Books in the Hands of Kids Weekly + Great Teaching in the Classroom = Reading Gain

Is there a correlation between circulation statistics for our school library, great teaching in the classroom and higher reading scores?  Circulation has almost doubled at West Milwaukee Intermediate School since 2007. Teachers are working hard to encourage their students to read in the classroom and in their spare time.

This year, eighth graders made a 15% Advanced/Proficient gain in reading on the WKCE, compared to their scores in the sixth grade. Seventh graders made a 14% Advanced/Proficient gain in reading on the WKCE, since they started last year in the sixth grade.

Google Wonder Wheel

Three Good Reasons to Use Wonder Wheel




Wonder Wheel: A Search Thesaurus
Wonder Wheel is located in the left side panel on the Google search page. This wheel (of wonder) shows related search terms to the current searched query. It enables you or your students to explore relevant search terms which might be the ones you originally wanted to search for, or simply give you more options to gain more information.
Example: biomes

Boolify

Searching Smart With Boolify from AdamBellow on Vimeo.


"Boolify makes it easier for students to understand their web search by illustrating the logic of their search, and by showing them how each change to their search instantly changes their results. The goal of Boolify is to help users better to understand and perform Internet searches. Boolify utilizes the Google search engine, and therefore it is designed to illustrate Google's search methodology, which varies in some ways from strict Boolean logic."

Animoto in the Classroom

Animoto

Enhance your digital classroom with Animoto, the perfect tool for creating videos and presentations. It takes just minutes to create a video which can bring your lessons to life.
Educators can apply for a free Animoto Plus account to use in the classroom.

List serve ideas for using animoto:
The following are ideas for using Animoto within the classroom:

I use it to make book trailers.  The language arts teachers have used it to display six-word memoirs their students write.  They have the students each make a PowerPoint slide (and then convert those to .jpg files) with the six words they've chosen and a picture to represent their memoir.  The teachers create one Animoto video per class because of the limitation on song length.  Hope that makes sense.

Our teachers are using Animoto (grade 9 and 10) to do book trailers in English.  A Health teacher (9 grade) used it to do public service announcements for different drug use.  A Physic's team (grade 9) is talking about using it to explain the different possibilities for alternative energy choices.

The 9th grade English teacher and I just did a collaboration where the students did 30 second book trailers for their recreational reading books. The kids loved it, and got really into it, and the principal came down for a whole period to watch the finished products. Definitely something we will do again.

I started using it in persuasive writing.  A 5th grade teacher asked me for help and I suggested taking their writing and turning it into an Animoto movie.  They had written to their parents asking for a pet.  We condensed their arguments into 7 ppt slides (1 title slide, 3 slides for their points, 3 for parent responses)  They LOVED it! 
Preview a lesson, "hype it"

"Advertising" a field trip or event

Student projects: theme, tone, mood, symbolism, conflict, point of view

Persuasive visual essays

Visual narratives

Scrapbook or yearbook retrospective

Reports: work experience placement, presentation of cultural study of country, state reports

Music class: visuals to fit the musical style/composition being studied

6th Grade Students Present Research on the Great Depression using Edu.Glogster

Visual Story Telling - Door Scene Two

Visual Story Telling

Door Scene One

Is it possible to transform american education in an era increasingly shaped by visual media and advanced technology? Seventh and eighth grade TAG students begin to  master the skills needed for living and working in the 21st century by creating storyboards for film projects. 

Their first assignment was to film a sequence involving one actor opening a locked door while showing visible anxiety because of a sound. The actor is able to get to the other side of the door and show relief. Student groups needed to collaborate to decide roles in the film making process. Director, camera person, actor, editor.

The second assignment used the same scenario, but asked the groups to create a new ending.

Our Circulation Statistics are UP Again!

Statistics from September 1st to January 21st of each school year

were used to construct the graph below.

Our circulation statistics are up AGAIN at WMIS. Teachers worked with reading expert, Stephanie Harvey,  at the beginning of the school year. Ms. Harvey discussed research that tied higher student achievement with quiet, sustained, leisure reading every day in school. Teachers at West are making the effort to get to the LMC as often as possible for student selected reading materials. The LMC is also available to during student lunch breaks.

Good Reading on the Web

 

Recommended in The Comprehension Toolkit by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis


Ready-to-use short texts, engaging content and projects, and other valuable resources for kids and teachers are available just for the browsing.

www.nationalgeographic.com/kids	Explore geographic, scientific, and historical concepts, issues and events. Bibliographies and links to countless web sites to explore a given topic in depth.
www.timeforkids.com/TFK	Offers a variety of opportunities for kids and teachers including an archive link (http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/magazines/archive) that allows one to print any or all of the TFK articles in English and Spanish!
www.nwf.org/kids	Student section of the National Wildlife Foundation website. Information about animal conservation and animals in general. Click on Prowl the Past: Ranger Rick index to find the titles and locate any past articles in the Ranger Rick archives.
http://www.loc.gov/	Library of Congress. Click on kids and families to discover the compelling story of America's past as presented by the Library of Congress. Explore this site for anything you can imagine.
www.nytimes.com/learning	The New York Times kids' edition. News summaries, science Q&As, who's who and what's what features, as well as an opportunity to explore the NY Times learning network by subject.
http://www.thinkquest.org/	A library created by students for students. The ThinkQuest Library is a free educational resource featuring 5,500 plus websites created by students from around the world.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/	A site that explains how just about everything in the world works! Kids will love this!
http://www.whyfiles.org/	A site that gives us the science behind the news. Click on The Why Files in Education for an amazing array of information on scientific topics of all kinds.
http://www.nobelprize.org/	This site offers Nobel speeches, history of winners and their prizes, simulations for kids, and more.
http://www.freedomcenter.org/	The web site of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. Click on Learn or Educators for historic information, narratives, and lesson plans related to the Underground Railroad.
http://www.ocean.com/	Check this out for great information, photographs, and stories about anything pertaining to the ocean and to marine conservation.
http://www.ecokidsonline.com/	Ecokids is Earth Day Canada's environmental education program for youth who care about the planet. This web site is their interactive environmental web site for children, their families, and educators in Canada and around the world.
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/	The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service provides up-to-date weather forecasts. Click on Education/Outreach, and then NOAA Education Page for general educational information about the weather and a list of weather web sites of interest to kids.
http://www.exploratorium.org/	The site of the San Francisco-based Exploratorium Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception. This is packed with scientific information and interactive possibilities on a wide range of topics.
http://www.learner.org/	The site of the Annenberg Foundation to advance excellent teaching in America's schools. Information on school reform, professional development, teaching and learning, curriculum suggestions, and so on.
www.learner.org/students	The student section of the Learner.org site with interactive exhibits that focus on extensions of a concept or theme that is explored on the site.
www.learner.org/biographyofamerica	The history of America from New World encounters to contemporary history with information, narratives, maps and links to other relevant American history web sites.
http://www.classicsforkids.com/	A web site dedicated to hooking kids on classical music. As they say on their home page, "Classics for kids is here to help you learn about classical music and have fun too."
http://www.siforkids.com/	Sports Illustrated's web site for kids. Full of sports information, articles, radio programs, survey questions and more.
http://www.kidsdiscover.com/	The web site of Kids Discover magazine. Click on Teach and then click on A Look inside Every Title and you will discover an amazing list of resources that includes a list of web sites, children's books, adult books and community resources related to the title topic.
http://www.si.edu/	The Kids button on this Smithsonian Institution's web site leads you to a selection of arts, science and nature, history and culture, and people and places resources that support both social studies and science curriculums.
http://www.nasa.gov/education	The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's education site. Check out the Site Map for an impressive array of space-based resources. The site's designed -for-kids games and activities pique interest in the universe beyond our planet.
www.pbs.org/teachersource	From PBS, an educator's resource that allows you to search for featured lessons and activities by curriculum area.
http://www.mos.org/	The Boston Museum of Science web site contains both student ("Explore and Learn") and teacher ("Educator Tools") resources. The Virtual Exhibits provide great content for a variety of topic studies.
www.ushmm.org/education	With sections for students, teachers and families, as well as for adults and scholars, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides in-depth information about one of World War II's most shameful crimes.
www.sandiegozoo.org/kids	In addition to local zoo events, the San Diego Zoo web site offers a wealth of conservation and wildlife information, activities, and projects.