It's Here, Friends...Our December Choice Boards!

                  

It's here, friends!  Our December Choice Board where reading, learning, making, coding, technology and music can take you on adventures all month long. 

This month, the choice board is filled with so many new and exciting things!  I can't wait to share it with our students, teachers and families, and all of you. 

You will find Our December Choice Board here to make a copy to use with your students and school community.  This is the published link to share with your students. 

With the monthly choice board, I do include other choice boards and special holidays and celebrations. 

On Our December Choice Board, you will find Our Holiday Choice Boards Collection. You will find the links to this in this post. 

You will also find the 12 Days of Making With Capstone Interactive choice board filled with eBooks and activities around the different making topics.  You will find the links to this one in this post. 

With Hour of Code coming up on December 6, I included several great activities and...

...the Elementary Coding Choice Boards found here. 

There is also Our Virtual Makerspace found here and...

... the Let's Take A Trip Around The World Buncee found here. 

I create most of my choice boards in Google Slides and Buncee. With each choice board in Google Slides, I share this with our students and teachers by publishing it to the web. 

In the image above, you can see how to do this by clicking on Share and Publish to the Web. 

The Publish to the Web window pops up that will direct you to publish to the web. It will give you a link that you will copy to share with students and teachers through Google Classroom, Seesaw and any other place you want to share this like social media and through QR codes. 

You will find Our December Choice Board here to make a copy to use with your students and school community.  This is the published link to share with your students. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or need help sharing and creating choice boards.  

I hope the monthly and special choice boards will give you and your students special opportunities for reading, learning, creating, collaborating and having fun all year long. 

Check Out The 2023 Spring Book Preview From Our Friends At Capstone!

One of my favorite thing about being a reader and teacher librarian is learning about and reading upcoming books. 

Last week, our friends at Capstone shared the 2023 Spring Book Preview and I couldn't be more excited to see all of these upcoming titles! 

As Capstone shared on the site, 

Dive into reading some of the books we’re most excited about for spring! From the inspiring true story of Yoshi, a loggerhead turtle who journeyed more than 22,000 miles to find her home, in Yoshi’s Big Swim to the launch of the early chapter book series Liam Kingbird's Kingdom, one of very few early readers on the market with an Indigenous main character, Capstone has your readers’ next favorite book. 

Take a sneak peek at highlights of Capstone’s Spring 2023 titles before they hit the shelves.

You can get your sneak peek here, friends. 

And don't miss all of the wonderful resources Capstone has created for these upcoming books. 

You will find the Capstone 2023 Spring Library Catalog here. 

I will be sharing all of them in the next post. 

We Can't Wait To Hear Katherine Applegate Read Odder During This Special Storyvoice LIVE Event!

 

One of my favorite new books from 2022 is Odder by Katherine Applegate.  

I read this aloud to my family at home one weekend and then brought it to school to share throughout our elementary as a read aloud. Our students and teachers are loving Odder too. 

This week, on December 2 at 1:00pm EST, Katherine will be reading from Odder in a very special Storyvoice Live event. 

As shared online, 

After an unexpected run-in with a shark, Odder the otter is brought to an aquarium to heal—

where her life takes even more unexpected turns.…This novel in verse is by the author of

The One and Only Ivan.

Can’t make Katherine’s live show? A recording will be posted the following school day on

Storyvoice and will remain available for 24 hours.

You will find the event here, friends.

You will find this choice board that we used with Odder here. Feel free to use it with your students as you get ready for the read aloud with Katherine too.

Find An Author or Illustrator To Zoom For World Read Aloud Day 2023 With This Amazing List From Kate Messner.

 

As we get ready for World Read Aloud Day 2023 on February 1, 2023, one of the best parts is planning author and illustrator Zoom visits with our students. 

Once again, Kate Messner has put together an amazing list of more than 200 authors and illustrators volunteering to connect with students, librarians and teachers to celebrate this special day. 

You will find the list on Kate's blog here. 

Thank you so much, Kate for bringing this together for all of us. We can't wait to celebrate World Read Aloud Day. 

Join The Flip Live Event On December 1st To Celebrate 30 Years Of The Magic Treehouse With Author, Mary Pope Osborne!

 

I couldn't be more excited for the Flip Live Event coming up this week on December 1, 2022 at 12:00pm CST. 

The Magic Tree House author, Mary Pope Osborne, will be joining Flip for a 30th-anniversary celebration of her #1 bestselling series. 

As shared online, 

Hear the life lessons she’s learned through writing about Jack and Annie’s adventures. Mary will answer student questions and inspire a love for reading in your young readers.

You can register for this free event here, friends. 

The November 27-December 2 Capstone Holiday Calendar Is Here! You Can Turn It Into An Interactive Calendar For Your Students and Teachers Too, Friends.

The November 27-December 2 Capstone Holiday Calendar is here, friends.

Earlier this fall, I shared the 2022-23 Capstone Holiday Calendar. 

This is one of my favorite resources to share in our library and with our teachers and students for their classroom, and even with our families to use at home. 

On each monthly calendar, all kinds of special holidays and events are shared. 

Capstone then paired up their Capstone Interactive eBooks and PebbleGo/PebbleGo Next articles with these special holidays and events. 

I use them to look ahead each week and pull books and Capstone Interactive eBooks for our students and teachers to use to explore, learn and celebrate. 

This week there are several special events. There are two calendars this week too. I went into our Capstone Interactive to search to see what books we had as eBooks and articles from PebbleGo and PebbleGo Next. 

I can share the links to the eBooks and articles in Seesaw or Google Classroom. 

I also thought of an idea!  

I could take the calendar apart and make a Google Presentation, one slide per week, for the whole year! 

On the slide above, I just took a screen shot of next week and then added screen shots of the PebbleGo articles and eBooks below. Then I went back into Capstone Interactive to grab all of the links attaching them to the images. 

This will be so much fun to create and share with the teachers and students all throughout the year. 

You will find a copy of the 2022-23 Capstone Holiday Choice Board here if you'd like to follow along and use it for your school too. You will have to add your own links to PebbleGo, PebbleGo Next and the eBooks that you have within your own collection. 

And just remember, to share it with your students as a choice board, you will go to Edit and then down to Publish to the Web. It will give you a link and that is what you share with your students. 

I am leaving the past weeks in the Google Slides presentation....just scroll through them to find the past weeks. 

I also share this as a poster for our littles with iPads too. 

You can download the 2022-2023 Capstone Holiday Calendar here. 

And as this tweet from Capstone shares, if you want a physical calendar, please reach out to your Capstone rep. 

I have include a link to the list of the books included in the Capstone Holiday Calendar and...

...this handy postcard with the steps to use the choice boards with your students and teachers like me. 

My Favorite Follett eBooks To Keep Kids Reading Over Break....Find Them Here In This Special Choice Board, Friends.

 

It's hard to believe, the holidays are here!  This is the time of year that I dream up lots of ways to keep our kids reading over the breaks. 

I love using choice boards to bring together eBooks around special themes and events throughout the year.  It gives our readers a place to go where they can engage with lots of different eBooks while making choices on what they'd like to read. These special choice boards keep our kids reading wherever they are....school, home, or on the road....with amazing selections for all readers. 

This week, as I looked for new eBooks to add to the Keep Kids Reading Over Break choice board, I was very happy to see our friends at Follett are having a Cyber Sale! 

They are taking 15% off Follett eBooks from November 18-December 23 and 35% off select Follett print books from November 23-December 9. 

You can follow the Cyber Sale on Facebook here for all of the updates. 

So, I went here to Follett Titlewave and checked out the sale!  

It was so much fun to look through Top Selling eBooks, New eBooks from Popular Publishers, eBooks with Multi-User Access, and...

....Popular eBooks by Topics. There is definitely so many eBooks for all readers in this awesome sale.

I picked 15 new eBooks! 

In this new choice board, My Favorite Follett eBooks To Keep Kids Reading Over Break, you will find the 15 new eBooks that I picked for the readers in our library. 

In this choice board, you can click on any book cover to view the eBook. You can also find the full book list from Titlewave here too. Remember...these are all part of the special Cyber Sale that runs till December 23, 2022. You can find the Cyber Sale here on Titlewave. 

If you would like to edit this and use for your own library, you can make a copy here. 

Our kids will love this lineup of new eBooks they can read over break. I love how they will keep them excited about reading wherever they are during this special time of year. 

I hope you find special new eBooks for your readers during break too. 

Our StickTogether Pixel Art Showcase Is Such A Special Art Work To Celebrate This Week

Our first grade and second grade friends have been busy creating amazing self portraits using the StickTogether Pixel Art site. 

Everyone made such a beautiful and unique self portrait using this wonderful free technology tool. 

You can read all about this special project here. 

And to make this project even more special, StickTogether is happy to announce the StickTogether Pixel Art Showcase November 2022, "I am thankful for..." 

To be part of the November StickTogether Pixel Art Showcase, your students can create what they are thankful for at the Pixel Art site here. 

You can then post their Pixel Art entries and ‘I am Thankful for’ caption on social. Tag StickTogether at @byStickTogether #PixelArtShowcase #WeStickTogether

Our students are busy creating their thankful projects at school, so I thought I would put all of their Pixel Art self portraits together and share what we are thankful for at our school. 

We are thankful for one another at Van Meter School. 

I hope you do this special project with your students and share what they are thankful for too.

Have a lovely holiday week, friends. I am thankful for all of you. 

Join Us For The Next Future Ready Leadership Forum On February 8, 2023 In Georgia!

We are so excited to announce the second Future Ready Schools Leadership Forum, Creating a Culture of Excellence and Innovation. 

Our first event in Philadelphia was a huge success! There was such amazing learning, sharing and connecting focused around innovation and digital literacy. The program sparked so many ideas and conversations all throughout the day. We left inspired to put digital innovation into practice within our school communities and within educational leadership roles we hold. 

This next one will be held on the Kennesaw State University campus in Kennesaw, Georgia. It is on February 8, 2023 from 9:00am-3:30pm EST. 

Join Future Ready Schools® (FRS) for a one-day personalized professional learning leadership event. The FRS Leadership Forum (the Forum) is designed to help educators (district leaders, principals, instructional leaders/coaches, librarians) lead a culture of excellence and innovation in their schools and district.

 

Led by Shannon McClintock Miller, Bill Bass, and Adam Phyall, III, EdD, the Forum will bring together like-minded education leaders to learn and grow through an interactive agenda that sparks ideas and actions for weaving digital resources into instructional practice.

 

During the Forum, we will share best practices that  promote and support innovation and deeper levels of learning through use of technology while showing strategies and tools that support digital innovation across the curriculum. Participants will engage in honest and authentic conversations around successes, roadblocks, and hurdles and create a personalized action plan to make change happen.

 

Space is limited. Act Now - Don’t  miss this opportunity to understand the latest research and emerging practices for high-quality digital learning implementation.

Register today - it’s Free!

And if you can't join us in Atlanta, don't worry...there will be two additional forums in 2023. 

You can sign up to be the first to know about the upcoming forums at the bottom of this site. 

Have Your Readers Join The NEW Biblionasium Challenge, Building Community Challenge! Lots Of Special Resources To Use Here, Friends.

 

One of our favorite places to go to log, share and celebrate our reading is Biblionasium, the "Good Reads for Kids!" 

Biblionasium is a wonderful social reading community for all readers where they create shelves of books, log reading, share book recommendations, write book reviews and more. 

We can even set up Challenges for our students and our friends at Biblionasium set up amazing Biblio Challenges too. 

This month, I am very excited to team up with Biblionasium to share a NEW Biblio Challenge, the Building Community Challenge. 

As shared on the Biblionasium Blog, 

Midway through the semester, could you use a boost to keep kids enthusiastic about learning and reading?

This Building Community Biblio challenge features activities and rewards to motivate students by engaging their whole selves—mentally, emotionally, and physically, at home and at school! 

Here's how you can bring book-tasting, Biblio badges, and smiles to your communities: 

1. Either as individuals or as a class, have kids choose a book to read and an accompanying activity. You can use Shannon Miller's Biblio choice board, the Biblio Challenge bookshelf, or choose a book of your own!  If you want to make a copy to change anything on the choice board, you will find the copyable link here.
2. Write a book and activity review on Biblionasium. 

3. Track reviews on our printout checklists and notes templates. Choose from green checklist, green notes, pink checklist, and pink notes. 

4. Award a BIBLIO BADGES for each review. Award COMMUNITY CERTIFICATES for 5 reviews or a full class activity.

5. Optionally, celebrate your achievements with a prize of your choice – like a ‘dress up as your favorite book character day’!

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL 
  
Connect with the wider Biblio community – TAG @Biblionasium and #Biblionasium on Twitter and Instagram for a chance to be featured on our blog!! 
  
REMEMBER to check out all our resources to have fun as a community this November. Read on!

You can sign up and learn all about Biblionasium here.