I was greeted by a parking sign, marching ants, and the wonderful Marcia Snyder, librarian at Seven Hills—Lotspeich in Cincinnati, Ohio. The classrooms had done dioramas of undersea scenes for Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! and even made a 3-D pasta machine and listed their own desired “suprpwrs” in celebration of Noodle Man: the Pasta Superhero.

This was the first time I’d seen activities for the new Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out. There were turtle shape poems which looked like ancient, beautiful style art. What about these wild pine cone birds for Bird, Bird, Bird? Extraordinary.

What a lovely school. The science teacher, Ms. Wildfong, showed me the science building. They have lots of animals. It really feels like a science-in-action place.

The music teacher, Ms. Wilson, shared the use of Bird, Bird, Bird: a Chirping Chant. She was teaching kids the half and quarter notes and how to use the staff by getting them to sound out and choose among a few notes to set this book to music.

The art teacher, Ms. Knoop was a wonder. Love her! She’s made a creative space, complete with old plastic toy color wheel, great supply drawers, and projects galore. She partners with another teacher to do a whole big unit on fibers. Ms. Knoop brings in wool from her sheep and they dye it with natural plant dyes and spin it. Wow. Hands on science and history and art all at the same time.

Thanks, Seven Hills, for an inspiring day. Your students and staff are great! Lunching with with these joyful, dedicated educators was a pleasure. Their ideas popped like popcorn. Really, it was like being in some of the great creative meetings I had at National Geographic. You walk away uplifted and refreshed.

Are your students buzzing about the movie Avatar?  Here’s how you might tie-in an extra credit biology  research project for motivated students. Ask them to research and report back on some of these real-life wonders which I noticed were echoed in the movie’s animation:

Christmas Tree Worms. One of the early scenes in the fantasy part of the movie shows the characters walking through the forest and touching some large feather duster type organisms that, when touched, disappear into the

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I received a real snail mail, carried by a snail today, November 19, 2009. Jeff sent me an email Jun 17, 2008 via a service called www.realsnailmail.net. This service is dedicated to slowness. The message took 17 months, 2 days and was carried by agent #6, named Agatha. You send them an email, then a real snail, with transmitters on its back, eventually transmits the message to another email service. You know we are snail fans, partly because of our book, One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab. So we had to try it! You can try it, too.

There’s nothing like watching an experienced librarian working with young kids during storytime. It’s a dance! It’s an art. Experience helps. But what if you are just starting out?

Perhaps this resource will help. It is a checklist for evaluating the literacy value of storytimes.  It is provided by ALA and is based on the literacy work of Elaine Czarnecki and Gilda Martinez and John Hopkins University, Center for Reading Excellence. It’s not written as tips, per se. But you can work backwards to see what techniques enrich the reading experience.

2nd Grade Music Students at Red Bank Elementary studied rhythm by analyzing and marking rhythms for stanzas in my book, Ant, Ant, Ant: an insect Chant. They also performed the text with rhythm instruments. Wow, talk about creative and enthusiastic educators!

Look at the igloo that Joan Welsh dreamed up and created from copy paper boxes, paper, cotten and shelving.

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4K is Kindergarten with 4-year olds. Just look what a creative educator can do with this group and my book, Hush Little Puppy. Mrs. Weed came up with all sorts of activities at Lake Murray Elementary.

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These are from Hamilton Traditional School in Indiana.

Thank you, librarian Jonelle Hamou, for contributing this project. 3rd and 4th grade students at Frederick Douglass Elementary, in Winchester, VA, investigated science and art in connection with STARS BENEATH YOUR BED: the Surprising Story of Dust. 

Students use ink pens to color parts of coffee filters, then fold each filter into a pie-piece shape.

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