767 Sports Questions Your Friends Can't Answer

767 Sports Questions Your Friends Can't Answer
              edited by Wallie Walker Hammond
              published by Thomson Peterson's
                                                  

There are so many tween sports fanatics at our school and this book presents  a challenge as well as a great read for sports trivia fans.

The book is a series of set of trivia questions (737) organized by chapter and sports topic including Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, Auro Racing, Women in Sports, Golf, Tennis, Olympic Games, Coaches, Hall of Famers, Boxing, Championship Teams, and Retired Numbers. At the end of each chapter there are sets of answers to the questions presented.

Also provided is a scoring key to rank yourself among other readers of the book according to the publishers.

This would make a great car travel book for a sports-minded family to help pass the time and have a great family read together, or for a group of kids who hang out together after games, scouting, or other activities.

I plan to use the book to post a sports trivia question weekly on my website for students to check in and respond to. I love these kinds of books for browsing and I often see students choosing other books as a result in order to dig deeper into sports content after becoming interested by a specific piece of trivia.

ISBN: 978-7689-2458-9

Two Minute Mysteries Collection

Two Minute Mysteries Collection
           written by Donald Sobol

If you enjoyed the classic series "Encyclopedia Brown" and enjoy solving mysteries then this book is for you! More than 200 mini mysteries (hence the name 2 Minute Mysteries) packed into this book. Each mystery has the solution at the end of the mystery with a simple flip of the book so the suspence won't go on forever or stop you from going on to the next exciting mystery! Interpret the clues shared by the narrator and inspector and see if you can solve each mystery as Haledjian does throughout the book. What's your success average at solving the Two-Minute Mysteries?

The Collection includes all three or you can purchase them separately
Two Minute Mysteries Collection ISBN: 0-439-70991-1

Two Minute Mysteries ISBN: 978-0590447874
More Two-Minute Mysteries ISBN: 978-0590447881
Still More Two-Minute Mysteries ISBN: 978-0590447867

Nat Geo Kids Almanac 2011

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011
       by National Geographic

REVIEW.

Each annual release of the Nat Geo Kids Almanac is eagerly awaited and automatically placed on our "hot table" at our Fall BookFair each fall. This popular series is filled with interesting trivia, stats, topics, and articles that guarantee to interest even the most reluctant reader!

A good read of this book can happen in a variety of ways, but very seldom do I observe kids reading cover to cover page by page, although you can bet that the entire book eventually gets consumed!


Start at the Table of Contents with topic areas including Your World, Amazing Animals, Going Green, Super Science, Geography Rocks, History Happens, Culture Connection, Awesome Adventure, Wonders of Nature, and Future World, and you see what I mean....everyone out for their favorite topic! You can also use the index to find your favorite item or photo, or what most often happens, just start flipping through the pages! The format is easily readable, with each topic edged in its designated color,  heading on the right side pages, and subtopic heading on the top left pages. (A Teacher Librarian's delight to teach reference book skills with exciting content kids can't wait to read....they'll go through your lessons patiently just to get to the content!)

The photos leap off the pages thanks to the famous photographers at National Geographic who never fail to please and excite readers with amazing work that draws the reader into the content. And each page has a careful and deliberate customized layout to encourage the reader by deliberately and carefully parsing trivia facts and little known information that often drives my readers into heavier readings once their interest is tweaked.

Once the reader has gotten his/her fill of the "hottest" pages, within this source are articles like "Write a letter that gets results", "You can make a difference," "The Constitution and the Bill of Rights," ""How to write a perfect essay," "How a bill becomes Law," and so many other topics that teachers have to cover, but can become so dry and boring to our students. Presented within this exciting book, with the kind of attention that pop culture magazines use to captivate, we might be able to squeeze in some of the standards work that is so essential to academic success without our students even knowing it!

This weekend I'm respectfully tearing apart two of my copies to put them together to use with my document reader as 5 minute content starters with my students throughout the year to help encourage deeper readings of topics that students are learning in their classrooms.
I'm excited!

A multi-content "textbook" for $13.99 that kids will actually want to take home to read!

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011 Book Talk from Roxanne Clement on Vimeo.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0630-3

Life: America the Beautiful

The photographers of these beautiful landscape photographs created this Life coffee table book as a "photographic journey from coast to coast...and beyond."

They refer to the book as an invitation to entertain and inspire. 100 locations within the United States are explored in single and double page splendor in this oversized book.


I included this title in my tween collection as an essential part of the exploration of states, included in geography and US social studies standards during the tween years. If used strategically within states study, students can be inspired to do further research of these and other locations to develop their knowledge in United States geography, and further investigations of our 50 states of beauty.

Edited by Robert Sullivan
ISBN: 978-1-933821-15-3

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Ultimate Guide

REVIEW.

This is THE Guide for all Percy Jackson enthusiasts! The Ultimate Guide includes additional information to clarify Percy Jackson events and characters and deepen the reader's understandings, further enriching the entire reading experience.

I love the hologram figures on the front cover and the overlapping “locking” flap. Inside, the Ten signs that you might be a half blood...easily explains most tweens' views of the adults around them and behavior adults regularly observe in their tweens, such as  "suspicions that at least one of your teachers may not be human," odd events happening that cannot easily be explained, experiencing deja vu, the feeling that parents might not actually be your real parents, a friend that doesn't seem normal, feelings that you are being watched or followed, vivid recurring dreams, and fears and phobias. A diagnosis of dyslexia or ADHD is explained as godlike behaviors and qualities that elevate one beyond mere mortal, celebrating differences instead of being viewed as often-negative labels.

Other chapters include details of camp, Gods and spirits, the Labyrinth, Underworld, the Beastiary where mythological creatures are defined, and everything you wanted to know about Percy Jackson, including stats, his favorites, and his lack luster performance in school.

This is a companion book that adds interesting depth to the series. It includes maps, drawings and sketches, charts, and paintings that assist readers to visualize important characters and elements throughout the series. The guide also stimulates natural curiosity to find out more about the characters and events that occur within this very popular series and in Greek mythology.

ISBN: 978-1-4231-2171-8 

Reading Saves the Day!

ZOWEE!
We just completed our Fall Book Fair which runs virtually as a Book Store within our Library Media Center each Fall and Spring. Scholastic has outdone itself yet again with lots of new titles to read!

We just added up our sales and topped $10,000. even with this economy! We are so lucky to have a community that values reading and makes it a priority to support student learning!

As a result we have approximately $3000. of new titles for our school library, $100 worth of titles for each classroom library selected by each teacher, and we gave away over 40 titles to students through our Book Give Away online raffle run from our Media Center website. Students sign up for each title they would like to win and we announce the winners during Morning Ceremony the second week of our book fair. It has become the #1 favorite school wide event for our Bay Farm students as measured by our annual student survey.

I'll be tagging the titles reviewed here with "Book Fair" so you will be able to see some of the most favorite reads this fall from our Book Fair theme "Reading Saves the Day." And soon you will be able to also see what our students think about our books at Reading Saves the Day!

Encyclopedia Brown

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective
           written by Donald Sobol

My students have re-discovered a classic mystery series,  Encyclopedia Brown by Donald Sobol circa late 1980's. One of my teachers started reading them out loud, one story a day, and the class has now emptied out the entire shelf of these mini mysteries. The series is about a boy, Encyclopedia Brown age 10, whose father is the chief of police. Encyclopedia Brown has the gift of a memory that remembers literally anything and everything. He helps his father solve all the crimes in his town, although quietly behind the scenes. In each book there are up to ten mini mysteries to solve, with the actual solutions in the back of the book so the series lends itself to table talk discussions within the classroom or book clubs reading the series. Oldies but goodies!

Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective  ISBN: 978-1417786220

Google for IPad: Voice Search!

Google for iPad: Voice Search Tool
So quite by accident today I found a new app for my iPad and it's Google! Ok... so nothing really new about using Google to search.....but what is new...at least to me....is that I can now search Google on my ipad by speaking my keywords into each search! And I can easily search maps, images, even wikipedia using this new app for iPad! Talk about Ease of Use!

And I'll be using this with my tweens Monday at my projection station in the Library/Media Center where I'll have my students work with keywords to determine the best words to use when searching for their topic assignments from their classrooms, narrowing down focus and best use of keywords. Monday's classes are working on Native Americans, Explorers,  California geography, and States information. Can't wait!

The Missing: Books 1,2,3

"The Missing"  series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
(also the author of Book 10 of 39 Clues!)

In Book One: Found, we meet Jonah, his sister Katherine, and Chip, who have received mysterious letters telling them they are each one of the missing, and that someone is coming to get them.  Together they face the dangers of a smuggling operation, the FBI, and time travel. In Book Two: Sent, the friends  find out that they were kidnapped from different historical periods and experience time travel and the dangers of fifteenth century English royal intrigue. In Book Three: Sabotaged, the adventurers find themselves involved in another historical mystery; this time in the sixteenth century. Book Three was chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection and the author has won numerous awards for her other adventure and mystery series. Can't keep this series on my shelf!

The Missing
Book One: Found.   978-0-545-11645-9
Book Two: Sent.   978-1-4424-0767-1        
Book Three: Sabotaged.     978-0-545-29007-4

Using eBooks with Tweens

Using E-Books to Motivate Pupils Writing

This  Blip TV session shares a video presentation by Colin Hill an elementary teacher in England who presented this video for the K12.Online Conference in 2009. In the presentation he shares a WebTool called My eBook.com and provides a mini tutorial on how to create and publish an eBook. I was so excited when I found this today because this is a tool that we can truly use with our students to create and publish original eBook content. Imagine what tweens could do with this WebTool when you see examples created by 7-8 year olds!

Here is an e-book with his students' work published for everyone to be able to read:



Here is an example of a class poetry book created within class and then published as an eBook.



Here is an e-book of Cinderella, no longer in print. The future of publishing and preservation?