Toddler Story Time: Animal Poems

Disney Junior: "A Poem is... Ducks" by Mary Ann Hoberman; read by Owen Wilson

Today we enjoyed more fun poetry books about animals! Poems are so fun to read aloud, and are great for our little learners to hear and help read. The books we read from today were:
 Quick as a Cricket  by Audrey Wood; illustrated by Don Wood

 bow wow meow meow: it's rhyming cats and dogs by Douglas Florian

 Eric Carle's Animals Animals: "Mother Doesn't Want a Dog" by Judith Viorst and "Sparrow" by Kaye Starbird

We also had fun watching these fun videos:
Billy Collin reads poetry on "Martha Speaks"
Disney Junior: "A Poem is... Ducks" by Mary Ann Hoberman; read by Owen Wilson (see video above)
Miss Nina sings "The ants go marching" - and we marched right along with her, too!

Playing with rhymes and words is so much fun! try reading some nursery rhymes together this week and keep the celebration of Poetry Month going!

Until then, keep reading!

Spine Poetry Take 2

I love teaching a lesson multiple times! Each group brings a different dynamic, a new perspective, and a unique experience.  After a week of STAAR testing, two more classes of Fourth Graders came to the library ready to create poetry together.
I went over the process of picking out books to make a poem with book spines, showed them several examples, and previewed the tellagami app. Then I let them loose in the library to have fun!

These groups really had fun creating their avatars!

Their final poem videos were fun and creative. Since they had to make a group poem, I hope they all come back to the library and make their own soon!

I love how easy tellagami is to use and learn! It is a great tool for students to know how to use.

On a side note... In creating my blog posts about their poetry creations, I have found 2 great apps that easily and quickly transfer videos and pictures from Apple devices to my computer. 

I have successfully used:

 Simple Transfer Pro by Rambax, LLC (2.99)

 Image Transfer by Capable Bits (Free or 2.99)

Keep creating and sharing, everyone!

Spine Poetry Day 1

After seeing Andy Plemmons' tweet about using Tellagami to narrate his students' spine poems, I decided to give it a try! I invited two fourth grade classes to the library to see what they could come up with from our shelves. 
When the students arrived at the library, I went over the purpose for their visit:

• I explained that we would be creating poems using the spines of books to tell a story. I had created one, and shared with them my process of how I eventually came up with my stack of books.
• I then showed them Andy's Tellagami video and talked about the books with the best titles to build their poems will be in the Fiction and Everybody sections. 
• I only spent a few minutes going over the steps to make the Tellagami video of their poem and pointed out the areas of the library they should use to record their narration.
• Then their teacher divided them into groups of 3 or 4 students to work together to create a group spine poem. We also assured them that the next time that they visit the library they would have more time to create individual spine poems, if they wanted to make one of their own.

I was so impressed with the focus of each group and how they worked together to decide if a title fit into the story they wanted to tell or not. Here's a few groups in process:

Choosing books from the Meadow Wood shelves

Creating avatars and videos

This was my finished spine poem:

And here are their finished videos:

A few things we learned:

• taking the picture in the app allowed you to line things up better
• after setting the background you CAN move the avatar, which at first I told them could not be moved to the side any further
• poetry is fun!
• fourth graders are silly, sentimental, and creative!

I can't wait to see what some of these students create on their own!

SLJ's webcast with Andy Griffiths

All semester I have promised my third graders and third grade teachers that I would invite them to an author event in the library. So, when I heard about SLJ's webcast with Andy Griffiths this week, I immediately thought of them and invited them to view it with me! I had heard Andy at the 2013 TLA Conference on an author panel, and knew his humor and style of storytelling would be perfect for our third graders! 

Unfortunately in my haste and excitement I miscalculated the time difference, and just as I was pulling it up, the webcast finished! (It wouldn't have mattered if I had known the correct time because they were in their Specials classes during the time of the event.) So, I did what any good teacher does and I took a step back and punted!

I had added a few websites about Andy to my Symbaloo page, so first I shared these websites with them:


http://andygriffiths.com.au/



http://www.slj.com/2014/04/authors-illustrators/interviews/qa-author-andy-griffiths-on-his-ever-growing-treehouse-series/#_

And watched these YouTube book trailer videos:







And then we let the students get into groups of 4 or 5 to design their own treehouse room:

Here are some of their finished ideas:

Super-Duper Bowling Alley

 Boot Camp Room

 Log Ride out of the treehouse

 Pet Shop Room

 Dance Studio Room

 Take your pick: fishing, laser tag, sport fields, or a pool!

 Zero gravity room

 Base-ketBall field: a mash-up of baseball and basketball

 Mall/shopping room

 Bouncy House room

 Snack Room

Their favorite room was the Tarantula Room!

After sharing out a few of their ideas, we looked at Mr. Schu's blog post about Andy Griffiths' visit to his school on Tuesday. It was a perfect way to end our time together, and made us look forward to next week when we can watch the archived recording of today's webcast together.

Toddler Story Time: Poem Stories

I am in San Antonio enjoying time with my fellow librarians at Texas Library Association's Annual Conference. I left my friend Anna Farris with the task of entertaining my little friends this week with some fun Story Poems!

The books we read were:
 My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Monique Felix

 The moon by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Denise Saldutti

 I see the moon and the moon sees me by Jonathan London, illustrated by Peter Fiore

 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod by Eugene Field, illustrated by Susan Jeffers