Let's start with the worst:
As I mentioned in my last post, I am a little concerned about the summer reading disconnect that I see appearing at my school. So I "volunteered" to compile the names of students who turned in their summer reading logs this week to get prizes from the administration. I really wanted to see what was getting turned in and by whom (or is it who? I can never keep that one straight).
Turns it, it is worse than I thought! What the hey diddle diddle is going on?
According to my notes and conversations with kiddos this week, I have over 212 students who talked about at least 1 book they read this summer. Many had several books that they wanted to share. They talked about ebooks, books they got for their birthdays, whole series they got, books they got from their teacher as end of the year gifts (someone gave "The Chocolate Touch") and so on. That is almost 1/2 of my student population.
And yet, when I total the sheets turned in for prizes, I get this dismal number: 57. That's right. I did not mistype and your eyes are not deceiving you. There is no missing digit. 57. That is @ 1/8 of my population. Let's look a bit closer.
| Grade | # of participants | sneaks | school | k packet |
| 1st | 16 | 0 | 15 | 11 |
| 2nd | 8 | 3 | 6 | |
| 3rd | 17 | 2 | 17 | |
| 4th | 9 | 5 | 5 | |
| 5th | 7 | 2 | 5 |
At our school, they can turn in a SNEAKS summer reading log, a school provided log or the packet the kindergarten teachers send home for summer practice. Some students turned in both their SNEAKS and school log (yay!). I can only hope that they were too busy reading to write it down. Too busy loving what they were reading and too intrinsically motivated that they did not need an external prize. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
So I will await my ebook stats and then I will begin to plot and plan my attack for next year's summer reading because I sure did talk it up this year and I sure did promote ebooks and we had a SNEAKS assembly and registered every student in advance. I wonder if having the gameboards to hand out to them as they were registered at the school would then be a visual reminder to get to the library to get those first books read and get to the library for that first prize. It could be put right into their report card where mom and dad would see it. I may have to pursue this with the local library and see if it is a possibility.
But enough of all that worst of times stuff. Let's be positive and move on. I had a great first week. A surprise visitor popped in on Friday - our Area Superintendent. Always a moment of breath leaving your body when you see your administration walk in with their boss. Turns out they were just popping in to show the interactive display I set up for Back To School Night using Aurasma. (Have you used it? Super fun!!! I actually learned about this at Common Ground and had been looking for a way to try it out and thought this would be a "safe" way. )
I had teachers pop by and let me record them saying, "My favorite book is____" and then I found that book in our library and created an aura to go with it. Basically, what this means is, after downloading the app on their phone and following eeslibrary, families could come in and try to guess which book was their teacher's favorite. Then they could open the eeslibrary channel on the app, hold it up to the cover and the teacher video would appear. They could scan all the covers to see which books matched which teachers. (Unfortunately, special area teachers had duty during back to school so I did not get to see the families as they did this-bummer!).
My administration must have really liked it a lot because they brought the Area Superintendent in to see it and walked her around to see ALL the books and then she was adding it to HER phone. (It never hurts to make your bosses look good!)
Anyway, if you want to try it out and see what the video clips look like, be my guest. It's free! Search for Aurasma in your app store and download. You can skip the sign up. Just search for eeslibrary and follow us so it will work for you.
Here are some of the book titles your can scan in your own library/home collection that have videos attached to them:
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendack
The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
Tiki Tiki Tembo by Arlene Mosel
Junie B. First Grader: Boo and I Mean It by Barbara Parks
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel
Junie B. Jones is (almost) a Flower Girl by Barbara Parks
David Goes to School by David Shannon
Corduroy byDon Freeman
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeline L'Engle
Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
You might even be able to scan a computer image for some of these. Occasionally that works. Can't hurt to try.
Let me know if you try the app out or if you have some summer reading ideas that produced big results. I'd love to hear about them.
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