compares required reading to her having to play baseball all summer and report back at the beginning of the school year, what a GREAT analogy!

One of the media specialists at the Catholic High School in this area came up with a program a few years ago that she calls Aspire (she has spoken at AASL and other conferences about the program). Basically in addition to their other required summer reading, the students can choose a book from the Aspire list. A teacher (or coach, the principal, etc..) sponsors the book and at the beginning of the school year they have discussion groups with the teacher who is sponsoring the book. There are a HUGE representation of genres on the list, and many of the books are popular best sellers. I know in past years many of the students would choose a book not for the book itself but for who the sponsor was (their favorite teacher/coach etc..) and I noticed this year that they do not list the sponsors name next to the book, but I don't know why. I think a program like this might even work in lower grades (certainly for middle school) and I know it has been a very successful alternative to the boring summer reading that is usually given in Catholic high schools (see my post from yesterday on my reading TRAUMA in a Catholic high school).

I don't think there are any answers to this debate, but I do think that reading in the summer should be FUN for kids. My oldest son has never liked to read. Not for lack of books in our house, or for lack of seeing his parents constantly reading, or for lack of his parents and grandparents reading to him from the time he was a baby, at the age of 11, he just doesn't like to read. It breaks my heart! But yesterday, we were going to his brothers baseball game and he took the book Johnny Tremain with him in the car and was reading it. When asked, he told me he picked it up and it was really good and he wanted to finish it before school got out - WOW - I almost cried. This is what summer reading is all about, just getting kids to read something they LIKE, even if it is Sports Illustrated, the newspaper or a favorite book from long ago.

Summer Reading Part 2

As I said last month in my Summer Reading part 1 post, I knew there would be more summer reading ideas popping up after May 1st. Here are a few places you can go to find some ideas to help you and your kids have fun READING this summer!!

The Family Education website has some great reading lists and activities to do this summer. The quiz section is a challenge for adults (I didn't do so well on the fiction into movies quiz!)

Reading Rockets has some great articles and reading lists on fun things to do this summer that involve reading. My favorite article is the Day trips for book lovers.

Many public libraries have announced their summer reading programs. My local library system, Gwinnett County, GA has announced theirs. Check out your local library website to see what they are doing this summer.

NEA had teamed up with Major League Soccer for Get A Kick Out of Reading a site full of reading lists and fun stuff. Click on the resources page for reading lists of soccer related books.

Franki Sibberson of the blog A Year of Reading has a great article up at Choice Literacy about things to get kids jump started on their summer reading. I love her idea of having the kids write down books they want to read throughout the year. I do this on my libraries website, where you can create a book list and then when summer comes and the time is right for devouring lots of books, I have a list right there to choose from.

Monica at Educating Alice has a great poem on the subject of required summer reading (something my Catholic school has and the public school I am moving to does not). But while on the subject of required summer reading, the only time in my life I can honestly say I HATED to read, was reading those required summer reading books during my years at a Catholic high school. I still have nightmares about reading Watership Down (HATED that book!)

Not so much a reading activity, but something fun for your kids that are into video, check out the Postcards From Buster website. This is a PBS series that is looking for one minute video postcards that kids film and edit themselves.

As for what I am planning to do with my own kids (ages 6,9 and 11), I am planning on making some trips to the public library. I am planning on attending a Harry Potter party (but not sure where, since I might be in Georgia or I might be in Massachusetts), I am still planning on getting a few kids together in the neighborhood to read Hoot and then screen the movie some hot summer night and I am going to try and have tv/computer free zones this summer. Times (maybe in the late afternoon before dinner but after spending the day at the neighborhood pool) when there will be no tv/computer and they have to spend some time reading whatever they want, could be the newspaper or Sports Illustrated, but reading something.

I would love to hear if you have anymore reading ideas or know of any activities going on this summer!

Summer Reading part 1

As I mentioned the other day, summer is rapidly approaching here in the ATL (18 more days!) and I have been searching for some summer reading activities to suggest to my students and their parents. Here is what I have found so far, but I am sure that once May 1st hits, there will be even more things to report. Some of these are specific to my area, but you may want to check out their websites to get ideas for your own students/children.

Scholastic Summer Reading Buzz http://www.scholastic.com/summerreading/
They are tying in with the Today Show’s Al Roker to support Al’s Summer Reading program. They have some great suggested summer reading lists for grades K-2, 3-5 and 6 and up. The site really gets going on May 15th with some interactive activities and other fun things to do around reading.

Al’s Book Club for Kids - http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/18179145/
As mentioned above, Al Roker is gearing up to host a summer reading club for kids. They announced the first book already, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznik (which we just bought off our book fair last week). You will be able to e-mail questions to the author which he/she may answer on the air. If you will be in NYC this summer, kids are encouraged to come down to the studio on the days the authors are scheduled to be on air to have their book signed and participate in the book discussion.

Gwinnett County (GA) Public Library - http://www.gwinnettpl.org/
As of today, the GPL has not announced their summer reading schedule, but I do know they usually start sometime in May and end right as school starts. Have your students check their local public library branch for more details.

Little Shop of Stories http://www.littleshopofstories.com/
This is a children’s book store in downtown Decatur,GA and it is AWESOME – they have an ice cream shop also inside the store, so you can make a day of visiting this really cool place. Check out their website for some cool things going on there this summer, including camps, story hours, book clubs and of course, a Harry Potter book party to beat all Harry Potter book parties.

One thing that I am going to try and get going in my own neighborhood is a book/movie party. My kids wanted to read the book Hoot by Carl Hiaasen, so I thought I would see if any of my kids friends wanted to get in on it. We will read the book and then I will pick a day and we'll talk about the book (with food of course) and watch the movie outside in my yard (with the help of an LCD projector/laptop - haven't figured out the screen yet, but I think a sheet might work.

Count down to Summer!

After today we have 22 days left of the school year. Since my school is a K-8 school, the last month of school is hectic, we have Kindergarten graduation , 8th grade graduation, award ceremonies for each grade level, the annual talent show and field days for each grade. Not to mention field trips! So my schedule is so jumbled up for the last couple of weeks that some days I don't even know who is actually coming into the media center for classes, this makes planning anything kind of hard!

Our school has a required summer reading list for grade 3-8, but I am thinking I would like to highlight some "fun" summer reads for my students and also some ideas of how to make summer reading "fun". ANY suggestions for either of these would be greatly appreciated!

I am also starting to clean out my office. I am leaving this school to go work at a public K-5 school next year. I am excited for the challenge of being somewhere new (and HUGE, 1100 students - WOW!) but I am also sad to leave here, especially since they have yet to find a replacement for me (if you are a media specialist looking for a job at a Catholic school in GA, let me know!!) I have come to realize that I have treated this media center as a child and I am feeling a little sad about letting it go.

On good note, our book fair was last week, and even with me being out the first couple of days of the fair, we took in over $3000 more than last spring and almost took in what we did at the fall book fair (spring fair is always lower in sales for some reason) so I am really excited! Scholastic provided the fair and this year they really worked with me to get our school's summer reading titles on the fair, titles that they would not have stocked otherwise.