Listen. Connect. Empower.

We are ushering in a new school year with a new theme, an invitation to our library to read, grow, explore, and create. I want students to feel welcome in our library. I want them to know that this is their space and that this is a safe place.  I did the following activity with grades 2-5 (1st graders are new to our building so I did an adapted version of this for them). We began by brainstorming what "welcome" is: Being invited (like to a party)  Feeling included, like you belong Being allowed Being accepted Inviting people to come Feeling comfy Saying hi A saying on a rug Next, we read the book All Are Welcome written by Alexandra Penfold and illustrated by Suzanne Kaufman. Students then went on a mission in the library to take a picture of an item or a procedure and decide how that item or procedure welcomes (or doesn't welcome) students and teachers. Students eagerly took off to take photos (and of course a few selfies were thrown in there)...

I am humbled by the scope and power of the journey I recently made to the Sharjah International Book Fair/ALA Library Conference (#SIBFALA17) on behalf of ALA. Look - it's me! The most valuable piece of this experience was in the exchange that took place between educators.  Even on the other side of the world we share similar challenges.  Recurring themes were Time - We don't have much.  How do we squeeze it all in? Relationships - How do you cultivate these in your school? Schedule - How does this impact your instruction?  How could it be improved? My first presentation on Project-Based Learning took a deep dive into the learning my students did this past spring around The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  Attendees were curious about the multiple intelligences used, how I differentiated the learning and how the learning was assessed. My second presentation, Developing a Community of Learners was a broader look at the ways in which I foster ...

The bus pulled away and I was overcome with emotion.  I left my family standing on the sidewalk.  I have never been away from my family like this before.  My 8 year old son has an uncomfortable look on his face and keeps staring at the schedule in his hand for his week - the one I made that does not include mom.  I have been invited by the ALA to speak about what happens in my little corner of the world on the other side of the world (The United Arab Emirates). As the quiet bus makes its way through the dark streets to the airport I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude to so many who have been instrumental in my growth as an educator in ways big and small. When I began sharing my big news, most people wanted to know how.  How did I land this amazing opportunity?  The truth is it was years in the making, years of building my Professional Learning Network.  Thanks to Twitter, EdCamps, NerdCamps and technology I have been able to develop relatio...

We began our year by connecting with our summer reading and our Public Library.  Our second class of the year took the reading categories that our Public Library created and required students to interact with one another and have discussions about them. We began class by playing Human Bingo .  I created a bingo board with the reading categories and supplemented with several fun categories like "I read in my pajamas" and "I read something that wasn't a book."  Students had to find someone in the class that read or had the related experience and write their name on their board.  The goal was to fill as many boxes as possible and to accrue as many "bingos" as possible. When time was up I took inventory on how many "bingos" were achieved and how many boxes were filled.  I also wanted to know which boxes were hard to fill.  The most common responses were: History Science Fiction Science/Math Reading something that wasn't a ...

I decided to start our year picking up where we left off - connecting with the Public Library.  At the end of the school year our Public Library kicked off a Literacy Afternoon .  They shared with our students how they could take part in the summer reading program.  I began our first class of the year with a demonstration of MY summer reading.  It served two purposes: Share my reading life  Excite students about the new books that are on order for our library  I began by taking a poll to see how many students visited a library over the summer.  Roughly 40% of students reported they visited a library.  Ouch.  That's it?  I asked how many students participated in Summer Reading.  If a hand went up in the class (and there were classes where there were NONE), I could count them on one hand.  Gulp.  However.... I had glimmers of hope when students DID raise their hands and excitedly share with me how they earned the pins ...

As I continue my reflections on last year's new activities and learning, I return to BreakoutEDU .  I blogged about my first BreakoutEDU previously . It was a positive experience for the students, teacher and myself.  Since then I have had the opportunity to work with other classes using BreakoutEDU and I am thrilled to report that it's value exceeded my expectations and inspired me to reshape how I frame next year's work. I used the same activity with three classes and each experience was new.  Activities that stumped one group were easily solved by the next.  I saw many different interpretations of the same clues.  I loved how each experience was unique. In my last BreakoutEDU activity of the year I challenged a class with an activity that included a red herring - there were four locks, four groups, and five clues (but they didn't know which one was the red herring).  This added a whole new level to the activity. Students reporte...

As we begin a new school year I reflect on several ideas and activities that I thought made a large impact on my students.  At the suggestion of Todd Burleson I investigated Pen Pal Schools with a group of 4th grade students.   For 6 weeks students joined me for a collaborative learning adventure.  A student explains what we did: "In Penpals Schools we get to chat with people around the world, the people I’m talking to are from, 1 from Australia, 3 from the US, and 1 from New Zealand. We also get to watch videos that help us learn, and we read stories about the problems, and we type, and help get ideas on how to stop the problems." They wrote heart-felt responses like these:  Students had deep discussions and debates around which issues were the most pressing (in their opinions).  Several reasons follow for why this was such a powerful learning experience: They were engaged in authentic learning - they had a real audience to interact with ...