I show students our Chinese lion puppet and we choose a name for it. My favorite so far is “Lena” although the boy who suggested “Hello Kitty” got lots of laughs. Next we read the book, Chinatown by William Low, which is written in first person about a boy who travels through Chinatown with his Grandma. I [...]

Sometimes I’m not sure what to do with books I have weeded from the library. I’ll let the teachers choose them but then I’m left with extras wondering who would appreciate them. The school that I worked at 10 years ago would have a reading night and students were given tickets and could “purchase” books based [...]

Professor of Library and Information Studies,  Joyce Chao-Chen Chen , from National Taiwan Normal University brought about twenty local education professionals to The Taipei American School to tour the libraries. I gave a presentation on what is means to be a Teacher Librarian and promote reading in a school library. The education professionals…[Read more]

The 2011 book,  Hopper and Wilson by Maria van Lieshout, is about an elephant and mouse that set sail in a newspaper sailor hat boat to see the end of the world. Kindergarten students made a simple sailor hat  before I read the story. I set out a one page spread of a newspaper folded. Students had to make [...]

I’ve been having problems getting one particular grade 4 class excited about reading when they come to the library. I tried book trailers and book talks but got a mediocre response. Either the books were too hard or I was way off on books I thought they liked. I decided to find out their reading interests.  Students filled out a [...]

For this lesson, I pull about 25 Caldecott medal books for an entire class. Students spend 5-10 minutes and browse through a book looking at pictures and trying to figure out the story. If they finish early they can pick another book. Using the whiteboard we brainstorm physical characteristics of the books. First time I did this the students read the [...]

Looking for easy-to-read books that target older students? My students seem to really like several series from Stone Arch Books . The covers are not babyish and the plots have conflicts that appeal to grades 3-5. Take the book, Rapunzel Lets her Hair Down , by Tony Bradman from the After Happily Ever After series. Rapunzel is sharing breakfast…[Read more]

A group of kindergarteners bounced into the library like a bunch of baboons. Arms and legs seemed to be everywhere. One girl  did a spin before sitting down, reveling in the swish of her skirt. Another boy jumped before splatting on the ground in a way that would be painful to any adult.  They sat, [...]

Grade 1 put wrote letters to the visiting author. I got this idea from Tara Etheridge’s blog . I modified it by having students use the Epson Brightlink interactive whiteboard but switched to paper because I needed to fill some bulletin boards up for the author visit. You can get the idea from the photo. I put the [...]

Kindergarteners put together an ABC book based on a lesson in Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi’s book, Nonfiction Craft Lessons , and tied it in with the Foss Unit on trees . I printed off vocabulary words and photos to go with them. We read the book, Are Trees Alive? , by Debbie Miller, one of the supplemental books on the Foss [...]

Grade 4 students created a visual story summarizing chapters from the book, Marshfield Dreams , by Ralph Fletcher. Students paired with their writing or reading partners after I read a chapter from the book. Each pair received a paragraph or less of the story in the chapter. They had to use a digital camera and come up with [...]

Visiting author, Ralph Fletcher , is coming to our school in two weeks. I had students in grade 5 get into 5 groups and read his picture books. They had to then create a book talk on the book they read. They wrote a script beforehand and then videotaped themselves using the iTouch and students were able [...]

I got this idea from Tara Etheridge ‘s, Elementary Librarian at the International School of Bangkok, blogpost. Thirty parents in grades 1 & 2 came to hear a brief talk on reading and selecting books with their child. Angela MacKenzie, Reading Specialist, and I presented the talk. We had 4 tables of books with one of those tables being new books. [...]

I read the book, The Library Mouse , by Daniel Kirk to grade 1 students. It’s about a mouse who writes and illustrates his own books then hides them in the library. After reading the book the students made their own book. They had to show me their book when they were done and I videotaped [...]

Digital storytelling is an amazing way to capture the attention of students and motivate them to learn a variety of literacy skills such as information literacy, reading literacy, visual literacy, and technology literacy (I’m probably missing others). Students must design, create and present their own digital stories using: research skills -…[Read more]

The first ever Summer Reading Challenge 2011 was launched last spring. Congratulations to the 162 students that participated! It was great fun handing out gold certificates this September and talking to students about series or books that they enjoyed reading over the summer. We also had double the circulation check out of books over the summer…[Read more]