SB&F (Science Books and Films) October issue gave Here Come the Humpbacks! a starred review and then a second star for being Editor’s Choice!
It was also named an Outstanding Science Trade Book by NSTA.
Event kits for this book are still available .
Common Core Masters: Librarians
If Common Core is about encouraging inquiry, the people we should be consulting are trained librarians: the masters of guided, deep inquiry. Susan Raben at Lyon is a master librarian and clear communicator: she should be teaching thousands of educators nationwide about inquiry. Rachel Davidson, at Henking, is a new tech guru who taught me tons about QR codes and how to get kids creating content and truly interacting with the web, not just imbibing it mindlessly. 
Hey, administrators nationwide…need help with common core? Go look for the experienced, trained librarians you’ve been undervaluing and laying off. (Thankfully, not these two, whose administrators know they rock.) Librarians are the ones who know how to get kids thinking more deeply about text and content! And these were just two librarians/inquiry masters i met last week while doing school visits in Glenview, IL. This week I’m in schools again; who knows who I might meet.
AAAS K-2 Lesson and Whale Review
AAAS Science NetLinks has put up an excellent K-2 lesson on food chains that uses Vulture View and Trout Are Made of Trees. It links with Project 2061 Benchmark 5 The Living Environment; and National Science Standard C, Life Science. The National Science Teachers Association website has a section called NSTA RECOMMENDS which points out good resources for science teaching. Here Come the Humpbacks was just added with a full review.
Stars Beneath Your Bed and Science Standards
Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust is a natural for fulfilling the new science standards. That’s one of the things I learned when I attended NSTA and spoke on a panel of authors organized by Carrie Launius and hosted by Wendy Saul. Each of the educators at the conference gave activities to go with various books. Carrie worked with teacher to get them to consider how the book deals with cross-cutting concepts:
Patterns
Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation Continue reading “Stars Beneath Your Bed and Science Standards”
Lesson Plan for One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab
I’m speaking at the Indiana state conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics on Sunday and Monday. Here’s a lesson plan created by educator Margaret Goldsmith, who is co-presenting with me. She’ll cover the lesson plan at the end of my session talk.
Click here to download the lesson plan: One Is A Snail.
Thank you to Margaret for sharing. We met because she was teaching workshops on the book. She’s so creative as an educator. I’m her fan and it’s because of her math enthusiasm that I attended my first NCTM conference earlier this year. Love the vibe of the math education world. Just zaps my brain cells and makes me think, smile, and create.
Books for Autistic Students
ALA librarians called on collective wisdom to assemble a list of books great for use with autistic students, in this case, 7th graders. The list included Ant, Ant, Ant: An Insect Chant (illus by Park) ; Trout, Trout, Trout: a Fish Chant (illus by Park) , and Bird, Bird, Bird: a Chirping Chant (illus by Locke). The list is here: http://connect.ala.org/node/93738
Author Visit Grant and Paperwork Help: Curriculum Standards
Do you need to write a grant, justify author visit costs, or explain the value of my visit to an administrator?Below is a list of the standards that most schools apply during studies of my books in preparation for a visit, the actual talks I give to students, and follow-up work that flows naturally from my visits. Continue reading “Author Visit Grant and Paperwork Help: Curriculum Standards”
Bumblebee Poetry and Nonfiction Writing at Midway Elem
Read The Bumblebee Queen. Pull out the chewiest, most evocative vocabulary and put it on sticky notes. Then move around the words to make a poem of your own.
Continue reading “Bumblebee Poetry and Nonfiction Writing at Midway Elem”
Analyzing and Honoring Writing at Sandhills Elem in Swansea, SC
See how the teachers at Sandhills Elementary honor writing and analyze books. Continue reading “Analyzing and Honoring Writing at Sandhills Elem in Swansea, SC”