It's an absolutely gorgeous book, filled with amazing pictures. Not only can you see these beautiful young people with their favorite books, but you can see the world they live in. In the background you can see the other villagers, their homes, children farming, their library of books we would have long-since weeded...
At any rate, this books is the inspiration for a Sister Library activity I agreed to do with another library in Malawi. We are going to recreate this book with our students, and they will recreate it with theirs. Then we will exchange copies of our books. I'm so excited!!
For anyone interested, you can read more about the program HERE.
I've been introduced recently to two great resources, both of which harness the power of Google Earth and can be used in our classrooms. The Google Cultural Institute and Real World Math are both wonderful resources for our teachers, to make learning meaningful and to give our children a greater world view.
If you haven't played with it before, you might be interested in spending a few minutes at the Google Cultural Institute (if it's not blocked at school!). From the front page, if you hit "explore" you end up on their contents page where you can see what they have available. You can view resources by decade, partner, channel, or project. Your kids can take a virtual 3-D field trip all through Versailles! The World Wonders Project is an incredible way to take your kids around the world -- you can see the locations on a globe and then go explore places like the Great Barrier Reef, a scientists' research station in Antarctica, Pompeii... They used Google Earth to put these together so it's like you're standing right there and you can turn and look all around you, zoom in and out, etc. There are also things like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nelson Mandela Memory Centre. The Art Project is a link to THOUSANDS of art museums from all around the world. This is an amazing, free resource we can use to give our kids a lot of the culture they miss growing up in little ol' Goldsboro, or wherever your hometown may be.
Another very cool website (especially for the higher grades) is Real World Math which also incorporates the power of Google Earth. The lessons here involve things like learning to apply math concepts through studying crop circles, tracking whales, figuring out who needs tsunami warnings, lunar sports, oil spill estimations, racing in the Iditarod... These real-world and project based learning plans are a great way to bring the common core to life in your classroom. It's worth some time, even if you only look to get an idea of things you can try in your own classroom that tie in which places/events you study and the math skills you teach.
He arrived today! This is the free Elf on the Shelf doll, poster, and storybook I sent for. You can follow the directions for your own free elf and book in my Freebies post from last week. Hurry, though! They were only giving away 5,000!
Well, Sandy came and went... She (or He?) decided just to view the NC Coast from a distance and save her (or his?) gusto for New England. We had some wind and rain, but nothing significant. It wasn't any worse than a regular rainy weekend in my neck of the woods.
My media center, however, had a rough start today. I blame Traci from the classroom underneath it, though. You know what they say about Karma...
On Friday, Traci came up and helped us cover the stacks. She made the point of saying we were wasting our time. Terry, my media assistant, told her flat-out if we cover the stacks, nothing happens. If we don't cover the stacks, the ceiling falls in and we lose books. We have the holes in the ceiling in 3 or 4 places to prove our theory. Traci informed us she, however, didn't need to bother covering things in her room because, "The only way my room will get wet is if the library floods out!"
Yeah, good thinking, Traci.
The roof didn't leak. The stacks were dry and secure when we came in this morning. I walked the whole library inspecting the ceiling all the way around. Traci said, "See, told you it was a waste of time."
About 30 minutes later, a pipe burst. It flooded the library and ran through the floors down into Traci's room. She's lucky I had the good sense to run downstairs to check and move her computers out of the way cuz that's EXACTLY where the water was dripping. It eventually spread to drip on her kids at their desks, too, but we eventually got to the pipe and could cut the water off and start working at drying things out. Nasty pink water, too... The floors were soaked in the workroom and the carpet on either side of it at the doors. The copiers were standing in inches of water... It seeped through the into the video room and flooded that out, and it seeped under the cabinets, through the walls, under my Fiction stacks and out into the carpet of the Fiction area by my seating out there. It was lovely. Blah.
It took a while for the custodians to bring up a shop vac and fans, but things were drying out by the time I left. I'm sure it'll be moldy and yucky soon, though. My poor library!
I blame Traci. LOL, even if you THINK it, you should NEVER EVER say it out loud or it happens. Kinda like car trouble -- it only happens if you forget to grab your cell phone off the charger before you left... Oooh, and you only get stuck behind a school bus when you're running late... All those wonderful things. :)
Tomorrow's election day -- the kids in school are coming up to vote for President. Let's see how that goes. :) Hopefully everything will be dry and cooperative!
We spent the last part of the day preparing for the storm. We're supposed to have 40 mph winds and 5 inches of rain -- not a big deal normally, but our ceiling leaks something awful.
This lovely hole is from just a typical rainy day -- and this wasn't even a spot we knew to be leaking. That lovely little leak took an entire stack of books with it -- it collapsed over my 000-300 stacks, taking out everything on one stack, and the right side of the stack beside it. So now we cover for everything. Here's my lovely assistant coming through with some more plastic...
HOPEFULLY we won't have any damage, but we covered all the stacks, the SmartBoard, the circulation desk, and all the computers just to be on the safe side.
I'm off to work -- I'm late! Have a happy and safe Friday night!
There is a hurricane hitting this weekend, and I had no idea until about 3:30 today. Where have I been, living in a bubble? Although, with a sigh of relief, I see that weather.com says it's going to hit New England, not here. SO... probably just a windy, rainy Saturday -- no big deal. I'll be at work anyway -- can't even enjoy it.
It's been a very busy week for me, actually, so I'm not entirely surprised I missed the big news. I teach reading and acceleration all morning, followed by back-to-back (and sometimes overlapping!) classes all day, and character education at the end of the day. I had a meeting after school Tuesday that kept me there till after 5. In the evenings, after I cook dinner, feed the dogs, clean the house, run errands, I've been working on lesson plans, playing on Twitter, catching up on the blogs I follow, and trying to finish reading Under the Dome by Stephen King. I've only got about 60 more pages to go! I'm enjoying it, but I've just taken forever to get through it and I'm anxious to move on to something else.
But, tomorrow's Friday, so all is well.
I actually don't know why I like Fridays so much. It must just be force of habit or something... Fridays are crazy-busy for me -- I've got back-to-back classes all day, no assistant most of the day, and when I'm done with that, I pick up my daughter from school, head home to throw on a pair of jeans, and head back out the door to my 2nd job where I work the 5-10 shift. By the time I get home it's nearly 11 and I'm wiped out. I need to just get cleaned up, crawl into bed, and get some sleep so I can get up in the morning and get back to work...
Yep, there definitely must be something wrong with me. I love them regardless. :)
I did manage to finish a prezi last night. I've messed with it a few times, but hadn't actually ever FINISHED making anything I've started. We are required to teach cybersafety lessons in my county in accordance with a grant we receive. I took the plan from one of the required lessons and just put it in a prezi just to help guide the discussion.
I'm working on one for my 2-3 classes now, but my laptop crashed while I was working on it after school today, so I gave up for now.
Alrighty... I guess I should call it a night. I've still got a lot to do before I can crawl into bed to hopefully finish my book tonight!
I just got a FREE Shelf on the Elf and Storybook. How cool is that? Want one? They're giving one to the first 5,000 teachers who sign up. You kinda have to jump through hoops with this, but it only takes a few minutes in the end...
Go online to http://www.elfontheshelf.com and sign up. It's up in the top right corner. You'll have to verify your email address and create a profile. Once you've done that, go to http://www.elfontheshelfteachers.com and sign up again. They'll ask you to pick your grade level (K-1, 2-3, or 4-5). This will take you to another screen with a "Join This Group" button off to the right near the top. Once you click that, you join the group to access the teacher resources, and if you're among the first 5,000 there will be a screen for you to fill out your name, mailing address, etc. for them to send you your free Elf and Storybook.
Bonus: There are cute games, activities, crafts, etc. on the website to keep in mind as you're doing your holiday-time lesson planning.
In addition to that... I was given a link for free glow fish from Carolina Biologicals today. The kids LOVE the aquarium I have in the media center, and are always eager to see the fish when they come up. They'll love these glow fish when they come in.
For those of you who are interested in free Glow Fish, or one of the other pet-grants available (we're not allowed to have "pets" at school -- only fish), here is the link to the website: http://www.petsintheclassroom.org
