'Twas the Night Before YMA 2021 version

I still have all the feels of the night before the Youth Media Awards and so many other ones, too.  

Newbery

The closest I came to my typical quarter long Newbery project was my after school Newbery Navigators club.  A handful of dedicated readers read a bunch of books.  One loves Echo Mountain.  Another Mananaland. Every single one of them When Stars Are Scattered.  We read Clean Getaway aloud so of course we'd be thrilled to see Scoob and G'ma get some love. Over the summer, 4th grade teacher Mr. C swore that he didn't have to read another 2021 book because he already read the winner, We Dream of Space. Maybe this is the year for nonfiction and we'll be placing a sticker on All Thirteen or The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh (too old?). 

Caldecott

My 2nd and 3rd graders were on the "Caldecott Committee." What a year for picture books!  We read and scored as many as we could but I'm afraid that I still missed a bunch.  The third graders LOVED A New Green Day and the second graders couldn't get enough of Lift.

I force the kids to make one choice, but not me. This is a good thing. There's no way I could pick my favorite. I love We are Water Protectors, Outside In, Hike, In a Jar, The Old Truck....honestly, I love them all.

  

And because this year I have a fixed schedule, I'll be celebrating all week long.  I bought gelt (gold coins) and gold Hershey's kisses (without almonds) as my treat and hope that is festive enough for our "party day." I also found a gold backdrop for photo ops and some gold balloons.  Happy Youth Media Day.

Sibert

I was fortunate enough to run into 4th grade ELA teacher, Mrs. Roe, in the stairwell in November.  We chatted for about five minutes and came up with a Sibert Smackdown plan.  She would read books aloud and I would read others over Flipgrid.  4th graders read over a dozen Sibert Smackdown contenders. Considering that I didn't think they would read any, this is amazing!

With all but one class voting, the top two winners are Crossings and Your Place in the Universe.

If you can't sleep tonight or woke up early and want to watch a little preview before the announcements, feel free to check out their flipgrids: https://flipgrid.com/ff7c379e

Geisel

Ugh. I love Geisel.  I've met some amazing people through the Geisel project including Stephen Savage, Anna Kang and Chris Weyant, Jonathan Fenske (who always makes me lol).  Even though I have only read a few of the Geisel contenders, Egg or Eyeball is my favorite with Baloney and Friends and Mo and his squished jelly doughnut as close seconds.

And that's my wrap.  Tomorrow will be nothing like any other year but I'm hopeful it will still be exciting. I'll be celebrating all week and really putting my acting skills to test.  Find me on Friday afternoon to see if I'm as surprised at the announcements as I am tomorrow.  But now it's time for me to hit my pillow.  See you on the other side.

Global Read Aloud 2020: Swashby Edition

We've started to put our heat on.  They are predicting significant snow on Friday.  We "fall back" on Saturday night.  Covid numbers are rising.  I could really use a pick me up. And I got one.

Thank you Global Read Aloud 2020 and the uber amazing Pernille Ripp for showcasing my friend and talented, Caldecott Honor winning illustrator, Juana Martinez-Neal.  By doing so, this week I get to visit the sea twice a day by sharing Beth Ferry's Swashby and the Sea with the gorgeous illustrations by Juana. Ahhh...short of actually having the waves fiddle with my toes and hearing them crash, this is really the next best thing.

I love the story of Swashby, el recluso. As much as he wants to resist the energetic, fun, oatmeal cookie giving neighbor, with a little help from the sea, he just can't.  

Today, day one for this book, felt like the old days when I did a "Book of the Week" with the entire third grade.  One story. One crazy activity for 75 kids ( ie, author Skype, oreo moons, literally potato pants...) Except this time around, I planned it all on my own (well, not without running it by Mrs. Pryde to get the ok that it wasn't too wild an idea) and lead it on my own. I miss the collaboration but forgot about it for a second when I heard all the oohs and ahhhs. I was pleasantly surprised that it all worked. "This is really fun," exclaimed several kids. Yay! 

Rather than mimicking the sea altogether, we just "painted" kind words in the sand with glue and whole wheat flour.  Not too messy. Fortunately, with my second class we actually went outside so clean up was a breeze.  Ahhhh....all puns intended of course.

In a few weeks we hope to connect with friends in Manitoba as part of the GRA.  So far we have seen their names written out creatively, read about their favorite family foods and shared our "La Princesa and the Pea" mattresses piled high on a pea (lentil) through our joint padlet. We can't wait to meet them IRL, sort of.

I love the idea of the Global Read Aloud so much and even though this is its final year, I hope we can continue to connect with folks all over the world in our own ways next year and beyond.

Pre-quel

Just a few other photos from our projects with Fry Bread and La Princesa and the Pea.

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.

Family Caldecott Night at CES

Reading The Book of Mistakes together

It is award season at Castleton Elementary and as par for the course, I have been bitten by the Youth Media Award bug pretty badly!  I've got a second grade Mock Caldecott going strong; a fun and unique Mock Geisel project with one first grade class; Sibert Smackdown in fourth and my sixth year Mock Newbery in fifth. Needless to say my days are full and rewarding but I'd be remiss if I didn't say also exhausting.

And yet, here  it is, after 11:00 pm and I am blogging...

But I can't put it off any longer--We had an amazing evening with families last night!  Mrs. Roe's second graders were invited to the library to read our Caldecott contenders, share their Caldecott scoresheets from their special folders and Skype with one of our illustrators. Oh yeah, and get sated, too, as we had plenty of snacks to go around. Along with ice cream and freeze pops, Mrs. Roe baked cupcakes and I made my famous popcorn.

Everyone shared their the books they love the most with their families.  As you can see, it is quite the variety! We have so many!  Can you spot your favorite?

 

Don't you just want to stare at these pictures all day long?  I do!  Happy parents! Happy Siblings! Happy second graders!  All reading together and in their PJs no less!  

About half way through, we got ready for our Skype with Corinna Luyken, author and illustrator of The Book of Mistakes.  Mrs. Roe went around with index cards to gather questions from kids and parents and then everyone got seated in front of the SmartBoard waiting for our guest to "arrive" or shall I say, "appear."

Corinna was great!  She told us about how she came up with the idea for her book, the actual mistakes that are in the book and shared early sketches of that gorgeous tree.  Her big and beautiful studio is in a separate room in her house. She twirled around and gave us a mini-tour. Corinna likes working with ink and showed us her ink bottle and one of the brushes that she uses.

It was especially fun because Corinna has an eight year old daughter, the same age as the kids in Mrs. Roe's class, so she totally knew how to relate to our second graders. I have a feeling, too, that her daughter is "Quinn." Just sayin'. We have a Quinn in the class AND the book is dedicated to "Quinn." Corinna got a little excited when our Quinn asked her a question.  It might have even been the first one!

We talked about favorite books from 2017 and books Corinna loved when she was little.  She mentioned that it was only 4:15 pm at the time, where she lives in Olympia, Washington.  And that turned into a mini-geography lesson.  I was glad my globe was nearby!

I can't say enough how much I appreciate when book creators take their personal time to meet with us.  Thank you, Corinna!  Who knew that when I read her book to all 410 students at our first Monthly Morning Assembly back in September that we would be Skyping four months later? Just goes to show you how unpredictable and delightful life can be.

Walk this Way with Mr. Lemoncello

We are 2 for 2!  The rain stopped for just enough time for Mrs. Puccio and Mrs. Seres's class to walk down to the library today!  Mrs. Colloton, Mrs. Warland and Mrs. Gershman came with us, too!  And this time we were prepared.  Many of the students brought their library cards with them to school and more brought in the paperwork to get library cards.  Watch out Castleton Public Library!  Your circulation stats are going to fly out the window by the time I'm done with you!

Leaving CES.  Hoping it won't rain!

Walking down the steps from Sacred Heart Church.  Fun!

The new youth services librarian, Mia, is so cool!
Here she is doing a great job promoting the summer reading program.

Ooh! I hope I find a book I like!

Where are your Non-fiction books?  Right here!

We're all wondering who can check out a book...

And to end it all, of course we JUMPED!

I almost finalized my summer reading book groups.  Stay tuned!  It looks like they are going to be great books.  Last year I only included the current fifth graders going into sixth. This year I will open it up to current fourth and fifth.  I would love to have the older kids, too, but I don't know if I'm cool enough for them anymore.

Speaking of books and libraries...
Yesterday was a big day because all the Lemoncello books from Mrs. Yager's class finally got digitized.  That was a job!  Scanning, uploading into powerpoint, uploading into Calameo but now I can say all eight books are done!  This was a great collaborative project but a huge one!  Mrs. Yager and I worked together to have her third graders retell Chris Grabenstein's Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.  Once the books were completed, they read them to all the K-2 students to prepare them for Chris's visit back in March.  The books came out great.

Here they are:

Kennedy And Kate Lemoncello

Violet, Deyanna, Emily Lemoncello

Cole, Dean And Grace H Lemoncello

Alivia Justin Kyla Lemoncello Book

Zack Nate Brynn Lemoncello Book

Escape From Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Cameron, Ellis and Jordan

Mr Lemoncello Book by Celise, Claire and Sean

Escape From Mr Lemoncello's Library

Since Chris was here for the release party of The Island of Dr. Libris we are keeping our fingers crossed that he can make his way North for the release of the Lemoncello sequel, due out in early January 2016.  Maybe we should cross toes, legs, eyes, to give us the most luck possible.