Victoria Kann Virtual Author Visit

We virtually hosted author Victoria Kann on October 7! Victoria is the author and illustrator of the wildly popular Pinkalicious books. Victoria joined us from her home studio on Microsoft Teams, which allowed students from all over our district to participate in the event. 

Victoria's presentation focused on her new book Rubylicious. In this book, Pinkalicious is searching for stones for her rock collection when a surprise pops out suddenly! Rocky is here to grant Pinkalicious and her brother Peter one wish, and one wish only, so they must choose wisely. This book has a wonderful message about how being selfless can be its own best reward. The bright, colorful illustrations add to the engaging story.

Victoria's presentation was perfect for our kindergarten through second grade students. She started by talking about her books and asked students to wiggle their ears, shake their hands, etc. if they had read the books. Then she read Rubylicious and finally students asked questions. Best of all, Victoria's visit was sponsored by FoxTale Book Shoppe. We are so fortunate to have a local book store that connects our students to authors. I know they will remember "meeting" Victoria for many years to come!

ISTE Live 2021

I am so thankful to the MIEE Travel Program for the opportunity to participate in this year's ISTE Live Conference! I presented two sessions and attended many others that taught me a lot that I will take back to school with me next year!

The first session was "A Whole New World with Minecraft." Over the last few years, I have learned a lot about Minecraft: Education Edition through trainings offered in my district and courses on the Microsoft Educator Center. I use Minecraft regularly with my students and was excited to share my lessons with other educators. Click here to access the presentation I used during this session.

I started this session with information about which devices support Minecraft, the benefits of using Minecraft, and game basics such as modes of play. Then I shared ways I have used Minecraft with my students, including the Georgia Performance Standards reinforced by the lessons and examples of students' creations. 

The second session I presented was "We Love Our Library: Using Your Learning Management System to Promote Student Engagement." Click here to access the presentation I used during this session. Throughout the past year, our learning management system has been invaluable in helping me stay connected to students and parents. During this session, I shared how i use my media center learning management system courses to communicate media center news and events. The session also contained information about the badging system I developed for my fourth and fifth graders. I created 44 modules and a badge for each. Students are rewarded with a digital badge for completing activities such as monthly reading challenges and monthly makerspace challenges. Other badges are awarded for using Microsoft tools such as Sway, PowerPoint, Forms, and OneNote. I also use our learning management system to share Minecraft worlds with students.

During the conference, I also attended many very engaging sessions. I loved each of the main stage events, with inspiring speakers such as Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Priscilla Chan of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Esports and animation were popular topics in the sessions I attended. I also learned about many Microsoft product updates, including Reading Progress in Teams, PowerPoint Live, and Teams breakout rooms enhancements. I look forward to incorporating my new knowledge into my plans for the 2021-2022 school year!

2021 Georgia Children's Picturebook Award Winners

This year's Georgia Children's Picture Book Award winner is Hair Love, written by Matthew A. Cherry and illustrated by Vashti Harrison. Hair Love was also the second place book at my school. My students loved this sweet story about a father who tries to fix his daughter's hair while her mother is away.

The first place book in our voting was The Cave by Rob Hodgson. This is a hilarious book about a wolf who tries everything to get a little creature to leave its cave.  

And our third place book was The Scarecrow, written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by the Fan Brothers. This book is about the connection between two unlikely friends. The rhyming text and beautiful pictures were so engaging to my students. Several of them actually cried when I read this book to them.

As always, my students enjoyed reading the books on this year's Georgia Children's Picturebook Award nominee list and participating in voting!

Jungle Book Fair

We recently held our spring book fair. Last spring, I had everything prepared for our book fair but it was cancelled after school closed due to covid. So this year, I used the spring 2020 theme, which was Book Fair Jungle: Elephants, Tigers, and Books Oh My! The inside and outside of the media center were decorated to correspond with the theme.  

Several changes were put in place to make this book fair safe. Students were required to sanitize their hands as they entered the book fair. Previously, teachers were invited to sign up for one preview time and one shopping time. As a result, we often had two classes in the book fair at once. During this fair, I created a video preview for students to watch and asked teachers to sign up for a shopping time only.  This allowed us to have one class at a time in the library. Our digital learners were invited to shop after school. My students and teachers were so excited to have an in-person book fair that they did not mind any of the new procedures!

During this fair, my younger readers loved Babysitters Little Sister: Karen's Worst Day by Ann M. Martin, Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry, and My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World by Malcolm Mitchell. My older readers bought Dog Man: Mothering Heights by Dav Pilkey and Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon.

Because we did not have any family events, this was not our most successful book fair ever. However, we made enough money to purchase new books and filament for our 3D printer!

Bonnie Clark Virtual Author Visit

We virtually hosted author Bonnie Clark on February 10! Bonnie is the author of Taste Your Words and Catching Thoughts. Both of these books are great social and emotional learning titles. Bonnie joined us on Microsoft Teams. This allowed our students who are learning at home to join her presentation in addition to our face to face learners.

Bonnie's presentation focused on the book Taste Your Words. In this book, Amera uses unkind words to express her anger and frustration, her mother tells her to "taste her words." Then every mean word tastes terrible, like sour milk or rotten eggs! Amera quickly learns that kind words taste like jellybeans or watermelon or something else sweet. This book provides a wonderful message to students of all ages! The bright, colorful illustrations add to the engaging story.

Bonnie's presentation was very engaging. She started by talking about her history as a writer and how she came up with the idea for Taste Your Words. Then she read the book to students and asked them to share examples of kind words and what they might taste like. 

Last, she asked three staff members to participate in a taste test. Several days before the presentations, Bonnie dropped off some Jelly Belly Bean Boozled jellybeans. I gave three staff members one jellybean each. The jellybeans were spoiled milk or coconut flavored, rotten eggs or buttered popcorn flavored, and dog food or chocolate flavored. Bonnie re-read the part of her book that mentioned the flavors, and then the staff member with the corresponding jellybean ate it! Below is a picture of me eating a dog food flavored jellybean!

Best of all, Bonnie's visit was funded by the Georgia Writer's Association! This organization offers Literary Events Grants to help finance events featuring Georgia writers. I am so thankful to the Georgia Writer's Association for making this event possible! I know my students will remember to "taste their words" for a long time!

Virtual Author Visits

Each year, our students look forward to author visits. Author visits take a lot of planning and coordination, but the results are lasting and worthwhile. When we have an author visit, that author’s books are checked out for the rest of the year.

Author visits encourage reading for pleasure, motivate reluctant readers, improve writing skills, and support classroom learning. Visiting authors also share their creative process with students, which often inspires our young learners to make their own books.

At the beginning of this year, the prospect of hosting an author seemed impossible due to covid restrictions. We were unable to host authors in person or hold assemblies. An additional concern was including students who are learning at home. So, Microsoft Teams came to the rescue! Teams is the perfect platform for virtual author visits.

FoxTale Book Shoppe, a local bookstore, connected us to the authors and handled book sales. Our first virtual visit was with author Ridley Pearson and illustrator Ile Gonzalez, who teamed up to create the DC Comics Super Sons series. Then we hosted author Sherri Rinker, who writes popular picture books for children, including Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site. 

After setting up the dates and times, I immediately put in a request to have my amazing Instructional Technology Specialist, Kristen Brooks, help with the calls. We set up a practice call, and she also helped on the day of the virtual visits. Kristen is a Teams expert and thought about many things that could go wrong and how we could prevent problems. 

We connected with the authors about 15 to 30 minutes before the actual calls. Kristen showed the authors how to share their presentations and answered any questions they had. When the calls started, I introduced the authors while Kristen let classes and students in and made sure everyone was on mute. During the presentations, Kristen admitted latecomers and I muted them. It was very helpful to have two people working together on this with the large number of attendees.

These authors were fun and engaging. Our students loved participating in an event that made it feel like a normal school year. And our remote learners were also able to participate without leaving home.  Ridley joined us from Idaho, Ile from Mexico, and Sherri from Chicago. Teams allowed us the benefit of making this connection without the expense of travel.

We are already working on plans for our next author visit. Through Teams, we can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world!