AWARDS DAY!

Wow.  Twelve hours ago almost to the minute, my students were filing into our old gym to find out this year's Sibert, Geisel, Caldecott and Newbery winners.

The Pura Belpre Trifecta

As much as it is on my radar, it isn't.  Yet we read and loved all three books!  Now show me how to buy a lottery ticket.

Congrats go especially to Ruth Behar, the one who walked the same halls , took books out of the same library, and sang in the Glee Club on the same stage as I did just about 10 years apart at PS 117 in Briarwood, Queens.

We have a date to Skype with Celia Perez on Wednesday (rescheduled from our snow day) and can't wait to say "Congratulations!" The kids plan to share their zines with her.  

Sibert

I gave the fourth graders a heads up on Friday that a book called, Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers could win the Sibert Award and to not be disappointed.  It is too old for us.  So...when it actually did get recognized the kids were happy for it because they had been prepared.

We were thrilled for Grand Canyon.  So deserving--the research, the artwork, the details, the cutouts...

 

Geisel

We love all the Geisel winners!  If you look at this video you will notice that there are fifth graders high giving each other when Charlie and Mouse won.  That's because Charlie and Mouse was on our Newbery list.  Honestly, I love Charlie and Mouse, but love even Charlie and Mouse and Grumpy even more. Would it ever be possible to win a gold and silver in the same category?

Newbery

Congrats ERIN ENTRADA KELLY!  Here's the Animoto that Alex did for Hello, Universe last month:

A friend of mine immediately texted me after the announcement, "HELLO UNIVERSE WAS MY PICK!!!!"

CROWN was a big (but happy, surprise!) We love it but did not expect it to get covered in awards! Woohoo! It's actually a favorite of one of my Reading Ambassadors so all during the month of November for Picture Book Month he chose to read it aloud to younger kids.

Caldecott

I think I might have stopped breathing when the Caldecott Medal was announced.  MATTHEW CORDELL is visiting our school in May.  We have had this on the calendar since June! Too excited for words!

Check out what my superintendent tweeted:

Hey @ALALibrary - if you think authors are excited check out how our students react to the announcement of the Caldecott award winners @CastletonES @SchodackCSD @staceybethr pic.twitter.com/Qe8ktRZkc6

— Jason Chevrier (@jchevrierSCSD) February 12, 2018 

Or if you want to watch a full video of the Caldecott announcement:

 AND Elisha Cooper. Remember this?

Overall, an exciting and surprising day!  BONUS we got to eat cake afterwards! Yippee!

And the winners are...

While driving my daughter to ballet this morning I had butterflies dancing in my belly.  At first I was trying to figure out why.  We already saw Dear Evan Hansen last month.  I don't have any big plans for February break.  Hamilton is still too far in the future to be butterfly excited.  Even TLA is a few months away. Then, what could it be? Oh yeah...Youth Media Awards are MONDAY! That's gotta be it!

The cake is ordered. Two to be exact, since we are having so many kids at our viewing party.  The link has been tweeted and sent home with parents. Mother Nature is going to cooperate. Finally.  Mock Results are in (sort of) and Consensus Club came up with a, well, consensus.

Caldecott 

The snow day and delays really threw us off with Mrs. Roe's Caldecott class.  The highlight, though, was Skyping with Mike Curato, illustrator of All the Way to Havana, yesterday morning after he walked the adorable Princess Leia.  The second graders stumped him as they fired off "What's your favorite...?" questions but he held his own quite well, especially for 9:00 am!  We will all be rooting for him on Monday.

Because we ran out of time, Mrs. Roe will be conducting the vote first thing Monday morning. On a side note: I do like the MST event--it gives us time to work out glitches, do a few things and not mess with specials in 4th and 5th grade. Thank you ALSC and Denver.

Geisel

We didn't run a classic Mock Geisel this year with Mrs. Kosinski's first graders.  A "Read It-Make It-Take It" project morphed into a Geisel project as we ended up creating activities around all the Geisel contenders.  We did 13 projects and read 17 books!  And that doesn't include Jasmine Toguchi Mochi Queen, one of our first projects. No surprise that Ninja in the Kitchen was the favorite since making the pizza from scratch was pretty fun! My favorite? Charlie and Mouse and Grumpy by Laurel Snyder.  When I read that book aloud to them yesterday, I got a big ole frog in my throat.

My personal Geisel 2018 Analogy:

Jonathan Fenske is to laughing as Laurel Snyder is to crying.

Sibert

No standout winner here except for ALL our fourth graders! WOW!  They were amazing! We read a lot of books.  They chose their favorite and alone or with a partner(s), they created a 3-D project (some included food--cookies are cool but check out the grape barbells!), shared ten facts and wrote a persuasive paragraph on why their books should win the 2018 Sibert award. We know not all of our books can and will win but we have a feeling one or two (or three) just might. How to be an Elephant maybe?  Dazzle Ships (for sure?) Grand Canyon, maybe?  What about Nic Bishop's Penguin Day? And to hear the kids exclaim how much they love The Youngest Marcher is the coolest ever.

(Agh...I just spent a whole hour trying to figure out how to put Google Photos into a photo album.  Please look at all of these if you can--I am so proud of our fourth graders!)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/b5P2lP5uvJINkm7E2

Newbery

What can I say about Newbery?  I'm speechless. I look back in my book journal (yes, I do not use Goodreads) and have been reading, listening, discussing and scoring these books for the past 13 months. The final moment will come at around 10:50 EST. This is my sixth time doing this project and over the years we have experienced all different emotions from ecstatic, elated, happy, sad, disappointed, surprised, angry (yes, one year the kids boo'ed--we had a lesson on sportsmanship after that!) but always accepting.  It has taken me some time to realize that the decision comes down to fifteen librarians who may or may not have the same opinions, feelings, background as my students and I do and that's ok.  But it is a let down for me.  I still think about my "Kwame Kids" (2015) and last year screaming and leaping with Ashlynn in her footy PJs and even my first year with Ivan and the boys exclaiming, "Our book won!"  I love Newbery so much and wish we could be this intense about reading ALL year long.  You in, Mr. Reischer?

We did have our Consensus Club meeting yesterday after school.  It was one for the books, literally! The winner (but it was close!) was Orphan Island!  Honors went to: Beyond the Bright Sea, The Ethan I Was Before, Refugee and Chasing Augustus.

I must say that whatever books win on Monday, we are truly all winners for becoming critical, passionate and I hope, lifelong readers.  CHEERS.

STEM, SKYPES, SIBERT SMACKDOWN +

So much to blog, so little time...

My to-do list has dozens of things on it.  I have to stick things on there that are easy (Email X, Y and Z) and others that will happen no matter what (Take Zack to the orthodontist) otherwise I will be so overwhelmed that absolutely nothing will get accomplished.

So in the past week:

• My students Skyped with four authors.
• The Patriots won the Super Bowl.  I'm not a fan but Mrs. Kelliher is and I snapped a photo with her and as many other fans as I could find on Friday. Notice that I got her leaping now, too!
• I attended a NYLA Council meeting.
• I surprised myself and put the "E" and "M" into a literacy related STEM lesson
• Sibert Smackdown projects began and will be ready to present tomorrow
• We began Newbery debates.
• I heard a second grade boy offer Matt de la Pena and Loren Long's LOVE to a fellow student when she expressed that she really wished she could check out the book (Why do I only have one copy?)
• AND I had to reschedule THREE Skypes for today because of a snow day.

You will definitely hear my EXHALE in Denver Monday evening. This award season is exhilarating and as much as it is exhausting.

So who did we meet?

The Sweetest Sound's Sherri Winston was delightful Thursday morning.  We could have sat and chatted with her for hours. Mrs. Warland joined us (with fortune cookies) as she was the book group leader and was probably its first big fan since we received galley copies back in early 2016. "I wanted to make a story that felt like childhood to me.  You want something bad enough that you cave." Henry and Austin made a Lego book trailer and who knew that Sherri loves legos, too!

Ali Standish

Because Emma was sick the morning we Skyped with Ali Standish, the author of The Ethan I Was Before she couldn't come to school and cried.  When I shared this with Ali, she was kind enough to offer to answer Emma's questions separately.  How sweet!  The kids asked such detailed questions about the plot and characters and Ali happily answered them all.

Yesterday we met Karina Yan Glaser (and her beautiful cat), the author of The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street. Mr. Reischer was that book group leader so I'm glad he was able to be a part of it.  Evan, who wasn't in the book group, stayed up till past 9 the night before just so he could finish the book for  the Skype.

Then as a totally last minute request, I contacted Jonathan Fenske, author and illustrator (and 2016 Geisel Honor winner) to see if he would be able to give a shout out to my first graders when I shared his 2017 Geisel contending books. He was up for it!  Jonathan's A Pig, A Fox and a Box is one of the funniest books and I can never get through a read aloud without laughing out loud!  I read A Pig, A Fox and Stinky Socks and We Need More Nuts then he read to us Please, No More Nuts! Yes, a week after World Read Aloud Day but my kids didn't know that! Thanks, Jonathan!

The "E" and "M" in STEM

I surprised myself last week when after we read Triangle by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen and then we designed houses for Triangle and Square using tangrams and legos.  Such a fun activity to do on a Friday afternoon, especially when the STEM Fair was that evening.

Sibert Smackdown Part I

This is just a preview of the Sibert Smackdown projects.  Fourth graders will begin presenting tomorrow and it's going to be awesome!  Kids exclaiming, "I love this book so much!" Group work, collaboration, creativity, passion, all for the love of nonfiction.

Newbery Debates

The final stretch of our Newbery project is our debates.  Kids pick  their favorite book, we come up with a bracket and then they go at each other.  Well, we hope for that and friendly, of course. Honestly, yesterday was the first day and we had one really intense debate:  Scar Island vs. Orphan Island.  I was biting my finger nails on that one.  It was so close.  I would almost put my money on Orphan Island going all the way.

Thursday, Friday and of course, MONDAY are going to be packed days!  Voting, debating, project sharing (with cookies!) and then the AWARDS! Needless to say, sleep is not on my to-do list.

How to Be an Elephant

As Picture Book Month wraps up, I wanted to share another guest blog post by Leah and Izzy. If you have not seen or read this new book by Katherine Roy, you really need to.  It very well could medal Sibert and Caldecott.  It's gorgeous.  But enough from me, here is their review:

Have you ever wondered what elephants need to know to survive in the wild? In How To Be An Elephant: Growing up to be an Elephant in the African Wild by Katherine Roy, you learn everything you ever wanted to know about elephants from what an elephant needs to learn, to facts about the elephant family to how much space an elephant needs to live.

The illustrations are SPECTACULAR and detailed. Our favorite is the last page. All the illustrations are the best we have seen in our life. They all look realistic.  

“Every time I see an elephant on this page and all the pages, I just think about how elephants are my favorite animal.  I always liked them a lot but it kind of taught me more than I already knew.”-Leah

Reading the book makes learning about elephants fun. It teaches everyone about elephants. There are so many facts in the book that we didn’t know about elephants! Did you know herds only have female elephants (besides the young male elephants)? Also, did you know that young elephants use their trunks to smell things to figure out what they are because they don't have very good vision?

Want to learn more about elephants? If so then How To Be An Elephant is the perfect book for you!

Leah and Izzy chose to read this book to Mrs. Golden's first graders in honor of Picture Book Month. Here are a few extra facts they shared:

1. Elephants need food to live. They eat many things. Their six sets of of molars help them chew food.
2. The sound an elephant makes goes really far--2 - 6 miles!
3. Elephants keep at the right temperature all the time. They use their ears to cool off and heat up.
4. Elephants help change the land. They grow plants, strip bark and dig places for water.