Take me Out to the Ball Game!

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you know I am a baseball fan -ok ,well, I am a RED SOX fan, but also a baseball mom (both my boys play... ALOT of baseball), a baseball book fan and recently I became a fan of our new minor league team, the Gwinnett Braves (whose stadium happens to be around the corner from my school!)

Well I recently heard about a few programs that combine baseball and reading - what could be better, I ask??

Kevin Youklis, first baseman of the Boston red Sox (YOUK!) has teamed up with New England Mobile Book fairs to offer a reading incentive program as part of his charity, Kevin Youklis Hits for Kids, called Youk's Kids Reading group. You can sign up on the website and every member gets a $5 gift certificate on their birthday to spend at New England Mobile Book fairs. There is also an essay contest, which you could win lunch with Kevin (how COOL!!). Thanks to Terry at Reading Tub for the link.

Speaking of Red Sox'a players - if you live in Massachusetts your kids can get into summer reading by participating in the Mass. Teachers Association's Red Sox Reading Game. The spokesperson for this program is none other than Sox catcher, Jason Varitek, who just happens to live not far from me (hello, Jason, wouldn't you like to come read to some enthusiastic baseball fans during the off season... we're not far from your house.... give me a call...ok). The program is run through Massachusetts schools, and the cool thing is, winners can take their teacher to a Red Sox game - my aunt went with one of her students last year and she said it was a BLAST!

Now closer to home in Georgia, I saw in an article in our local paper that the Gwinnett braves will be donating tickets to students who participate in the library reading program, I have not seen anything about this on the Gwinnett Braves website, but will keep looking.

Lots of other major and minor league teams have reading incentive programs over the summer, check out the teams website to see what your favorite team is up to this summer.

If you are looking for some new baseball themed books, check out this list of new books from Kids Reads - even though there is a book about the Yankees included, there are some great new books I can't wait to check out this summer!

This just in - go on over to the blog - Get In The Game - Read (this is the blog where Terry/Jen got their Youk info.) Lori is running a contest to win a new Babe Ruth book by David Kelly. Go on over and check it out, enter the contest, but be forwarned - I am planning on winning the contest - ha ha ha...

Sign of the Times

I received an e-mail this morning from a vendor I have used for years, World Almanac Education is going out of business (and if you are in the market for some research materials, their stock is now 60% off!) I mainly bought almanacs and almanac kits from them and I am guessing that between the economy and the Internet, school and libraries are just not purchasing sets of almanacs anymore. I ordered a set of encyclopedias this year and I am wondering if this will be my LAST purchase of a print set of encyclopedias - I guess time will tell.

A few weeks ago I noticed that another independent book store that I have loved had bite the dust - Armchair bookstore in Dennis, Ma (on Cape Cod) had been a mainstay in my summer vacation for years and I was so sad to see that they had closed this winter. They always had some great book signing during the summer and I loved to browse their shelves. I discovered the Beacon Street Girls series there one summer and they always had a great selection of local books by New England authors. If I was in a different place in my life I would LOVE to buy the store and live on the Cape full time, but I guess it will have to wait.

Hall of Fame

I am on a roll with the hall of fame inductees this year! One of my FAVORITE Red Sox players, Jim Rice, finally got himself into the Baseball HOF, and now the inaugural class of inductees into the Indies Choice Picture Book Hall of Fame* are none other than 3 of my ALL TIME favorites - Make Way for Ducklings (see post below), Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (if you have read this blog, you know how I feel about MO) and Where the Wild Things Are (my 1st attempt at blogging was named after this book!)

Now if Bon Jovi could just be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of fame......

Hope it is nice and sunny and warm where you are today - it is summer weather here in Atlanta and it feels FABULOUS!

*thanks to Mo Willems for alerting me of this news!

Virtual Field Trip - Make Way For Duckings

This week my story time is Make Way For Ducklings the classic I talked about in my last post - which, believe it or not, I had already decided to use for story time before the duckling nabbing incident occurred last week.

Anyway, as part of storytime I am doing a google lit trip with the kids - never heard of google lit trips - well, they are virtual field trips using google earth and they are based on classic books and luckily they have one created for Make Way For Ducklings.

Since many of the kids in my school have never been to Boston I thought this was also a way for me to share with them my home state.

The only thing you need to be able to share these with your students is Google Earth loaded onto your computer and a projector so your students can see it. I was having computer issues yesterday (the power went out for 2 hours yesterday at school and my computer did not like that) so last night I made a little imovie at home so I could be sure I had something to show my students today. I used ishow and made a movie of me using the lit trip (clicking on the pictures in google earth and adding in an additional Boston attraction - Fenway Park) and then I saved it to a DVD.

The kids loved it and it led into a discussion about maps (which is part of Kindergarten curriculum).

A NJ Teacher has a great blog post about how she has used this Google Lit trip in a technology classroom.

As an added bonus, I found the perfect hat to wear while reading - my daughter had an old dance costume where she was a disco duck and the yellow feathered hat is perfect to wear while reading the story!

Happenings in Beantown

I am in Boston for spring break this week (I know, most people go south for some sun, I just like to be different!) and the big story here this week - one of the ducklings from the statue saluting the classic book Make Way for Ducklings was found missing on Monday. It was the second lead story (after the Red Sox rainout) on the evening news - these people like their ducklings!


But all is better in beantown, the duckling was found yesterday, leaning against a street sign - I am guessing frat prank (and if my husbands fraternity was not now defunk, I would blame the RDO boys from Emerson!)

As a total coincidence - I was planning on using that book for my next storytime - I love the story and for me, growing up around Boston, I love to share the area with my students, many of whom will never make it up this way.

Off to my first Red Sox game tomorrow to celebrate my oldest son's 13th birthday (YIKES, I am now a mom of a teenager!) but first I get to go see author Matt Tavares - author of one of my oldest son's favorite picture books - Zachary's Ball - he happens to be doing an author visit at my aunts school - how cool is that!

Author Visit: Deborah Wiles

Wednesday I was fortunate enough to host author Deborah Wiles in my media center. She came and spoke to some of my 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students. I LOVE doing author visits, especially with authors who have a presentation that really INSPIRES the kids - and Deborah does on so many levels.

She talked to the kids about writing and how she finds inspiration in her own life. She showed the kids slides of her writers notebooks and one of my teachers commented that she LOVED that she showed the kids the lists she makes in the notebooks- this teacher makes the kids do lists for writers workshop and she said the students can never figure out WHY they write lists. The best part of her presentation for me was the very end. She talks about her book Freedom Summer - and while I have always thought that it is a very powerful book, hearing her describe the events that made her write it is... well.. even more powerful, especially for someone who did not grow up in the south in the 1960's.

This author visit also felt like having an old friend come over for a visit. Deborah and I have only met once before this, but she was good friends with author Coleen Salley who I had the pleasure of hosting last year (which was her last school visit before she passed away last fall). During lunch we got to talk and "gossip" as Coleen called it and it was so much FUN!

Here are a few pictures of our day.

My clerk Cindy, Deborah and myself

Library Rants

This weekend on Facebook my daughters dance teacher made a list of questions/comments from parents that she has gotten over the years (if you are a dance teacher or know one, leave a comment and I will forward these) and what she would REALLY like to say to them, but didn’t– they were great and got me thinking of some questions/situations I have been in during the last 6 years in the media center and came up with a few of my own. Alison Morris of the Publishers Weekly Blog Shelf Talker must have been thinking the same thing this weekend and she has a post up about what customers do to make you crazy (and links to some very funny videos)

Here are my top 6 questions I have been asked by parents and responses I WISH I could give (but didn’t).

Suzy lost her library book so we just bought this one at Borders to replace it, it was cheaper than the $15 you were asking us for.
Well gee, the book you lost was a library bound, hard cover book that had been labeled and bar-coded for our library – what you brought me was a paperback of the book – NOT THE SAME THING!

Alice brought home Harry Potter yesterday from the library and we just don’t read things like that around our house, so can you make sure she doesn’t check it out again or any other book like that and make sure she checks out appropriate books.
Of course, I will make sure to check on every book little Alice checks out and I am SURE that you and I see eye to eye on what is appropriate for your 3rd grader to read – may I suggest Lolita as her next book….

Johnny is a VERY advanced reader for kindergarten, can you make sure he ONLY checks out books on a 5th grade level.
I think it is great that Johnny is such an advanced reader, but since he still sucks his thumb while he is in here for story time I am not sure he will do well reading Old Yeller – spoiler alert – the dog dies.

I know you said the absolute last date to turn in the reading forms was a week ago, but I just forgot, so can you let Jane take part in the reading celebration, thanks.
Sure, I just put a random date on there for no reason – I have spent 5 hours figuring out a schedule that works for all the teachers and has the appropriate number of kids in each celebration, what’s one or two or 15 more.

Hannah read the book she bought at the book fair last night, it must be too easy for her, so she wants to return it and get another one.
Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize I had quit my job in the media center and gone to work at Wal Mart. Because of this question I now have a HUGE sign saying there are NO RETURNS at the book fair.

So, you REALLY need a degree to do your job??
No, the $20,000 and 2 years I spent in grad school to get my library science degree was just for fun. You know, all I do all day is read stories to kids, that’s it – the books magically appear on the shelves, the 5th graders teach themselves research skills and the book fair just appears one night in the media center – we think the fairies are to blame, I can see why you are wondering WHY I need a degree in library science to do my job.

I feel better now!