Wide Open School

 https://wideopenschool.org/  ( Wide Open School) is a new resource provided  by Common Sense Media. It looks to me to be a wonderful site for students, teachers , and parents ,to assist students in learning and growing and furthering their education.

    There are a multitude of learning activities that will work for students.  There is of course, Math, Science, and core school subjects with activity  links- there are also off line activities,  arts and crafts, digital activities,physical fitness,  emotional well being,life skills and virtual field trips. 

     The neat thing is also a  a daily  planning page where a day of activities / lessons are laid out.  They  also provide planning sheets for teachers/ parents/ caregivers to plan their own depending on the student. The plans are based on grade levels so students just pick their grade levels and complete the activities.

   The activities ( games, lessons, ect) are shareable with Google  Classroom , so if you are a teacher you can send specific activities to your student. The plan lays out each day of the week and activities to go with them, The students are even given a screen break and ideas on what to do! 

   I think this site will be invaluable to teachers and parents  working on virtual learning . The activities would also  be doable in the school setting. 

 

StoryJumper.com

  StoryJumper.com  is a great site ! A few years ago I did a very brief post about StoyJumper. It has come to my attention again , so I decided to really look and see what they had to offer.

 

    I think teachers and librarians would really like to use StoryJumper with their students. There  is information on the site for teachers . They give examples of projects for student activities in each subject area.( even Math & Science!!)

   There are also  ideas for different types of writing: nonfiction, expository, collaborative projects, and creative writing ideas. And there is opportunity to use student art work or use the StoryJumper art work.

 Students can have their book published online for free; Of course , there are options for the publication of the book in both hardcover or paperback for a fee.

There is a wide selection of student work,that can be read online, which will also give students a chance for reading and a spark to create their own work,

I 

https://www.storyjumper.com/school

Virtual learning / read aloud ideas

 Here are some sites with read alouds and  ideas for story times. 

Storytime with Ryan & Craig:  These two guys have a ton of  read alouds The site is easy to use . You can also search for specific titles .

Emily Arrow: Librarian Emily Arrow shares singalongs with music and stories on her YouTube channel. This will give you lots to use if you are doing storytimes this is a good place to look for ideas and songs.

Story Time From Space:  This site has  stories from space . Astronauts  read the stories

These may be helpful if you are doing in person or virtual learning. Do you use any others? I am really looking for more for the middle school age level.

Author Presentation for Second graders~

Author Presentation

   This came up on Face book and I thought I would share. As librarian , you get to provide many extras for your students. This was from a time at school when I gave the Second graders a presentation about the story that  had just been published in Highlights. I talked about how I got the idea, how I wrote the story, and then did revisions, I showed them my writers notebook. ( at the time they were working on writing stories and they we keeping a writers note book , so it really fell into place.

  So any time you are asked to do something not on the ordinary, make every attempt/offer to assist This particular event earned me a lot of brownie points with my teachers,

World Read Aloud Day!

     On February  3rd,  there will be a World Read Aloud day with several author volunteers doing a quick virtual read aloud with classrooms around the world to share the joy of reading. 

  Some of the authors are Tracey Baptiste, Debbi Michiko Florence, Hena Khan, Meg Medina, Ellen Oh, Dawn Quigley, Rajanni LaRocca, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Linda Urban, Anne Ursu,  Kate Messner and  Renee Watson. 

  Each  author will  read a five-minute sneak-preview from one of their upcoming books for readers in grades 3-7.  The whole segment will run about an hour.

 The link to the video will be on Kate Messner’s site and she will post it  a day early so that teachers / librarians can embed in Google Classroom if they want . You could also use it in classrooms or share with parents.

The presentations won’t  be long, Kate’s site has the following information.

• 1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.

• 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel

• 5-10  minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing

• 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks about a couple of  other books they love.

https://katemessner.com

Library bulletin boards for February

 Now it is time to think about February and what to do about the bulletin boards.   Here are some ideas :

We love to Read!- Give pink or red hearts  to students and have the write their favorite books. Students can write I Love...   and give the title and their name. Place on BB with letters of slogan on top in black letters - Can use a light background and heart /scallop edges.❤

Black History Month- Place pictures of famous African Americans . You can number them, Give some clues under each one. Students can use references or online sources to find out . Students can give guesses in to you- At the end of the month, place names under each one.

Tech tie in- Tweet a sweet Book! Give students an enlarged note. Place a cute bird on each side of the BB- Students can write their favorite titles on each note and then placed on the BB.💻

Presidents Day- You  can do this similar to Black History Month.( Use presidents that students do not know) Or you could place some presidents  and have students find little know facts on each person.

Fiction to Film: Scan covers of books that you have in your library that have been made into movies.  Place the slogan in the middle and the covers around. A slogan to add  would be: Have you read these?📺💟💟❤

Quizizz.com- another tool for library and classroom

   Here is another on line tech tool that students, teachers, and librarians will love to use. It is perfect for virtual learning and compatible with Google classroom.

  There is a lesson and quiz creator. But there are also numerous lessons and quizzes already  created that you can use . Some lessons use power point. The Quizzes are self check. 

    There are tutorials to help you set up lessons , which I did not go all the way through, But the steps seem to be easy. Teachers can assign lessons and quizzes. There seems to be a lot of information to assist teachers in using this with their classes.

 

  There are quizzes in English/ Language arts, Math, Science , Social Studies, World languages,

Creative arts, computer skills, and career/ tech education.

Check this out , I think it will be helpful!

https://quizizz.com/teachers?ref=header_tab