Practicing Spanish and Hanging Out

Eighth grade students in Ms. Bravick's Spanish classes had a unique opportunity last week to practice their beginning Spanish speaking skills with another group of seventh and eighth grade students from Hillsborough, NJ.  Using Google Hangouts via Chromebooks, students were able to meet in small groups and have a conversation related to what they have been learning in class this year.  As beginning speakers, students went back and forth asking one another questions about, for example, their favorite hobbies, sports, classes in school, and the make-up of their families.

Students were surprised at how well they could understand the Spanish spoken by their peers and how well they were able to translate their own thoughts.  Some students even mentioned that they were able to pick up some new vocabulary.  

Ultimately, this experience offered our students the chance to gain some confidence in their Spanish speaking abilities while at the same time providing the opportunity for them to meet students from another part of the country.  We look forward to future connections with our new friends in Hillsborough as well as connecting with other schools from native Spanish speaking countries who are interested joining in a Spanish-English language exchange.

3 Amazing Authors, 1 Inspiring Day

We had one great welcome back from Thanksgiving break on Monday, November 30.  Our 8th grade ELA classes had the opportunity to Skype with three exceptional young adult authors throughout the day.  Authors Rachel Vail, Stacey Lee, and Danette Vigilante volunteered to talk with our students about their work and the writing process while at the same time answering all of our students' burning questions.

Our morning began with the very entertaining Rachel Vail, author of over 30 books for children and young adults and the most recently published book Unfriended.  Funny and warm, Rachel was ready for our five classes of students to jump right in with questions.  

Our very curious students wanted to learn more about how long it takes to write a book, where she finds ideas for her writing, and even the age of her children.  Rachel's humor and enthusiasm certainly kept our students engaged and entertained during our 45 minutes together.  

Next, we met with new YA author Stacey Lee.  Stacey's debut novel Under a Painted Sky is a unique piece of historical fiction that tells the story of two girls who head West in the year 1849 to escape from two difficult situations.  Stacey was eager to tell students more about her background and her road to publishing.  After many failed guesses, students were not able to come close to figuring out that she revised her book over 600 times before it was finally published.  Stacey also wowed our students by showing us an edited page from her original manuscript; this page was almost completely covered in red penned comments and edits.  Even professional writers have to revise constantly.

Monday's Skype visits ended with author Danette Vigilante, writer of The Trouble with Half a Moon and Saving Baby Doe.  After sharing a bit about herself, Danette read aloud the first chapter of The Trouble with Half a Moon.  Students learned about how Danette went from being labeled a poor reader as a child to a professional writer.  They also heard more about how Danette's past inspired some of the story that eventually became The Trouble with Half a Moon.  

I am always in awe of authors who will take time out of their busy schedules to meet with kids, share their stories, and ultimately inspire them to grow as readers and writers.  DPMS is especially lucky that all 8th grade students had the opportunity to make such meaningful connections.  A special thank you goes out to Melinda at Penguin Publishing who worked her magic to match all of our students up with these fantastic authors.  Thank you especially to Rachel, Stacey, and Danette for sharing your important stories and showing our young readers that their voices are important and do matter.

Second Quarter Library Newsletter

Find out what has been happening in our LMC by reading our most recent newsletter.
 

One Amazing #GRA15 Comes to an End

It has been an incredible six weeks at DPMS while participating in this year's Global Read Aloud Project. Together with Literacy Coach, Peggy Rohan, I was fortunate to work weekly with a group of 7th grade students who elected to read Fish by L.S. Matthews in addition to their regular ELA class work.  During our six weeks together, we partnered with 7th graders from Tosorontio Central Public School in Everett, Ontario, Canada.  In addition to meeting via Facetime to discuss Fish, we also exchanged hand-written letters, emails, and iMovie videos.  It is always fascinating to learn more about how other kids live in different parts of the world.  More often than not (as was the case here), we find out that we have more in common with them than we even realized.

In addition to our partnership with Tosorontio students, we were also able to connect with schools from Arizona and Merton, WI through a group chat via Voxer. Voxer is a free messaging service that connects users through voice, photo, and text messaging.  Students in our group asked and responded to various questions about Fish throughout our six weeks.  As a culmination to our connection, we were able to Google Hangout with Mrs. Jones' fifth grade students from Merton, WI. During our session, we shared a bit about our respective cities and asked and answered questions about Fish.  We especially enjoyed discussing some of the more intriguing aspects of Fish as a whole such as What gender do you think Tiger is? (The author never states this) and Why do you think that the guide left so suddenly without saying goodbye?  There were so many questions that L.S. Matthews left for reader interpretation, and great discussion happened as a result.

5th grade students from Mrs. Jones' class in Merton, WI

Our last Fish Global Read Aloud connection occurred with the author herself.  Through Twitter, we were able to reach the author @LauraDron (her real name) directly in an attempt to find answers to our remaining burning questions.  She responded to us almost immediately! See our conversations with her in the screenshots below.

Overall we had an absolutely outstanding GRA experience.  A special shout out and thank you goes to Pernille Ripp for her tireless coordination and organization of this project.  As a result of her vision and dedication, we are so lucky to have this opportunity to connect with other students from across the globe to celebrate literacy and learning.  

 

The Scholastic Monster Book Fair Begins Next Week

The Scholastic Book Fair will be open for business in the library beginning Monday, November 16. The book fair will be open all week during regular school hours and during parent teacher conferences until Friday, November 20.  Come in and shop for some great deals during SRT, lunches, or any other time that your teachers allow.  All of your purchases support our school library.

Click on this link or scan the QR code- to see a preview of what you will find at our book fair beginning Monday.

Skype with Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Today our 8th grade DPMS students had the opportunity to meet an author for the very first time. As an extra bonus, we were so lucky that this author happened to be Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  After sharing her inspirations for both of her books One for the Murphys and Fish in a Tree, our students had the opportunity to ask her questions.  Excited about speaking with a professional author for the very first time, our students were especially interested in learning more about Lynda's writing process.  Our students wanted to know everything about how to overcome writer's block, avoiding writing a "bad ending," and where she finds her writing ideas.

After saying goodbye, the library was abuzz with "That was so cool!" and "She was so good!"  Thank you Lynda Mullaly Hunt for inspiring our young writers and giving your time to speak with our students.  Writers who take time for their young readers show kids that their voices matter.

Thanks for a great Teen Read Week!

We have officially wrapped up Teen Read Week 2015.  We had so much fun watching students participate in all of our activities.  A special congratulations goes out to our three winners who correctly uncovered all of the staff mystery readers.  (Stop in the library to see them all "uncovered"). We are still accepting book blind date reviews. Keep your blind date going, return your review, and exchange it for a prize once you have finished reading!

These students are making their book blind date choices- carefully!

Two great blind dates!

Stop in the library to see our mystery readers "uncovered.

We hope that you enjoyed all of our library's fun Teen Read Week events!