WOW! What a powerful message...

A voracious reader from age three, Adora Svitak's first serious foray into writing -- at age five -- was limited only by her handwriting and spelling. (Her astonishing verbal abilities already matched that of young adults over twice her age.) As her official bio says, her breakthrough would soon come "in the form of a used Dell laptop her mother bought her." At age seven, she typed out over 250,000 words -- poetry, short stories, observations about the world -- in a single year.
Svitak has since fashioned her beyond-her-years wordsmithing into an inspiring campaign for literacy -- speaking across the country to both adults and kids. She is author of Flying Fingers, a book on learning.


"A tiny literary giant."
Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America

Above And Beyond

I love this clip! This is what we should be fostering in schools today...innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration from many individuals; not just held captive in one room, one class, one teacher. (Created through collaboration by members of Partnership for 21st Century Skills and the talented folks at FableVision.)

Pete the Cat - I Love My White Shoes - Live Telling

September 30th! Track Out....

What a last week we have had in the media center. For a breakdown, here goes...

Most Third Grade classes listened to Dogku, by Andrew Clements. We discussed poems and some of the formats, especially Haiku. After enjoying the story we discussed Acrostic poems and how they were supposed to be the easiest or most simple to write. I introduced the telephone "cell phone" poem. Of course the students got all excited about this format and wanted to explore...part of my plan. They began to write their own poems using the formats we discussed. They chose the type and title or focus of their poem and shared with the class.

Most Fourth grade classes continued to dig up interesting facts about Roald Dahl using his official site roalddahl.com and place the information into an acrostic poem format, remembering that each word or phrase needed to support the topic...Roald Dahl.

Most Fifth graders finished viewing National Geographic's, Lewis and Clark Expedition. They were taking notes (part of research) about the challenges and unbelieveable events that led to the exploration of a western passage. We will take these notes and begin to organize them in a logical way when we return.

Most Kindergarten classes enjoyed meeting Pete the Cat. We explored You Tube for the author and illustrator who put on a live concert at a library. The students danced, read and followed along with the story. How much fun is reading! See above post...

Most First grade classes completed the story Max's Dragon where we listened for rhyming words embedded in the story...They became so excited when they heard the rhyming words and couldn't wait to share their knowledge.

Most Second grade classes listened to the book written by Patricia Polacco titled,
Appelemondo. Appelemando lives in a very drab, uninteresting village. For him, dreaming is a way of life. Whenever the boy dreams, his four friends can actually see them. They drift up from the top of his head in paintbox colors and, at one point, literally change their somber world.

Thunder Cake!

The second graders have been reading personal narratives written by Patricia Polacco. This week our focus was on discussing fears we have and how we overcome our fears or are in the process of overcoming things we are afraid of. Patricia was extremely afraid of thunderstorms and her grandmother distracted her by gathering ingredients for making "thunder cake." Between reading about thunder cake and my daughter telling me she was going to thaw her wedding cake from last year, I decided to make Patricia Polacco's, Thunder Cake. Delicious! Below is the recipe from Patricia Polacco's official website:

Thunder Cake!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together one at a time:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs, separated
( blend yolks in. Beat whites until they are stiff, then fold in.)


1 cup cold water
1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Sift together:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup dry cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured 8
1/2 inch pans at 350 degrees for
35 to 40 minutes. Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with
strawberries.

ENJOY!!!

Happy First Anniversary to my daughter and her husband

Heather and Andrew at Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, NC with UNC mascot, Rameses. September 25, 2010

Rotation Week "6"

Yes! We have just completed another rotation of classes! What a great past six days. Let me share with you what the students have completed.

Kindergarteners enjoyed two of Eric Carle's read alouds titled, The Very Clumsy Click Beetle and

The Very Lonely Firefly. I began storytime with the lights off and I taught them a "scary" fingerplay called Creep Them. We left the lights off as I explained to them about fireflies are not actually flies, but soft bellied beetles. We shared stories about going out at dusk at the beginning of summer and catching fireflies. Scientists still don't know what causes their "cold organ" to glow. We learned this from the author's note at the beginning of the book as well as using a non fiction text to look at photographs of real lightning bugs. We truly enjoyed the story and at the end the fireflies' bellies lit up! This was why I wanted to keep the lights off so the students could see them very clearly. We continued to read The very clumsy click beetle, saw photographs of a real click beetle and followed up with a game of sorting fiction books and nonfiction books.

First graders enjoyed another dragon story about a little girl who finds an egg which hatches into a (you guessed it), dragon! The title of the book is Raising Dragons. Afterwards we divided up into two groups and played a game called Fact or Fiction. I tried desperately to try to trick the students into believing dragons were real, but they were too smart for me.

Second graders viewed a DVD titled Rechenka's Eggs, by Patricia Polacco. What a beautiful heartwarming story. After the story, Patricia Polacco demonstrated how to make pysanky eggs while talking about her grandmother who taught her years ago how to make these Ukrainian decorated eggs.

Third grade students discussed fix up strategies while reading. In other words, what do you do when you come to a word you don't know? They certainly have some ideas to help them now. To practice these strategies I read a book by Jon Scieszka titled, Baloney (Henry P.) Many of the words are foreign, however by using picture support, context clues, activating prior knowledge, listening to me read ahead as well as listening to the sounds within the words or words within words, they were able to decode fairly easily.

Fourth graders completed the condensed version of Danny the Champion of the World. We are now prepared to go to the computers this coming week to learn more about Roald Dahl's childhood, school years and life as a very famous author.

Fifth graders enjoyed another selection from Guys Write for Guys Read. I read Andy Griffiths' (Not the Andy on TV Land with Barney and Opey)selection titled, My Dad is better than your Dad! We continued to work on our Interactive PowerPoint Slides about Lewis and Clark, finding locations of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Ocean, North Carolina, drawing the Mississippi River on the slide (talk about fine motor skills), Pennsylvania, Missouri, and the city of St. Louis. The reason we are filling in with these points of interest is they directly correlate with the Lewis and Clark expedition.