Listen. Connect. Empower.

Solving and creating our own emoji book titles was a creative challenge I first started exploring four years ago. It has evolved over time, and this latest version is the one that makes the most sense to me. Try it out  here ! Student-created emoji book titles (From top left corner clockwise: Magic Ramen, Catstronauts, Tiger Rising, Wings of Fire) I love this activity because It requires creative thinking (to both solve and create more) Students choose how they interact - do they want to solve or create? All the activities are student-generated I was able to use Google tools for all aspects of the project Solving emoji book titles I created an interactive activity which allows them to check the answer.  In this google slide activity, students use the emoji clues to guess the title of the book.  By moving the magnifying glass over the box, the answer is revealed. Creating emoji book titles While this activity engages many of our learners, I wanted to offer an option for s...

I just love it when multiple ideas/concepts come together.  Our coding experience was an example of that this year. We have been celebrating the Hour of Code for the last 7 years.  I love the problem solving and teamwork I see when students code.  However,  I have been struggling with where and how this fits into our library program.  It was feeling like an isolated unit that didn't authentically fit.  I was inspired at #AASL19 by  Ashley Cooksey's  work and how she integrated picture books and coding.  I decided this was the year for change.  I used the month of December to read diverse picture books and problem solve (code). Diverse picture books for coding Wendy Garland's favorite books » Share book reviews and ratings with Wendy, and even join a book club on Goodreads. Why? One of my goals for the year was to audit books chosen to read aloud to stu...

I was inspired at EdCampSEMass  to try BreakoutEDU .  I was under the misconception that this was more for middle and high school students.  After hearing how a 4th grade teacher used this in conjunction with her read aloud I was inspired to give this a try in my own school. When a 5th grade teacher approached me for a book recommendation (a mystery), I jumped on the opportunity to present BreakoutEDU.  She wanted to introduce the genre and this would be the perfect opportunity for her class to manipulate and decipher clues. My first "breakout" was on my own children.  I used a pre-made activity from the BreakoutEDU site and practiced on my own children before I had the teacher breakout. My test subjects - my own children Once she had the experience, she was hooked.  It was time to create our first BreakoutEDU experience. We met to determine the content of the experience.  We decided to use current 5th grade topics of study Planets...