Goodbye Reading Camp, Hello Summer!

And like that, summer reading camp is over. Well, not completely. I added a middle school camp this year that meets each Monday in June, but the daily camp is done. It was an excellent transition for me from the school year to summer. I was just so sad to leave that group this year, it helped knowing I wasn’t “done” teaching quite yet. And while I loved my summer readers, I am ready for some relaxation. This week’s schedule was enough to make me a bit crazy.

From Monday-Thursday this week we had:

·      8-9:15 Liam had basketball camp

·      9-9:30 Luke had trumpet lessons

·      9:30-10:45 Luke had basketball camp

·      11-12 reading camp

·      12-1 Piano lessons (Wednesday)

·      1-1:45 Liam has tutoring (Tuesday/Thursday)

·      Three baseball games from 7:15-9

·      Miscellaneous appointments, errands, etc.

So, I am truly looking forward to some lazy days of summer, as are my boys. I shared many books, as did my friends who Skyped into reading camp each day. As I just told Julie Falatko, I promise, the kids were super excited to hear every book you shared! Out of my twelve summer reading camp students, I have about ten who are extremely shy. The buzz when we were done Skyping each day was wonderful – but they were so quiet in front of the camera. Anyway, thanks to:

·      Tony Keefer and class

·      Colby Sharp and class

·      Donalyn Miller and class

·      Teri Lesesne

·      Julie Falatko

·      Paul Hankins (and Noah!)

·      John Schu – even though technology prevented it!

·      Ame Dyckman

We so appreciate all of your recommendations and helping to make my students wonderful summer readers.

Finally, the three books we talked about often are the picks for this month’s #sharpschu book club. In the video below, my students share why they enjoy these titles. If you know them, please join Colby Sharp and John Schu for this month’s chat – more info HERE. 

Teachers as Rock Stars

A while back I wrote a blog post about how authors are my rock stars. My husband loves concerts; he would travel far just to see his favorite bands. While I enjoy music, I am not that dedicated. However, a favorite author having a signing three hours away, I’m there.

I thought about this in my class this week. Are authors rock stars to my students? At the start of the year, I would say not for most, but the tide is turning. This week I introduced Edmodo to my classes. To say it has caught on like wildfire would be a colossal understatement. I finally had to turn my notifications on my phone off; the alerts I got from students posting and joining were making my dog crazy. Every so often I’d log on, ensure they were still on topic. What I read thrilled me. I saw students making book recommendations, discussing what they were reading, predicting the Newbery, and commenting on favorite authors. Five days in and I think we’re on to something good here.

It was through some Edmodo discussions that I came to an important realization as well. I saw this post from my student, Danielle:

Some background for you all, although I don’t know if anyone needs it. I teach in central Illinois. Over the past years I have become friends with many wonderful teachers across the country. Two in particular are well known in my classes – Mr. Colby Sharp and Mr. John Schumacher, otherwise know as Mr. Schu. I should explain – my students have not met Mr. Sharp or Mr. Schu. We’ve Skyped with Mr. Schu’s students once, and even then they didn’t “see” him, just heard his voice. But we’ve talked about these two often. I’ve shown their Newbery videos. We’ve participated in their Sharp-Schu Twitter book clubs. I’ve told the kids about book recommendations from the two amazing guys.

So when I saw Danielle’s post I realized something. While I know my students want to meet many of their favorite authors, what I really think would make them crazy would be if Colby or John walked into our classroom. We’d have a full-fledged riot on our hands. And while that is not likely to happen, it makes me smile. Because I cannot think of two teachers, two readers, two role models, that I’d rather have these kids look up to than John and Colby. Thanks guys. I’m glad that my students see you guys as rock stars. I know many of us do as well.

I’ll leave you with Colby’s Nerdbery video from June. I showed this to my students today. Three classes of 24 fifth graders singing along. All three classes stood up and cheered when he held up Ivan and Wonder. Pretty amazing way to end my week.

John and Colby – you are welcome to come visit anytime. J

Babymouse and Lunch Lady Mash-up

On December 12^th Colby Sharp and John Schu are holding the December meeting of the #SharpSchu book club on Twitter. (Read more about it HERE.)

My students have been reading the selected books from the Babymouse and Lunch Lady series for the last few weeks. I debated how to cap off the unit – we’ve done a video for the October books, a VoiceThread for the November books. This week I decided it would be fitting to have the students create their own comics to celebrate. We’re in the middle of a graphic novel unit in reading and a comic unit in writing. A mash-up comic between the Lunch Lady and Babymouse was born. Enjoy!