Spring break - BLAH

Ok, Spring break for me starts in about 2 hours , so I am sitting in the media center right now, which is across from the main office, watching half our student body being checked out by their parents. No doubt being checked out to go to fun places,....

places with sand and pools and food that someone else cooks.

As for me, I will be spending spring break with my 3 kids at home. They will be whining that we didn't go somewhere fun and they will be making huge messes in my house. They will complain every 10 seconds of the day how BORED they are and then they will whine when I suggest a trip to the zoo or the mall or the movies. I am also pretty sure that I will hear about every 20 seconds that we have no food in the house, which might be true, because the kids eat their weight in food about every 3 hours (or so it seems, and why can't I do that and be as skinny as my kids are???)

I guess I should get a better attitude, think of all the fun things we can do here in Atlanta. But right now all I want is sand between my toes and a drink with an umbrella and rum in it.

On a more upbeat note, I do hope to read a few books - I have Rules by Cynthia Lord in my bag, and I have the Nora Ephron book that a friend gave me, plus at least one other is waiting for me at the public library. The Red Sox start their season on Monday and hopefully we'll get to catch the game on tv.. maybe this week won't be SO bad.....At least I don't have to go to work, unlike my husband who will be working all week and not only working, but having to navigate downtown Atlanta traffic Monday night during the final four game

Maybe what I need is just to buy some rum and little umbrellas - sit on my deck with a book and a fruity drink... I think that might help alot!

What Kindergarten's Reading: Moe The Dog in Tropical Paradise

There are some weeks when I just don't know what I want to read to Kindergarten. This is the week before spring break here and our schedule is crazy (events for religious education, field trips etc..). Many of the teachers have been reading my good Easter and Spring books, so I didn't want to repeat them to the students, so I went shelf surfing. This is where I look through the shelves to find something different to read to the kids, something that they wouldn't normally read themselves, or even have had a teacher read to them. And usually, I find something "new" that I hadn't seen before in the collection.

My shelf surfing led me to Moe the Dog in Tropical Paradise by Diane Stanley and illustrated by Elise Primavera.

This is the story of two dogs, Moe and Arlene. They are on vacation for the week, but are stuck in their snowy, cold town. So Moe gets inspired and creates a tropical paradise in his house, complete with pool and sand! He invites Arlene over and the two of them have a grand vacation, without getting a sunburn.

I chose this book because, although many of my students are lucky enough to be going away for spring break, their media specialist is NOT, so this story is making ME feel better about not spending my week sitting on a beach sipping a fruity drink. Instead I will be playing crowd control to my own 3 kids, and maybe getting a little sand and a wading pool for my backyard to create my own paradise (at least here in Atlanta it is warm and hopefully the weather will stay warm and sunny next week.)

I wish I had found this book earlier (don't I say this every week!) and had thought to bring in my beach chair and pool toys to liven up the atmosphere in the media center - oh well, maybe next year!

Diary Day

Another non-library/kidlit post, but something interesting.

Lady Speed Stick (never thought I would see those words in my blog!) and the National Day Diary project are having a National Day Diary project on March 27th (TOMORROW). Here is what they have up on their website:


Record a day diary in whatever format you are comfortable. Write down everything that occurs in a 24-hour period, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Itineraries, activities, thoughts, and feelings are all fair game for a diary. For more help, see How to Day Diary, or read some diary submissions.
Submit your day diary online and share your 24/7 life with other women!
Submissions with a March 27, 2007 date may also qualify for a chance to be published in Joni Cole's upcoming book, This Day in the Life of Working Women. Joni's new book will celebrate the lives of working women, whether that work comes with a paycheck or not.
Submissions for the March 27 diary date can be entered online from March 27-April 6, 2007 to qualify for a chance at publication.
Read the full contest rules.

I am thinking of trying this out - just need to find the time during the day to actually write down what I am doing. Kind of wish it was today, Monday's at our house are CRAZY - baseball for both boys, dance class for my daughter and for me and there is usually something else mixed in there. Plus it is a busy day at work, I teach 4 classes on Monday plus our check in box is usually full to the gills.

If I decide to do this I will post my diary entry here also. Anyone else up for this?

Caldecott Meme

Tricia over at Miss Rumphiuse Effect has a meme about the Caldecott in honor of Randolph Caldecott's birthday yesterday.

In honor of Ralph Caldecott's birthday, I propose this new meme. Review the list of Caldecott winners from 1938 to the present and list your five favorite titles (based on illustrations, not the text), whether Medal winners or honorees. Then, name one book that didn't make this list that you feel was deserving of the nod.

so here are mine (in no particular order):

1. The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg 1986
2. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak 1964
3. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McClosky 1942
4. Snowflake Bentley by Mary Azarian 1999
5. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (honor book) 2004

I can't think of any "books that should have won" off the top of my head right now, but I am sure as soon as I hit publish I will remember at least one!

Podcasts and 5th grade

I started off this school year by starting a project with my 5th graders (3 classes) focusing on research. Last year I did a similar year long project with a PowerPoint slide show as the final result. This year I thought I would change it up a bit and have the final project be a podcast.

So the project started out in September. I gave the students a person in the arts to use as their research subject (I think that not enough is done with the arts in our school, so I thought I would kill 2 birds with one stone, so to speak!) Each class (I have them for 30 minutes once a week) we would go over some kind of research tool, such as the encyclopedia, biography books, almanacs, digital databases (such as Grolier and Ebsco) and websites. I would then give them an assignment (most of which we did in class) to take notes using the research tool and write a bibliography entry for the tool used. The research would be used to conduct an interview type podcast, where I am the interviewer and the student takes on the persona of their research subject.

I am still in the middle of recording the podcast, but our first efforts are up on our blog here.

They are a little rough, and if you listen to more than one at a time you get REALLY sick of my voice, especially since it is SO much more prominent than the students voices (I need an audio mixer!)

Overall I think the project was a success. I do think that because of my class not being a "graded" class the students did not do any more than the minimum required, you can definitely hear that in how short the podcasts are. If I attempt to do this again in my new school next year I think there are things I will change, grading being one and I think I will have to work a little more closely with the classroom teachers to get more support from them in order for this to be successful.

Red Sox, Bon Jovi OH MY!

Although most of my posts on this blog are about library stuff and children's lit, I do have to acknowledge some of my other passions here, well because, it' s my blog :)

Jen, from Jen Robinson's Book page reminded me that I haven't posted about another passion in my life - baseball - or more specifically, the Boston Red Sox, as of this moment, 12 days, 18 hours and 12 minutes until opening day - woohoo! Of course baseball season also means crazy scheduling in my house, I have 2 baseball players and baseball in the south, while professional loyalty is something almost unheard of (although Atlanta Braves fans for years have been telling me their PAIN of being a Braves fan - ah, lets just say Bucky F'ing Dent - Bill Buckner anyone? Don't talk to a Red Sox fan about PAIN) youth baseball in the south is an intense thing, even for my youngest son at the age of 6 - we have baseball practice almost every night of the week for one of my boys and games during the week and almost every Saturday. If I didn't love the game so much, I'm not sure I could survive youth baseball!

Another passion of mine - Jon Bon Jovi - ok, this has to do with the group Bon Jovi, but ah, lets just have a mental image of the man for a moment... ok that was nice --- they released a single today from their new album, Lost Highway, which won't be available until JUNE! You can hear the single(You Want) To Make a Memory here, but I can't seem to find it ANYWHERE to download - on a side note, I do LOVE their new song, but I have heard they won't be touring for this album - bummer, their live shows are AWESOME, brings me back to high school and big hair and the 80's (ok, I could do without the reminders of big hair!)

OK, I promise, back to regularly scheduled Library Stew tomorrow!

You Go Girl: Women's History Month

Sometimes in my world, Women's History month gets a little buried, what with my high holy day (St. Patrick's Day) and Spring and this year Easter (well, it is April 8th, but since we'll be on Spring Break, I am celebrating it now) in March, I sometimes forget about it. But this year I decided I wanted to do a display of books and read something FABULOUS to my K & 1st grade students. The problem I found when I went looking is, that I have nothing FABULOUS about women in history. Sure, I have biographies and books about the first ladies, but nothing that is a good read aloud. I checked out Carol Hurst's site and she does have a list of Women's History month books, and there are a few that look good, but of course I do not have them in my collection.

So, I decided to look through what I have and see if I could make SOMETHING fit for Women's history month. So I found a great little story about a teacher, no she isn't famous, but she sounds fun and exciting and, well, she is a women, who teaches, can't be bad, right! The book is My Great Aunt Arizona by Gloria Houston and illustrated by Susan Condie Lamb. It is a true story about Houston's Great Aunt Arizona, who grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in, what looks to be the late 1800's. She grows up to be a teacher and continues to teach for FIFTY-SEVEN years (WOW!) It is a sweet book that looks at frontier life in that era and also how hard life could be (Arizona must leave school when her mother dies).

Of course, in looking and not finding much in my collection about strong women, I think I need to do a little collection building. If anyone has a great picture book that would qualify as a good read aloud about women in history or even a fictionalized account of a woman in history, PLEASE leave your suggestions in the comments - my library thanks you!