Tuesday, March 22, 2011

LOVE bookshelves...

I love bookshelves and dream of built in beauties someday. Found a fun video, "Organizing Bookshelves" by by Sean Ohlenkamp and Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp. The credits made me laugh!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Helpful Blog for Teachers for Using Literature

Just found this blog, Classroom Bookshelf, that I feel is a wonderful site for teachers who want to use literature for "more than just reading." This is the description from this blog site: Every Monday we "post an entry on a recently published book for children or young adults. Each entry includes three sections: Book Review, Teaching Invitations, and Further Explorations. Our goal is to identify books that can be used in K-8 classrooms in a variety of ways."
Since spending time with classroom teachers within the last 6 months in our Teacher Picture Book Club, we have been finding that teachers are continually looking for quality books that relate to their content area teaching. They are looking to expand their lists of appropriate and helpful books related to themes that fit into their curricula. This site is a good place to find these lists and recommendations for quality literature. I highly recommend it.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Graphic Novel

I have just learned about this book, Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty by Greg Neri. Here is the book trailer.


Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty from Greg Neri on Vimeo.


I'm thinking about using this book with my cohort group that is comprised of all urban teachers, as the focus seems to fit with some of the issues we've discussed and lamented about. I've shared this idea with the group and we'll see what they think. It has gotten high reviews. I'm curious as to how the teachers will view this book. It's on the top of my list to read.