School Library 2.0: A Picture Walk

Hello!
Well, it's certainly been a while. My first semester as school librarian has been BUSY! and I wanted to take this post to show off some of the many organizational changes I've made.

First off, here's the space as of May:

It's beautiful, right? I am lucky to have a spacious, lovely library with lots of shelf space. Unfortunately, the collection had not been maintained.

In summary:

• Several shelves were broken.
• There was no labeling of the different areas of the library.
• Nonfiction series were scattered throughout the library; the Dewey decimal section was incredibly mixed up and very out of date.
• Picture books and leveled readers were combined, and not organized in any fashion beyond a semblance of alphabetization.
• Most books in Spanish - regardless of whether they were YALs, nonfiction, or E books - were spine labeled 468.6 (Dewey for Spanish foreign language) and stuck in their own section. They were alphabetized by author's last name. The other Spanish books were shelved correctly in their respective sections, but not demarcated by any Spanish language designation.
• The collection had never been weeded or inventoried.

 (We actually now have 420 students, so that ratio was more like 34... a great ratio, until you look at pub dates and quality of books and the fact that untold texts are lost.)

 So I dug in my heels and rolled up my sleeves.
First stop (and a continual stop, of course)? Weeding nation!

As I began to weed and order and create categories & sublocations, I have to give a shout out to my great friend who showed me Destiny basics... and then all you legions of Youtube librarians, so succinct and helpful with any troubleshooting!

Fortunately, there was a summer school program in my elementary in June, so I was able to load up these preliminary weeds with some inviting FREE! ¡GRATIS! signs adorning their cart. Most got snapped up, and the rest - along with my continual weeding - are healthy additions to the front lobby lending library I help curate. I can't tell you how popular the sports books from the 1990s have been!

(Oh, and the problematic material? It makes great décor -- observe how I used a particularly egregiously racist biography of Davy Crockett: )

In the midst of this "robust deselection of material," I also began an ambitious project: genrefying the YAL books! The same great friend as above helped me organize, I put in an order to The Library Store, and we began. My girlfriend and friend and I spent a few dizzyingly long days in June sorting YALs.

I hope to write more about the benefits of genrefication in a later post, but suffice it to say that it has been UTTERLY TRANSFORMATIVE for my chapter book readers.

 And speaking of those readers -- their first week of library, after ice breakers & expectations, was helping me finish labeling the books. One 3rd grade class alone did 9 shelves of books in half an hour! It means the spine labeling is occasionally a little wonky (or a lot wonky), but overall they did a great job. It also functioned as an informal book pass, generated excitement, and helped develop a sense of ownership. It also also saved me gads of time!

Before the first week of school, I had moved all of the picture books to create an E nook. It took two full work days to alphabetize those suckers. (To be fair, they were two very enjoyable days.) The fiction, then, now progresses from picture books, to leveled & beginning readers, to beginning chapter books (sorted by series), and then genre fiction.

(Looking more loved, no?)

The next giant project I undertook was interfiling all of the Spanish and bilingual books. What I did:

1. Separated all books into two groups: Spanish & bilingual.
2. Marked the Spanish books with purple, and the bilingual books with green (either sharpie on the spines, printing the spine label on paper of that color, or using a transparent spine label in that color). It would've been great to have one consistent system, but at the end of the day, it wasn't feasible for me to print labels for all 900-some books. So, for a good majority of them, Sharpie it was!
3. **For nonfiction books, however, I had to manually edit their record, correct their call number (they were all in 468.6, remember?), print their spine labels onto the correct color (purple or green), attach them, and then interfile them.**

This huge project, of course, led me into the next gargantuan ordeal... nonfic. Weeding, organizing, spacing, sorting, and labeling the nonfic. It took a long while, but it got done.

Isn't that nice? Also, you can see many bilingual books (note the green) and a few Spanish ones on the lower shelf. Thanks to Parent-Teacher Conferences, I got those groovy section labels done.

I also labeled the genres and the early picture book series for ease of location and shelving:

I also took the back of the picture book nook and turned it from a dumping ground to a First Steps in Reading section - though I have at least 5 different leveling systems from the books (there is a huge range in different publishers' perceptions of "emergent" and "beginner"), I have them, again, generally progressing from easiest to most difficult.

(I am so totally grateful for all those book bins I bought for my classroom library last year!)

Last, but certainly not least, I got some displays up! Currently I have my:

SFPS Eco books (a gift from the district!)

 

My seasonal books (summer, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and currently winter):

My cascade of new books:

My section displays (featured books in E books, genre fiction, and nonfic):

And my favorite - my recent reads! (This one changes every week)

If it wasn't break, I'd have up Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi, Hello, Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly, and A Kitten Tale by Eric Rohmann. 

What's on your shelf?

Community-Created E-Books!

Hello, Teachers!

My proposal is to work with families, classrooms, and the app Book Creator to make a multilingual e-book library available on tablets in the library and also shared as iBook formats for the entire school to access.

Why:

·       We must have books that represent our whole school community.

·       It’s often hard to find high-quality books in all the languages / of all the ethnicities of our students.

·       Many bicultural families have literacies that are not appreciated by white, mainstream culture. Storytelling is one of these.

·       Students succeed when families feel honored and meaningfully engaged!

This can be a pre-K – 6 activity! When I was working on my final paper on bilingual librarianship, I found two articles that I thought to combine for a technologically-savvy, family-honoring, literacy-rich environment. They’re cited below.

This project would of course be after creating a space for the students to engage with the app – they would begin in small groups or centers-based exploration. On a pre-K/K level, this could look like this:

 Though it looks like a mess, students have imported photos, taken their own, and played with the pen, sound, and resizing options. For older students, placing tablets in a center with an engaging prompt (make a book about your favorite animal! Write a fairy tale or comic about yourself or a friend!

Once students are comfortable manipulating the app (whatever this means on their level), families are either invited in or a descriptive letter is sent home. Essentially, a family member will sit down with their student and tell them a story in their native language (English, español, Diné, Chichewa…). They can either record themselves on their voice recorder app (there’s a free version on every Smartphone) and email it to the teacher/librarian, and/or write it out afterwards. If the story is in a language that a teacher does not speak and the student is in the younger grades, parents can write in English /draw key concepts.

 This story will be the plot of the book. Then, students will create one or more pages of the story. The images can be their illustrations or photographs, or photographs sent by the parents.

Roughly, then, the Levels could look like this.

● Level 1: Picture Book With Labels: Students write one or two words under each image. (For students who cannot write in their native languages, teachers or families can insert the native language.) Families record the text with teacher directions or assistance.

● Level 2: Picture Book With Simple Sentences: Students write a simple sentence under each of the images, often with sentence starters provided by teachers. Families record the text with teacher directions or assistance.

● Level 3: Simple Story With Text- Structure Template: Students wrote their own sentences to provide details and context. They also manage recording with assistance.

● Level 4: More Complex Text With More Details: Students provide context and details multilingually. They independently teach family members how to record and may add other sound effects to their book.

            (modified from Louis & Welton-Davis, 2016, p. 600)

Here’s what a Level 1 and a Level 4 might look like:

   

This sort of project could be within your classroom, an optional extension activity with families during curriculum night, and/or within your class’ weekly library time.

Interested? Any questions? Don’t hesitate to let me know!

 ¡Hasta pronto!

ISTE Standards: 2b, 2c, 4b, 4d (big time!), 5a, and 6d.

Resources

Louie, B., & Welton-Davis, K. (2016). Family literacy project: Bilingual picture books by English

Language Learners. The Reading Teacher 69(6), 597-606.

Rowe, D. & Miller, M. (2015). Designing for diverse classrooms: Using iPads and digital cameras to

compose eBooks with emergent bilingual/ biliterate four-year-olds. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 1-48.

What Can Your Library Do For You?

Hello, fellow teachers!

Welcome to --- What can your library do for you???

I may well update and enrich this post as time passes. As it stands, I’d love to give an overview of the kind of things I, as the librarian, can offer you, the classroom teacher. This list is by no means exhaustive! I welcome queries, out of the box thinking, and new ideas.

First off, the basics! This is the stuff I am supplying regardless:

• Book Selection: At least every week (and more often in the early grades), your students have time to find self-selective books, check them out, read them, and discuss them with me and/or peers. I also build in certain days where they can come in before school, after school, or during lunch. Of course, students can always come in with a pass!

• A wide range of texts: We’re talking picture books, fiction books, nonfiction, and expository. The formats vary too: books, magazines and newspapers, and a host of digital sources.

• Grade-level, NMSL, and ISTE standards: I work to make sure I’m aligning activities and lessons with your grade-level standards, as well as New Mexico School Library Standards and International Standards for Technology in Education. 

• Storytime & Book Talks: Obviously, this looks different for different grades and groups, but reading and listening to enjoyable, quality books and talking about them is central to an engaged, intellectual life.

I use your quarterly survey information to customize the above content to your thematic and standards foci, and also to augment it with different activities. Without further ado, here are some options and ideas:

STORYTIME:

• I read a book to your kiddos in your class (push-in)

• Youtube channel of readalouds for your class

• Collaboration with creating book talks and videos, use of other digital tools such as Novel Effect.

• Puppets, manipulatives, songs, Story Stones, and general strategies.

• Discussion guides, questions, and/or activities with your classroom readalouds
•  
• Assistance with Sock Puppets, Chatter Pix, and Blabberize for student jigsaw / reteaching activities. 

PUBLISHING:

• Handmade books

• Assistance with essays and research papers (any step of the process)

• Digital book creation: Book Creator, Write Reader Classroom, ScribblePress, Storybird, StoryKit, StoryJumper.

• RPGs, card games, board games, or video games based on course content

• Creating choose your own adventure books

• Websites, blogs, Wakelets, etc. for expository and other nonfiction writing

 

PROCUREMENT:

• Author studies

• Books you adore

• Thematic texts

• Interlibrary Loan

• Open source textbooks

THEMATIC OUTREACH:

• Author visits, correspondence, and/or Skypes

• Thematic visits from local experts, or digital visits from non-local ones

• Cross-curricular planning (within the school and/or community)

GLAD STRATEGIES:

•  Expository

•  Narrative

•  Sentence

•  Chants & Songs

LITERACY CLUBS:

• Book buddies with another class in the school

• Book buddies with another class in another school

• International Book Club (read fiction & nonfiction digital texts and discuss them with classes in different states and/or countries)

• Battle of the Books (grades 4-6)

• Poesía Eres Tú (competición de poesía en español)

And much, much more. Seriously, if you have an upcoming project, and don’t think any of these would fit, chat with me! We’ll sort something fabulous out.

- ¡Hasta pronto!

Attribution-ShareAlikeCC BY-SA

Follow Their Lead!

¡Buenas tardes, y bienvenidos a las conferencias!

I have to say, I am pretty proud of my accomplishments today: successful conferences, homework for my Educational Research course, lesson planning, and making biscuits!

Knock wood, but I think I've got a bastante padre lesson in science on Monday planned for my administrative observation. Our inaugural classroom use of our new toaster oven will be for baking biscuits with visual recipes. Of course, there will be compare/contrast science journaling of the masa and the bizcochos, ingredient reading, and math measurement!

I've got a few minutes before my last conference comes, and then it's off to our Dual Language PLC, so I thought to write up a post about following children's leads. This is a key concept in Early Childhood circles - in its fuller form it's known as emergent curriculum - but it's often neglected in elementary pedagogy (at least as far as I've witnessed) due to the chock-full schedules and standardized assessment. Ironically, the very thing that typically makes research so simple - technology - is the also the delimiting factor. But even if you can't plan a whole unit around the whims and whimsies of your kids, small, impromptu investigations are absolutely possible (and necessary).

Here are three from the last few days: 

1. Sledding.
I have a new student. He just moved from El Salvador; his first days in this country have been snowy and relentlessly cold. Of course, his first day in my class he was crying and crying and crying. He wanted his mom. Claro que quería estar con su mamá. When we went out for morning recess, he shivered and sniffled, totally miserable in his puff coat and adorable penguin hat. My words comforted him only a small measure.

Then, my kids discovered that the snow on the small playground hill was packed down and slick with ice. It was approximately 45 seconds before they were all tobogganing down on bellies and backs and bums, shrieking and having a grand old time. My new student watched, then got close. Then he smiled. Then he rolled down the hill with them. When they asked if they could have a few more minutes outside, my answer was an enthusiastic "¡Sí!"

2. "¡Igual que Bella!"
Later that same day, it was storytime. The past two days we had read Cross-Country Cat. It's about a Siamese cat, Henry, who realizes to find his family he must travel by... that's right. Cross-country skiing. It's totally winning (and a childhood favorite of mine). So, to extend on a theme but also practice with informational texts, we read a (super-abridged) article that I adapted from the New York Times. It tells the story of Holly, the amazing kitty who traveled more than 200 miles to reunite with her humans.

 

 We read it, with kids tracking the text. It was the first time I had tried an article of that size, and was pleasantly surprised with how kids used the pronouns and the number to find their place when they would go too quickly or slowly. 

When they finished, a student piped up: "¡Igual que Bella!" she said. I thought I had misheard her. Surely she meant Henry? But others nodded, their hands shooting into the air. "Yeah, Bella!"

Now, I could've easily rerouted the conversation to comparing Holly and Henry. Instead, I followed their lead. In a minute I was on the computer connected to the SmartBoard, loading the preview for A Dog's Way Home. 

 

 

  Well, look at that.
Kids, animated by their text-to-experience connections, chimed in, and soon we were comparing Henry, Holly, and Bella. There was even a fervent sidebar that discussed whether A Dog's Way Home was fiction like Cross-Country Cat or non-fiction like "Holly Vuelve a Casa" (they decided that it was almost non-fiction, but since Bella talked it was fiction).


3. Reading music.
Then, just yesterday, kids were interested in the weird markings next to "Music class" on our daily schedule (musical notations).  I explained that they were music notes, and that you could read them just as you read in English or Spanish. I sang the little phrase on the daily schedule. They were perplexed. We had to push on at that moment, but I explained I'd do a mini-lesson on reading music later during play for those who were interested.
And that we did. They picked the song, I tracked the music, and it wasn't long until they had popped in the CD and grabbed percussion instruments.

I know we all follow our students' lead; I know too we sometimes feel like we have curtail their wild, anarchic curiosity in favor of scope and sequence. But, for your sake and for theirs, give yourself permission to explore with them. Who knows where it may lead you? ...It may lead me to go see a cheesy kid's movie about a dog. After all, as a student pointed out, I could probably ask my mamá or papá to take me.  ;)

A Brief Treatise on Kínder Classroom Libraries

Hello y buenas tardes, dear lectores!

It's been far too long - and in the interim, I've moved jobs AND schools! I am writing you as a proud 50:50 Dual Language Kínder teacher, instructing half my day en español and half in English (más o menos). At a semester in, I can say with confidence that this was the right choice for me professionally and personally. Perhaps I'll tackle my motives in another post... but for now, please allow me to show you my classroom library. It is, quite simply, my organizational pride and joy.

 There it is! (This picture is from the beginning of November: now my book stands have El Gorro de Lana, Owl Moon, Coming on Home Soon, and Dos Lobos Blancos)

Let me walk you through the process:

First off, my dear friend and colleague helped me haul my approximately 450 books in our two tiny cars. (This is not even mentioning the other carloads of games, instruments, supplies, and manipulatives I dragged to my new school.)

At the preschool, I had been proud of my extensive library, but had only had out 30-40 books at a time - largely thematically-based. That was what my three-year-olds could handle; and thus it was easy to maintain order, as I was the only person who accessed my complete library.

For kindergarten, however, I knew I was going to have to create an organizational system that five-year-olds could learn and maintain.

A couple weeks before the school began, then, I headed to Lakeshore. Fortunately, they were having a container sale. Instead of grabbing their (more expensive and smaller) book boxes, I got 24 general storage containers in red, yellow, green, and blue. 

Back at the ranch at my new school, my friend and I dumped all the books out on my circle rug. We sorted and sorted and sorted, developing categories along the way and organizing based on each category's size. I typed them up and put them in a new tab in my Reading Strategies Google Spreadsheet. The verdict:

The books were in and categorized! But how to keep them that way?

I had an idea! It took my (saintly) EA the better part of a day to do it, but here's what each text in my library (save for oversize and class sets) has on its inside cover:

Each text has, in its upper left-hand corner, a stamp. I had it personalized to say:

Este libro pertenece 

a la biblioteca de

la Maestra Alix.

¡Leer es liberación!

(Freire, eat your heart out!)

For translanguaging ease, red is English in my classroom, blue is Spanish. If it's bilingual? You got it: purple. So, this particular book is in English.

Now, you'll note that there is also a colored sticker on the lower right-hand corner. It's yellow, and it's got a 4. So... Yes! You're right. It goes in the Yellow 4 bin and is therefore a Social Story. (This particular, wonderful book is The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson. I dare you to read it without crying.)

I was thrilled beyond belief when my kiddos, on their first day of kindergarten, were able to understand and utilize the library properly. As we've gone on, we've added our reading buddies (stuffed animals), a book hospital (for broken or ripped books), and our book bags.

The last item was inspired by this awesome blogger. Instead of using the (kind of expensive) cardboard book boxes she advocates, I used the same idea but got canvas bags - one per student. Students decorated them, and they use them to store the books they'd like to continue to read from day to day. They also have a "I can read" Ziploc bag inside their canvas bag, which is still just a letter list (I highlight the letter when they learn it) for most students, but has some BR texts for my higher readers.

(If you don't know La Viejecita que no le tenía miedo a nada... you MUST!)

¡Y ya! ¡Qué fácil! I mean, just kidding. It was a huge amount of work. But do trust me on this: it has been worth every moment of effort.

Coming soon: (hopefully) a post about how I incorporate all of this into my daily Reading Workshop, and also a post about crafting my read aloud curriculum for the semester. Also, of course I'll try to get an Historias del Juego post in soon - ¡don't think for a second my kids don't get to play every day in kínder!

¡Colorín colorado, este post se ha acabado!

Smartboard Games!

Okay. I'm the first Luddite to say that kids are oversaturated with technology - I'm worried about the long-term repercussions of tons of screen time and individualized devices, I hate when young kids are stuck completing online remediation when their peers get to do an enrichment activity.

However. SMARTBOARD GAMES. Y'all. Get on board. Creating themed, standards-aligned Smartboard games is one of my favorite things. (Along with raindrops on roses and smashing the kyriarchy.)

I've done this throughout the year, and last, but this past unit - Hábitats - seemed like a great way to showcase a few different types of games: counting, sorting, and syllable segmentation.

 First: la tundra. This was obviously a teacher-mediated activity - for the most part, my students don't know numerals yet - but a very fun one. The penguin on the iceberg is an "Infinite Clone," which means that each time students try to move it another penguin appears. That way each student could slide the penguin down the iceberg, plop them in the water, and count with the group. I would move the corresponding numeral in the "Hay _______ pingüinos" space.

Next was la Selva, and definitely my favorite game - at least aesthetically speaking! This was introduced in large group and then became an independent play option during centers. Students touch one of the orchids, which I programmed to say the name of the bird segmented into syllables: "quet-zal," "tu-cán," o "co-li-brí." They would then fly the corresponding bird over to its flower.

This next one is a simplified (for independent play) version of los pingüinos. Like in the tundra game, the scallop shell is an "Infinite Clone." So, as students touch the original and move the clones, the beach quickly fills with shells. Students can count the resulting number.

  For this last one, I was so totally thrilled with my littles. They could do it! Sure, it was the culminating week of a six-week study, we had a corresponding book I had created that we read and they got personal copies to illustrate and annotate at home, and students practiced by playing with the same animals in their individual habitats on previous Smartboard Notebook pages... but still! I was mad impressed. They chided the creatures, saying things like "Tenemos que ayudarte" y "Ay, no, estrella de mar, tú no perteneces allí" y "¡Chango, vete a la selva!"

I couldn't recommend it more highly. It is ESPECIALLY cool because there is an app for iPads wherein you can download the Smartboard Notebook technology - for free! So, if I want to do a small group / one-on-one session with any of these games, I just throw it in my DropBox, move it over, and open it on my tablet. ¡Precioso!

Hasta pronto ~

**And as a note, I hope to upload my games on the Smartboard Exchange; the website was having trouble the time I tried it, so I'll have to attempt again. Until then, I am happy to share any of these games! Claro que compartiré cualquier de estoso juegos, si alguien tiene interés.**

Historias del Juego: LET THEM PLAY!

My afternoon class is, in a word, tremenda. (Es un salón de diéciseis niños de tres añitos.) There are hitters and screamers and biters, and about four classroom-circuit sprinters. For storytime circle, I divide the class into two or three homogeneous groupings and pull them during play time. Whole group is... well, it's utter chaos. As there are at least three children who need one-on-one assistance at any given time, it's simply not tenable. (A whole other post is how I am trying to stop imposing my prideful adult will of "what they should do" onto them; they are showing me very clearly where they are, and how they work best. )

The one time we do a full storytime + activity circle a week is when we have our fabulous SLP and OT in the class with us for half an hour. With four adults, it's almost close to manageable. A couple of weeks ago, after such a circle of kids rolling around and chewing on their shoes and jumping on chairs, we went outside and then came in for centers play.

And this selfsame group of kids transformed. Esos traviesos se transformaron. I took the following pictures within seven minutes. (Please marvel at their sophistication of play, their wonderful imaginations, and my ability to avoid faces.)

V. was pretending to text with an old cellphone. She also was singing to her baby, whom I helped 'swaddle' in a ripped skirt. She later joined friends at the table and they had a tea party with plastic sandwiches and very real water.

These two boys, B. & Y., were doing what they do every choice time -- engaging in elaborate dollhouse play. The dolls have names, go about their day (including fighting frequently with large snakes who invade their parlor), and they have excellent interior design skills.

Here are the magnatile engineers! There were steeples and hexagons and six-pointed stars; when the afternoon sun pours through the window, the students watch how the light seeps through the colored shapes.

Here are two of my girls, Y. and A., listening to New Mexican music and dancing up a storm. Y. has a pirate vest and top on, A. has Princess Jasmine pants and a bouquet of poppies, and they are dipping and swinging each other.

X. is quite the artist. Making Valentines was so popular that I left a bin of hearts and stickers, and they're still in heavy rotation. Note especially the pre-writing at the top and the beveled edges. 

And last, but certainly not least, here are my entomologists! X. and D. As they reported: "Somos esposos y estamos estudiando estos insectitos y arañas."







This is how kids learn. Full stop.
Así aprenden los niños. Y ya.

Types of play: all 16. (exceptions perhaps for Mastery Play and Deep Play)

Hasta pronto ~