The SurRural Librarian

With a new movie coming out every six hours based on a children’s book, I have learned to ignore the hype. So, it’s got to be a big deal for me to pay attention to another one. Ok, well, here’s a big deal.

Did you know that Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) and Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) have written a screenplay for Where The Wild Things Are?
Wha?

Footage from the film may or may not have been leaked online this weekend. Frankly, don’t care. I just want this thing now. I won’t post images here (big studio meanies are on patrol), if you Google them, there are plenty. They look gorgeous.

The 5/6 are hard at work on their DCF projects. Everyone is working on a project using at least two computer applications and a good amount of creativity inspired by their favorite book on the DCF list. We’ve got comics, book covers, bookmarks and posters galore to share at the DCF conference in May.

A number of my students were swept away by TuxPaint & Comic Life. They really worked hard creating comic versions of their chosen novels, squeezing in computer time whenever they could.

The Kindergarten and Primary classes greatly enjoyed Max’s Words by Kate Banks, a Red Clover book. We took inspiration from Max’s huge piles of words cut from magazines to sort our own collection of words (much thanks goes to the kindergartener at home willing to help with the cutting). Students came up with their own sorting schemes, including number of letters, first letters, vowel sounds, even width of font. The results look like nonsensical ransom notes. (If you’ve got the time, get the students to cut out their own words.)

The book is a great read-aloud and the project was a fun & simple literacy lesson. Yay, Red Clover!

I can not get enough of the images the Library of Congress has posted on Flickr. They are gorgeous, and completely free of copyright restrictions.

Vermont librarians - check out the large set form the Rutland State Fair. Here’s one from “Backstage at the Girlie Show”.

My 3/4th graders are seriously fired up about writing book reviews. First I asked them to write reviews of picture books for the younger grades, keeping their kindergarten reading buddies in mind as an audience. That went well enough for me to continue on with the project.

Now that I’ve opened it up to any book at all (if we don’t have it in the library, I’ve pledge to buy it) - they’re really into it. They’re excited to post them on the web, and I like helping them develop opinions and their own voice.

For inspiration, I’ve been playing them some podcasts and videos of book reviews, preferably those written by other students. We like these podcasts from the John D. Runkle School in Brookline, Ma. and these from Voices from the Inglenook. And the videos at Bookwink are very convincing. They’ve been so popular I’m now on the hunt for others.