Be a Little Spontaneous This Holiday Season

   Today our middle school students dressed up with Ugly Christmas Sweater day.  It is always interesting to see which students get involved or attempt to join in, as well as, teachers. The 8th grade teachers dressed up as snowmen and looked very jaunty in top hats and orange paper carrot noses.  Our principal found a tacky holiday sweatshirt complete with a bow-tie! Several students outdid themselves after visiting the local thrift stores and embellishing their sweater finds with additional holiday potpourri.   
   Since half of my day is spent teaching middle school classes, I decided to join in the fun.  Lacking an ugly sweater and itchy wool is not my thing, I opted for a classic vintage t-shirt and added a very, very large bow to the top of my head.   Students and teachers were doing double-takes all day and I kept hearing chuckles and giggles. One student confessed that he just could not take me seriously with such a large bow on my head.   It certainly kept my students attention on me during my lesson rather than playing with the mouse or icons on their computer screen.  But it was a kindergarten student who sweetly asked me in a whisper that made my day...."Mrs. Brown, did you know that you have a rather large red bow on your head?"  "I do?" I asked innocently.  "Yes, you do. I just wanted you to make sure that you knew it was there."   I had a hard time keeping a straight face as I thanked him for letting me know.  
    So surprise your students.  Let them see the fun side of you. Don't let them see only your serious teaching side but show off a little spontaneous fun.  I guarantee you will enjoy watching their faces and loving the smiles and giggles from everyone. 

Digital Storytelling - Part 2

    My father was 3 when WW 2 began and has vivid memories of the bombing of Rotterdam that no young child should ever have.   "In war....there are no children...", says my father in a letter that he wrote to my oldest son for his high school graduation gift.   I had asked my dad for years to write down some of his memories of what life was like growing up in the Netherlands and then immigrating to Canada when he was 10 but he kept putting it off.  I could never understand why he wouldn't write down his experiences until he gave my son the letter.   After reading his letter, I cried for now that I knew how difficult and scared my dad must have been as a child growing up in a war.       
     The 5th graders in our school are studying the 1940's and WW 2 in their history classes and many of my students know that my father grew up in the Netherlands during that time and ask me if I know what it was like.   I have told the students snippets but I never felt I could do his story justice until I realized I could use digital storytelling to tell my father's story.  
     I began by collecting the photos I have of my father and his childhood. There are not many photos of his childhood.  Certainly no photos of him as a baby.  The youngest photo is his kindergarten picture and a photo of him with his teachers and classmates.  The other photos - his family on the ship that brought him to Canada, a family photo where my father looks so serious and candid photos of his siblings.  All of these photos tell a story, but the photos that mean the most to me are the photos of my father when he lived at Kluntz Zoo after the war when he was 9 -11 which was one of the happiest times in my father's childhood.  
     My father was 3 when war began and 8 when the war ended.  From preschool to 3rd grade he experienced a childhood of fighting, fear and hunger.   Of all of the memories of war being hungry all the time seems to stand out more than fear of the Germans.  I created this video so you could hear his story.....

In War....There Are No Children....

Delicious Bookmarking

     I have a new favorite site,thanks to this grad class (Edu 653 ReadWriteWeb) that I am taking - Delicious: Social Bookmarking, an incredible tool to keep track of websites and links that I want to refer back to!  Here is a link to my favorite bookmarks: https://delicious.com/bookgirl5337.

 

Un-MakerSpaces

     Have you heard about makerspaces?  The makerspace movement is gaining momentum right now in libraries and media centers and students are thrilled.   A makerspace “is a place for students to take raw materials and create “things” using their imagination” (Bedley, 2014)  exploring science, technology, mathematics, reading, writing, etc.   What students put into the creativity and the real-time learning of a makespace is what makes this such a great tool!  Check out some Vicki Davis’ ideas.

     Scott Bedley has come up with a great idea that I want to try about “un-making” in his article in Edutopia, Dissecting the Un-Makespace: RecycledLearning.  Bedley suggests turning classrooms into a place to take things apart such as; old cassette players, broken computer mice or monitors.  Having students dissect old and unwanted items and asking questions and finding possible answers is what learning is all about!   My Mouse Squad class has already taken a part an old CPU, a laptop and keyboards but why should we stop there?   I think I need to start asking parents to donate any unwanted devices and get my students busy dissecting!  

Bedley, Scott. "Dissecting the Un-Makerspace: Recycled Learning." Edutopia. N.p., 24 Nov. 2014. Web. 05 Dec. 2014.

Digital Storytelling

   When I heard about digital storytelling, I was excited to try out this concept since I read and tell stories to students every week when I wear the Librarian hat of my job.   However, I soon learned that this is not as easy a feat as I first expected it to be.  My first challenge was to decide what story to tell.  I have many but are all the stories worthy of a digital telling?       My second challenge was pacing between my words and the pictures.  Telling a story to an audience in front of you is much easier to control and pace with pictures, but in a digital story I seemed to agonize over the seconds a picture was focused on and the next words I was going to say.   The third challenge was actually listening to my own voice.  Do I really sound like that?  Really? I cannot even say I like the sound of my voice although I have been told I have a good reading or story telling voice.  But really, that is what I sound like?!
    Once I got through those challenges, creating a digital story was not so bad after all.  Sort of fun, I think....
   So here is my first attempt at a digital story that I created this past summer. 
Click on this link: http://youtu.be/ak-AiLWlikY

Now to complete my next digital story....