2022 in Audiobooks

#2022AudiobookChallenge I thought I might make it to weekend warrior but I listened to 38 books this year. 

 Can I make it to 50 next year?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1194262-karen?ref=nav_mybooks&shelf=2022-audiobook-challenge-hosted&view=covers

11.22.63 by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to the audiobook of this. Although long, I found myself transfixed with the story. It includes historical elements, moral quandies, friendships, murder, stalking high school dances, it pretty much includes anything you might like. I find my self missing Jake and Sadie, and Deke. I may have had to buy the kindle edition to finish up the book faster towards the end. Now I am sad it has finished.

View all my reviews Watercress by Andrea Wang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Picked this up because it won the Newbery & Caldecott for 2022. Beautiful illustrations, each word so carefully chosen. Such a moving story for so little text.

View all my reviews Mel Fell by Corey R. Tabor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love birds, and Kingfishers are ever elusive when I am out photographing. This is an adorable book, which takes advantage of turning the book on its side, to use the added page space to illustrate Mel's "fall".

View all my reviews Have You Ever Seen a Flower? by Shawn Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Magnificent Illustrations. Loved most of the words, It felt a little off towards end.

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We Wait for the Sun

We Wait for the Sun by Dovey Johnson Roundtree
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The illustrations in this book are absoulty breath taking.

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Wonder Walkers

Wonder Walkers by Micha Archer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The beautiful illustrations paired with the inquisitive prose creates such an reading experience I do not want to forget. I will be putting this in our school library.

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Swimmy

Swimmy by Leo Lionni
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I absolutely adore the illustrations. Every time I read it I want to try to make a scene.

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This Week's Reads

Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America's Doctor by Kate Messner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fantastic, short picture book explaining how determination will help you succeed. Biographical timeline and how vaccines are tested included at end.

View all my reviews Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Books,murder,and comfort food!

A well-written tale about a murder in a small North eastern town. Silky smooth hot cocoa, New England clam chowder, children's books and a book club serve as the supporting cast to our amateur sleuths as the solve the murder of one of the town's residents.

View all my reviews Due or Die by Jenn McKinlay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another adorable story. We get to know our character better, and solve a murder. I love the recipes in the back of the book.

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Book Challenges for 2022!

 

Teaching and Learning in the Classroom of the Future Presentation: University of Buffalo 2/17/2015

Teaching and Learning in the Classroom of the Future, part of UB’s 2014-2015 Digital Challenges Series, is the first half of a two-day program focusing on instructional innovation.

 What will the classroom experience be in just five, ten or fifteen years? What technological expectations will our students have?

 Our speakers will tackle these and other questions surrounding teaching and learning in the not-so-distant future. I had the privilege of participating in a discussion with expert educators from local elementary, middle, and high schools which showcased the latest technologies employed in today’s classrooms.

My presentation can be found here.

You can watch all the presentations here.

The Vine Basket

The Vine Basket by Josanne La Valley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful book. I really felt for 14 year old Mehrigul. Her dreams, her strength, her determination. A great middle school and up read.

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Twitter ties up all the facets of me

As a scrapbooker, I always have dreams of chronicling every moment of my life.  As each new year starts I download new apps, read magazines, join new online communities, all in the hope of increasing my “Year in the Life” mega scrapbook.  Every year I fall short.  
Twitter is not new.  It could be just another form of social media that eats up the precious moments of my life, but it isn’t. Using Twitter has helped me grow as a professional, and tied the many facets of me up into a better teacher and learner.

As a teacher, each year I have moments that inspire and renew me.  I enjoy these moments, and then my  memory lets these moments fade.  Luckily these moments re-occur often, so I continue  to teach.

As a tech geek, every year I hear about some fantastic app/web page/tool that can help me teach/learn/craft.  Sometimes they are brand new, sometimes I revisit an old tool that I think I can re purpose for teaching or scrap booking.  I use them periodically shifting from one to another like a puppy with a wicker basket full of new toys.  

As a learner, every year I find that my non fixed mindset allows me to learn new things and apply my new found knowledge to my classroom.   The result is usually an awesome learning moment that I try to hang on to and share with my colleagues in school, but never share with a larger community.  

Twitter is nothing new.  For every commercial you watch, article you read, advertisement you see, there is an at symbol or hash tag telling you to share your experiences and learn more.  But there is so much more there.  Twitter ties up all the facets of me.  

As a learner, it provides me with teachers. Within twitter I have developed a Professional Learning Community (PLN).  Inside this community I have authors of my favorite professional books like Stephanie Harvey (@Stephharvey), Kelly Gallagher (@kellyGToGo), and Donalyn Miller (@Donalynbooks). They shoot me words of wisdom all day everyday. I read protions of their new books, attend their virtual conferences, and chat one on one with them on topics I need to learn more about. Twitter allows me to build a learning community designed specifically to to my needs. By following people who share the same beliefs as I have, I get support through the knowledge they share.

As a tech geek, it provides me with new ideas and opportunities.  Everyday on Twitter someone is sharing a new idea with me: how to flip a classroom, the best free education app, how to take pictures like a professional.  It gives me a chance to share that information with others.  It often feels like the conference room floor only here the  vendors are giving me sneak peeks into their sandbox instead of pencils.  

As a teacher, it broadens my new colleagues.   In my network I communicate with others teachers. Some of them teach the same grade as I(@kbport714, @shannonclark7), others the same curriculum (@shannonmmiller), while others are gurus of subjects I teach (@theresagray, @MrSchuReads,@ormsby25 , @mhelmer2).  Having a larger community of professionals in my field benefits all of us. I see what works in their classroom (and what doesn't), and they get the same from me. My learning community does not end with those individuals. Because one of the features of Twitter is the ability to retweet what others say to your followers, what I share about my classroom may reach thousands of other teachers. Likewise, when one of the people I follow find something worthwhile to share, they share it with me, and thousands of others. This means the group of professionals in my learning community is now limitless.   

As a scrap booker, it provides me a “Year in the Life”  of pictures of my classroom.  The latest benefit I have found of Twitter is the ability for me to have a diary of what happens in my classroom each day.  Part of what I use Twitter for is to share the positive things that happen in my classroom in regards to the Common Core and Next Gen Standards.  I want to educate and inspire others about the learning going on in my classroom.  The  hidden benefit of this is a  log of all the positive learning that has happened in my classroom.  

Resolutions

Hello blog world.

I have returned.

 As last year neared its end, I began a new resolution. I know January is usually the time for resolutions but I did not want to wait. I was inspired by a walk through my classroom by Michele Helmer. As she and my principal visited my classroom they tweeted. At the end of the day they shared what they learned and how it had changed their thinking. You can read more about their journey here.

 I have been tweeting for a while, but loved what I saw. The idea of sending out short positive posts about what we are doing with the Common Core Standards excited me. So my resolution was born. I will tweet at least on positive thing each day, preferably with a picture.

Once you start with one resolution, your mind starts to go WILD. By the end of our January break, I had a new plan. I will devote a set time in each of my days to write. If I can create a witty tweet, I should be able to pound out insightful essays, right?? I have a few okay pieces written, so I am going to start posting them here.

 NEW RESOLUTION ALERT: I am going to post 1 a week, and at least 3 short book reviews from Good Reads.

 Here goes....

Thinking & Writing

Lucky Ducklings

Lucky Ducklings by Eva Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An adorable story about 5 little duckilings and their mother. When the ducklings get trapped many people come to their rescue. Beatiful illustrations help tell the story.

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Scary Tales: Home Sweet Horror

Home Sweet Horror by James Preller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ghostly Tales at their best. James Preller does an excellent job of keeping children on the edge of their seats, crying for more. The book is a nice legnth giving children a chance to get into a book without feeling overwhelmed. My students are fighting over this book.

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Exclamation Point

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Book Trailers

My principal and I wrote a grant proposal for NYSCATE last year.  We won it!!!

With the grant money we bought some professional development books:

• The iMovie '11 Project Book
• Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms
•   The Digital Writing Workshop

3 iPads 2 and 3 iMovie 11 apps


After reading the books we created a book review/book trailer unit. We taught these units in 5th and 7th grade English classrooms.  

The students watched this instructional template video we created using the iMovie 11 trailer app, then had to storyboard their own trailers.

The 5th grade students worked in groups, using books they had read in Literature Circle groups.  The 7th graders read books I have been receiving for consideration for the NYSRA 2014 Charlotte Award nomination list. They wrote and directed the trailers alone.  We had a trailer review event with judges from the school and a local news station.  

Here are the 3 of the 4 winning entries (the Charlotte preview books):

Out in Left Field

Best Direction

Take What You Can Carry

Best Acting

Without Tess

Overall Winner

and one of my other favorites (but no award) 

Chasing the Nightbird

How many books did You read this year?

Last fall I posted an entry about the fantastic opportunity I had to see Donalyn Miller (The Book Whisperer).  She showed us a video in which she had taken pictures of her students hold a piece of paper with the number of books they read in the last year.  She challenges her students to read 40 books a year.

Felling inspired, I did the same.  I created a chart with the following requirements:

• 2 Poetry anthologies
• 2 Traditional literature books
• 2 realistic Fiction Books
• 2 Historical Fiction Books
• 2 Fantasy Books
• 2 Science Fiction Books
• 15 Informational Books
• 2 Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographies
• 1 Graphic Novel
• 10 free choice books

I chose 15 informational because one of my class requirements is 1 nonfiction book every 2 weeks.   These nonfiction books could be the shorter guided reading books, or "readers".  Students were asked to read good fit books, so some of my 6ht graders may of read Brisinger, while others were reading I Survived...Katrina.

My Common Core based lesson can be found here, along with the handouts.  It was one of my first CCLS units, so forgive my mistakes please. 

Here is one of  my videos (the others seem to be too big :-( ) with my student's totals and their graphs. 

Winter arrived

We had a winter day in New York.

The Book Whisperer

I had the chance this week to attend a conference with Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer.  What an inspiring day.  You can read about her in this National Writing Project article, and see a short video on how to encourage your child to read as a parent. 

Friends True Stories of Extraordinary Animal Friendships

What makes a camel friends with a Vietnamese pig? Or a wild polar bear pals with a sled dog? In this young preschool book, Catherine Thimmesh makes us wonder at the truth and mystery of unlikely animal friendships. Because the stories behind these friendships are true, not contrived, captured by photographers in many countries ranging from Siberia to Japan, they not only give readers insight into animals but challenge preconceived notions about compatibility. This book also expresses tolerance of differences and makes us look at the kindness of animals—and humans—a little differently.

The photographs in this book are of true animal friendships.  It warms your heart to see the photos and read the stories of how the animal pairs have become friends.  The book is told as an extend rhyme about friendship, but below each stanza is the story of the animals.  The rhyme seems a little forced sometimes, earning it a 2 in my review. 

This is a  book I’ve received for consideration.   The above is my opinion and the book has not been nominated to the official Charlotte2014 ballot.

Job Site

 

Bring in the big rigs! The bulldozer, the excavator, the loader and other heavy machinery all have important tasks to accomplish at the job site digging, lifting, carrying, dumping, moving, shaping. In this exciting follow up to the critically acclaimed Drive, Nathan Clement once again pairs his striking illustrations with spare, succinct prose, offering construction buffs a close-up view of the action and excitement at the job site.

A great book for boys everywhere!  The illustrations will captivate young & old.  The author uses the real names for all the construction equipment and the limited text on the page makes it an excellent read along for your younger readers.  My nephew has already asked me to read it over & over!

This one receives a 1- highly recommended

This is a  book I’ve received for consideration.   The above is my opinion and the book has not been nominated to the official Charlotte2014 ballot.