#ala12 The ALSC Blog is looking for people interested in microblogging during the upcoming Annual Conference in Anaheim. If you are interested in lending your thoughts to the blog, and letting readers know about some of the things you’re learning, contact us at alscblog@gmail.com. We’d love to have your contributions! (And they can be very concise… like this post!)
The Connecticut Library Association is made up of over 1000 librarians, support staff, friends and trustees. It is a driving force in Connecticut, advocating for literacy and access to information. This year the 121st annual conference was in Groton, Connecticut. I heard some inspiring speakers the day I attended. Here are some of the highlights.
ALA President Molly Raphael was the keynote speaker and led a panel discussion on eBooks. James Benn, author of the Billy Boyle series, Bronwen Hruska, publisher of Soho Press, Jennifer Tyler from Bank Square Books and Connecticut librarian and author Kate Sheehan were on the panel. They were asked to share their perspective from their areas of expertise. Raphael asked questions on ownership, rapidly changing technology and financial concerns, to name a few. She listened to the answers and shared her own experiences and opinions. This was a very interesting discussion about these issues that really looked at concerns from all areas of the book world.
Story Time Crafts on a Shoestring: Simple Crafts Inspired by Picture Books was presented by Lynn Zaffino, a Children’s Librarian from Easton Public Library. She took her favorite books and found ways to make preschools crafts. She used things that most have in their supplies or are easy to find cheaply. Q-Tips became Eiffel Towers, paper bags, muffin cups and construction paper became owls, and foil, cardboard and jewels magically turned into crowns. Lynn likes to use themes for her Storytimes and found that most of the participants liked to do the same. She listed picture books that she liked to use along with a companion book that fits into each theme. She gave a wonderful handout with templates for the crafts that were separated into age groups of 3 to 6, 4 to 7 and 5 to 9. I found some wonderful new stories to use for future Storytimes and new ideas for crafts! At the end of the session, she provided supplies for the crafts and let us all try a few.
Michele Lutala, a librarian at New Canaan High School, and her student Michael DeMattia talked about the use of social media at their school as tools for learning. Facebook has been an instructional tool for them since 2006. One Facebook group assignment was to uploaded pictures and make comments about them. The next step was to write essays and upload them to Google Docs. A group of senior students gave feedback and the finished products were turned into ebooks after the teacher was given their finished products.
DeMattia has Facebook groups for all of his classes. He described how students keep things appropriate for learning by making their profiles something their grandparents and prospective colleges should be able to see. Lutala explained that security settings are checked once a month since things are constantly changing which protects their identities.
In addition, they spoke about their use of Twitter, YouTube, QR codes and Flickr. Lastly, they gave a list of curation tools used to keep websites and applications organized like: Pinterest, Diigo, Scoop It, Livebinders, Sqworl and Pearltrees. I use Pinterest and never knew about all the other options. I briefly looked at few and hope you have time to check them out, too. I use social media and thought I was pretty current, yet this session gave me so much more to explore. I hope you get the chance to look at some of these tools soon.
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Our guest blogger today is Shelley Black Holley, a Children’s Librarian at the Southington Public Library in Southington, Connecticut
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.
If you thought ALSC only did online courses, you’d be wrong. I mean, we’d appreciate that you knew about our fantastic online courses, but there’s just more to it. We currently find ourselves in heady times for ALSC online learning options. There are online courses, which start July 9, there are webinars, including archived versions which are available for viewing at any time and there is a new brand of online education developed especially for students, called student sessions.
Online Education
The Caldecott Medal: Understanding Distinguished Art in Picture Books
6 weeks, July 9 – August 17, 2012
Instructor: Kathleen T. Horning, Director, Cooperative Children’s Book Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Connecting with ‘Tween Readers
4 weeks, July 9 – August 3, 2012
Instructor: Edward T. Sullivan, Rogue Librarian/Writer
Introduction to Graphic Novels for Children
6 weeks, July 9 – August 17, 2012
Instructor: Janet Weber, Youth Services Librarian, Tigard Public Library
Reading Instruction and Children’s Books
5 weeks, July 9 – August 10, 2012
Instructor: Katherine (Kate) Todd, Adjunct Instructor, Manhattanville College
Out of this World Youth Programming
6 weeks, July 9 – August 17, 2012
Instructor: Angela Young, MSLS, Youth Services Librarian, Lorain Public Library System
Webinars
Give Me Something to Read! When Social Networking Meets Readers Advisory
Instructor: Joella Peterson, Youth Serivces Librarian, Tumwater (Wash.) Timberland Regional Library
Wed., May 16 @ 12 PM ET
Tues., July 10 @ 7 PM ET
Thurs., Aug 9 @ 11 AM ET
Archived Webinars
For those who can’t attend webinars at a specific time, there are archived webinars. Archived webinars can be viewed at any time and as often as the view would like. For a full list of archived webinars, please visit the ALSC Webinar page.
Student Sessions
Join ALSC members across the country for our free, one-hour virtual workshops. Held quarterly, these are free webinars are hosted by the ALSC Membership Committee and directed specifically at students, but open to all members and non-members with an interest in children’s library services.
Getting Your First Library Job: Showcasing Skills and Packaging Passion
Wednesday, June 13, 2012 @ 6 pm Central
Instructors: Thom Barthelmess, curator, Butler Children’s Literature Center, Dominican University, and Alison O’Reilly director, Cutchogue (N.Y.) New Suffolk Free Library
ALSC proudly introduces the very special Caldecott 75th anniversary logo created by 2008 Caldecott Medal Winner Brian Selznick!
The characters featured span 75 years of distinguished picture books. Which character in the logo represents the oldest Caldecott award winning title? We will reveal the answer next month in our Caldecott clue countdown! Check back each month as we identify all ten of them, one by one.
In the meantime, brush up on your comprehension of the Caldecott Medal with an online course from ALSC. Registration is now open for The Caldecott Medal: Understanding Distinguished Art in Picture Books
When I received an email last spring informing me that my school library would receive eight iPads at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year, the biggest smile took over my face. Within moments of reading the news, the myriad of ways I could integrate them into the existing curriculum invaded my brain. I pictured my K-5 students creating content, collaborating with peers, and exploring quality apps.
As the school year comes to a close, it is time to unpack my metacognition hat and evaluate the implementation of iPads in the library. Did my students spend the school year engaged in the types of activities I envisioned? Yes! Did I emphasize how each app could be used outside of school? You better believe it! Will I make adjustments during summer break? Absolutely! Will I explore hundreds of apps during summer break? You bet! Will I take my students’ opinions into account? Of course! Their opinions are an important part of this process.
I created a survey to see which apps my enthusiastic second graders thought were shining stars. (Please click here to view the survey.)
STORYBOOK APP
Don’t Let the Pigeon Run This App!
Author: Mo Willems
Developer: Disney Publishing
Price: $6.99
NONFICTION BOOK APP
Author: Greg Fusco
Developer: Game Collage
Price: $4.99 (WORTH EVERY PENNY)
DIGITAL STORYTELLING
Developer: Launchpad Toys
Price: Free
POTPOURRI
Developer: TechSmith Corporation
Price: Free
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Our guest blogger today is John Schumacher (AKA Mr. Schu), a teacher-librarian at Brook Forest Elementary School. He is a member of the ALSC Children and Technology committee.
You can visit him online at Watch. Connect. Read. and Two Libraries, One Voice.
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.
Like many of you, I use a lot of music in my storytimes. I really believe in the importance of singing to help build early literacy skills and I place a high priority on singing three to four songs in each storytime.
I have always been comfortable singing in front of a crowd because I’ve been in choirs since I was a preschooler myself, so I do sing my songs a capella. All of my welcome/opening/goodbye songs are sung to familiar tunes (“If You’re Happy and You Know It” and “Farmer in the Dell”), but my storytime parents do not sing along with me!
I realize that there are lots of reasons why parents might not be singing. Many of my storytime parents are not native English speakers, and I’m sure that some of them feel their voices are not singing-in-public voices. But I want to make it easier for parents and kids to connect with music in storytime. So, I’ve been searching for ways to make songs more accessible for my storytime parents.
One of the things I’ve found to be successful is using hand-held musical instruments. We have egg shakers and wrist/ankle bells for both kids and parents to use. Kids, of course, love making noise and the parents will eagerly pick up an instrument instead of singing.
I’ve also found that using books I can sing along with will prompt my storytime parents to join in on the chorus. Some of my favorites include the Jane Cabrera books: “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” and “Wheels on the Bus.” I think having a book to help parents remember the words definitely helps and I also think that having the kids focused on a book might make it easier to chime in.
This summer, I’m going to be creating easel signs with the words to my most repeated songs, as well as a song dice for the kids to roll to see which songs we’ll be singing. I plan to include really familiar tunes so that everyone will hopefully get comfortable singing along by the end of our eight-week session.
How do songs work at your library’s storytimes? Do you use recorded music? Does that seem to get parents singing along? Let me know!
- Katie Salo
Youth Services Manager
Melrose Park Library
http://storytimekatie.com
As librarians, we always get bonus perks to our jobs. We get to see new books before anyone else, we have little kids who adore us, we are surrounded by books on a daily basis… I could go on and on. One of the perks that I most enjoy is hosting authors. As book lovers, we tend to have a great appreciation for those who create said books. Sometimes authors are like rock stars to us. (Wait, authors are Rock Stars.) When I was in graduate school (oh so many years ago) I worked in a bookstore that hosted authors. I got to meet and bring coffee to wonderful people like Virginia Hamiliton, Mollie Hunter, and George Ella Lyon. In my librarian life, I’ve had the honor of driving Gennifer Choldenko all around Washington County, Oregon and picking up Molly Bang at the airport. Here in Canada, I’ve gotten to do something even more fun. Billeting. Now, you may think of that term as something forced, as in the English army coercing settlers to lodge soldiers. Today’s billeting is a much kinder, gentler experience. When we have author visits here, many are happy to stay in someone’s home. They get a home-cooked meal and get to really experience the local area. When they stay with me, they get to live in the woods for a day or two. Cost is also a factor—I really don’t mind hosting these authors, and by not paying for a hotel, we can afford to bring in more authors. And guess what we end up talking about over dinner and wine? Books, one of my favourite subjects.
Mark Oakley and his fans
For the first time, our library has hosted a Writer in Residence*. Now, this does not mean that an author holes up in the guest room of my house for a year (I’m not that crazy!), but it does mean that for a year, we offer workshops and readings, and the author works in our libraries all around our region. When the host libraries are close by, our Writer in Residence does stay at my home. I’ve had some great conversations about the world of comics, because our Writer in Residence, Mark Oakley, is also a cartoonist. I’m not suggesting that everyone go out and invite an author to a sleepover at their house, but I do encourage you to get to know your local authors. They are just people, after all, and they live in your communities. Get them into your libraries (pay them, of course) and show kids that real people create books, that writing is a valid and important occupation. And maybe take an author to lunch. You’ll have a great time talking about books.
*If you want to know more about our Writer in Residence, click here.
Don’t you love the brisk wind that often erupts in the spring? You can just be walking down the street and suddenly a gust of wind rustles the leaves on the trees, blows up your shirtsleeves and swirls around your ankles. It makes me want to go fly a kite. Or, at the very least, share some stories about kites and the wind.
In Kite Day by Will Hillenbrand, Bear and Mole build a kite to fly, but then a sudden storm erupts … and brings a surprise. I love the sheer exuberance in this book.
Someone Bigger by Jonathan Emmett, illustrated by Adrian Reynolds, is a cumulative tale with a satisfying ending proving that “someone bigger isn’t always someone better.”
Flora’s Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall, illustrated by Matt Phelan, is not really about kites. Instead it’s about a wind so strong it blows Flora’s little brother away, and — even though he’s annoying — Flora sets out to save him.
Designed for older readers, it’s fun to share portions of Kites – Twelve Easy-To-Make High Fliers by Norma Dixon both to develop vocabulary as well as to build background knowledge about kites.
Even though I appreciate the ideas of themeless storytimes which have been discussed recently on this blog, sometimes I find it helpful to have a theme to help focus my thoughts and plans. Have you done a storytime on kites or wind? What books did you use?
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