And The Winner Is...ALA Announces Youth Media Awards and OHE Announces The Mock Caldecott Award!!!

Yesterday, while my students were hunkered down in their homes for our second polar vortex this winter, I was at home anxiously awaiting the big announcement!  The Caldecott and Newbery Awards, along with several others, were announced yesterday morning!   I was especially interested because my students had a clear preference for which book they wanted to win the Caldecott award this year.  I had prepared them that we might not have narrowed it down to the potential winner and we were much less likely to choose the actual winner, but we had such a great time evaluating and voting for our choice.

The winner of the 2014 Caldecott Medal is... Locomotive by Brian Floca.   Caldecott Honor Medals were given to Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle, Journey by Aaron Becker and Mr. Wuffles by David Wiesner (This is Mr. Wiesner's fourth Caldecott!!).

Oak Hills students loved these books!  But they chose a different book in our Mock Caldecott.  During the week leading up to the Caldecott announcement, when it finally warmed up enough for us to attend school, my students and I looked at 18 different books (including Locomotive, Journey, Mr. Wuffles and Flora and the Flamingo) and then voted on which books we felt should win based on the Caldecott Criteria.  (See my blog post about our vote...Oak Hills Student Vote In Our Own 2014 Mock Caldecott)   It was such a tough choice!  Students considered their choices very carefully.

The overwhelming winner of the prestigious 2014 Oak Hills Elementary Mock Caldecott is....  The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt. 

Oak Hills Students Vote In Our Own 2014 Mock Caldecott - Feel Free To Weigh In Too!!

Last year was my first year to host a Mock Caldecott during January.  It was such a successful unit, that I decided to do it again this year!!  January is the perfect time as the highly anticipated Caldecott Award announcement is just around the bend!! (along with other prestigious awards -  Newbery, ALA Youth Media Awards, Printz and Coretta Scott King Book Awards)   January 27th is the big day!!

The candidates for this award are kept secret until the announcement, but that doesn't keep librarians and media specialists around the nation for speculating!  Not unlike all the Hollywood Film Awards, speculation and "buzz" is everywhere!!  Who will win and who will be wearing the best dress?? (Just kidding about the dress!)

This year I spent the last few weeks reading blogs and online journals trying to choose a possible "short list" of candidates.  Most of the "hopefuls" for the Caldecott seemed to come up again and again on prediction websites & blogs.  So I used these potentials to compile a lesson for my students.  Again, we really can't know until the announcement is made, but it is fun to speculate!

First we will read and discuss the criteria used by the Caldecott committee!!   The criteria language can be intimidating for students, but it seems to become clearer once we discuss it.  

Caldecott Criteria

1.  In identifying a “distinguished American picture book for children,” defined as illustration, committee members need to consider:

1. Excellence of execution in the artistic technique employed;
2. Excellence of pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept;
3. Appropriateness of style of illustration to the story, theme or concept;
4. Delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood or information through the pictures;
5. Excellence of presentation in recognition of a child audience.

2.  The only limitation to graphic form is that the form must be one which may be used in a picture book. The book must be a self-contained entity, not dependent on other media (i.e., sound, film or computer program) for its enjoyment.

3.  Each book is to be considered as a picture book. The committee is to make its decision primarily on the illustration, but other components of a book are to be considered especially when they make a book less effective as a children’s picture book. Such other components might include the written text, the overall design of the book, etc.

Then, we will read, evaluate and discuss each book!   I am including the book trailers for our short list of potential winners, just in case any of you want to participate in our vote.  (But be prepared, the book trailers YouTube playlist lasts 23 minutes!!) Though nothing replaces reading the actual book, these trailers do a great job of giving the viewer a flavor of the illustrations and content of each book.

After we have finished our evaluation of each book, students will be voting for their choice using a Google Form.  If you are reading this, you are welcome to vote too.

So What Is It That Teachers Do On Teacher Inservice Days?? - Google Drive!!!

For those who are not in the teaching profession, you may wonder... what do the teachers do on those teacher inservice days!  Is is all donuts and fun??

Being a teacher is all about learning.  Though it is a bit cliched to say, choosing the teaching profession guarantees that you will be called upon to be a lifelong learner and collaborator!  Our Oak Hills teachers are just that...lifelong learners and collaborators.

Early this morning, we piled into the computer lab where Mr. Labatte shared his new "just for staff" Google website, Patty Johnson shared OLPA (MCA preparation) and I was able to provide an inservice on organizing and sharing in Google Drive.

Last year, our district moved to using Google for the backbone of our file creation and sharing. Now that we have had a year to create and share with each other, it seemed like a good time to learn how to manage the huge array of files in our Google Drives.

During the afternoon, Oak Hills Elementary teachers traveled over to Eastview Elementary for a collaborative safety training session with the Lakeville police.  It was very informative!

So teacher inservice days will often include donuts and fun, but there is always learning and collaborating!!!!

We Had A Little Extra Time...Why Not Bake???

This week, at the end of some of my classes we had a little extra time after the lesson was completed.  I didn't want students to start our next project so....we baked with the Easy Bake Oven App!  When students are working with iPads, there is always something fun for them to do during their "down" time!!  This particular app is a favorite!   Our third graders are preparing to begin work on class cookbooks, so this got them thinking and hungry!!

A Tutoring Session For Our Fantastic Tutors!!!

I recently had the opportunity to inservice our OHE Tutoring Staff on iPads!  We had a wonderful time discussing all of the many options for using the iPads with students.  I began by sharing the changes they will notice between iOS6 and iOS7.  These are changes that I am still discovering myself since our iPads were only recently updated.  We discussed a few apps with the greatest potential for their tutoring sessions.  Dragon Dictation and Show Me were two apps with a great many possible educational uses. We discussed the best way to search for apps so that they could begin choosing for their students too!  It was fun working with such an enthusiastic and dedicated group!!  

Students Create "Favorite 2013 Book Review" Comics Using The Story Me App!

Students love sharing their favorite books, and there is no better way to get students reading than peer to peer suggestions!!  These informal, typically verbal book reviews come naturally and are highly valued by students because they come from friends!  

This week, fourth and fifth graders have been sharing their favorite books of 2013 in comic strip form!! With a new iPad app called Story Me (thanks to my media specialist friends, Kathryne Nguyen and Paula Hansen for the tip on this great app!!) students have been able to share their favorite book reviews in a new and creative way!  

Students searched for their favorite book cover in Google Images, and saved it to the iPad camera roll.  They then took a "selfie".  They imported both images into a Landscape 2X2 frame in Story Me, applied the "cartoon" filter to the images, and created text bubbles for their book reviews.  

These book reviews will make a nice addition to each student's website!

WELCOME BACK IN 2014!!! Students Wish Everyone A Happy New Year With The LabelBox And PicCollage Apps!!!

We had a longer than expected winter break due to some sub-subzero temperatures here in Minnesota!  So when the bell rang yesterday morning, there were lots shouts of 'Happy New Years!!'  in our halls.  Students seemed so excited to be back to school, no doubt recovering from a serious bout with cabin fever!


I took the time over break to prepare for our students return and investigate a few new apps that I am so excited to have them try. I decided to start with a little New Year's fun!  We read one of my favorite New Year's books, Squirrel's New Year's Resolutions by Pat Miller.

We read the book and discussed our New Year's resolutions!  It was fun hearing the students brainstorm their resolutions!  They were sincere and inspirational!

Our second and third grade students created resolution posters using the Pic Collage App.  We have used Pic Collage before, but with recent updates, there were a few changes we discovered.

A real highlight during this activity was watching students learn how to take "selfies"!!!   

  

First graders used the iPod app LabelBox to say Happy New Year's!  They loved trying Labelbox.  I learned that our 1st graders are still needing a little work on their 'selfies'.  They tended to keep the iPad in their lap to take their photos.  As a teacher, it is funny what you discover when you assume that your students know something!!  Our next lesson will be discussing the best angle to take a self image.  In spite of the angle, they still turned out beautifully!!