Drawing Frogs on the iPads

We have a new series of drawing books in the library published by AV2Books. They have some factual information about each subject followed by step-by-step drawing instructions but what makes these books unique is that for each book there is a special book code that your enter on the website and then you can access more information. There are website links, videos to watch, etc.

On Monday, division 4 brought their one-on-one iPads to the library and I shared the Pets book from the series. We drew the tree frog step-by-step using one of the drawing apps. The students needed to make decisions about what drawing tools and effects they would use. They also searched Google Images for photographs of different tree frogs.

I'll be watching to see how the students are using these new books at home and at school to see if we should be ordering some more!
~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Singing Away the Dark

This week's Chocolate Lily Book Award picture nominee was Singing Away the Dark by Caroline Woodward. The primary classes all really enjoyed the book. They appreciated the illustrations and the rhyming storyline.

Before reading the story, I felt the students needed to understand the context a little as it is so different from where the students live. I told them a bit about the author's childhood and described rural settings in British Columbia. Because our school is in a city and we are surrounded by neighbourhoods of houses, the log cabin home isolated from other homes was hard for the students to understand. I also needed to describe the weather of northern BC to them to help them understand the daily snow and cold in the winter which is so very different from what we experience in the Lower Mainland. I had the student recall what it was like walking to school in the snow last week (and they all have 5 minute walks or less or their parents drive them!) in order to help them understand the story better.

Comments from the students included:
The pictures were the best. -Zoe, div 11
It was a good idea for a book. - Julia, div 11
I liked the part when she is singing and the day comes out. - Tyler G., div 10
It looked so cold in the pictures. -Mia, div 10
The pictures are lovely. -Mya, div 9
The pictures are realistic. -Kylie, div 9
I learned that not all homes are in neighbourhoods. -Areej, div 9
I like how she got her "freaks" out. -Emily, div 9
It should win because it captures real life. We learned about a different part of BC. -Ifrah, div 8
It reminds you not to be scared of the dark and to do something to make you feel better. -Cathy, div 8
It reminds you of the old-fashioned days. -Evan, div 8
I like the style and details in the illustrations. -Victor, div 7
I like the silhouettes of the animals. - Sharon, div 7
There are lots of extra details in the illustrations. -Stuart, div 7
The story was good. -Calvin, div 7

I think this picture book opened the children's eyes to a different way of living. I think they could really relate to the six year old main character and her feelings.
~Ms Novakowski

storytelling with wordless books

Wordless books provide opportunities for students to "read illustrations" and create their own stories. Often, much detail is packed into the illustrations but sometimes they are more basic and much is left up to interpretation or inference. Our main school goal is developing ideas for writing and wordless books provide opportunities to visualize a story. We have been providing opportunities for students to orally tell the story they are viewing. Today, division 4 (grades 4 and 5) read the book The Museum Trip in the library. I stopped showing the students the illustrations after the first few pages and had them turn to a partner and "tell the introduction to the story". We continued looking at the book and stopping and telling the story. The students were captivated, wondered aloud, made predictions and inferences and were surprised by a few plot twists....all from the illustrations.
Four students volunteered to share a part of the story...
The Introduction

Part 1 of the Middle Part of the Story

Part 2 of the Middle Part of the Story

The Ending

Oral storytelling provides opportunities for students to synthesize their ideas, think about the flow of a story and use expression and emotion to enhance the story experience. 

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Divisions 1 and 2 (grades 6 and 7) also looked at a wordless picture book today, called DUDE. Actually, it had one word on each pages - Dude. The manner in which you read/say the word depends on the context of the story and the emotions of the character. Throughout the book, there are examples of the character being scared, embarrassed, being distraught, excited, etc. We paid special attention to the typography used for the word "dude" on each page...font style and size, colour, etc which gave us cluses to emotion being expressed in the illustration. This is a writing technique that students can add into their own writing to add interest and expression.

~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Stanley's Little Sister

Today the primary classes read Stanley's Little Sister by Vancouver author, Linda Bailey. Many of the students remembered the Stanley book that we read last year for the Chocolate Lily awards, Stanley's Beauty Pageant. A new cat named Fluffy is brought into Stanley's home and although he is not sure he wants a "little sister", he keeps trying to be a good dog and make friends.

Here are some of the comments from when I asked the students why this book should be an award-winning picture book:

"I love it because it has a good ending" - Tyler T. (div 10)

"The colours are beautiful" - Ginger (div 9)

"Stanley was nice He kept trying to be a friend" - Quizzy (div 8)

"It has good details/words" - Thomas (div 7)

I think what the students liked most about this book is that they could relate to the main character and his feelings.
~Ms Novakowski

Red Cedar Book Awards 2012

This week, all the intermediate classes were introduced to this year's Red Cedar Book Awards nominees in both the fiction and information book categories. Red Cedar is a long-standing tradition at Blair. Many of our intermediate students will read many of the titles, complete book reviews and roundtable discussions and then participate in voting for our favourite titles which then will be submitted by April. The students record and rate the books they've read on the recording sheets in the library.

A special thank you to the Blair PAC for the funding that allowed us to purchase two copies of each nominated book for our collection.
~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards: Compost Stew

This week, the primary classes read Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth. We had great discussions about composting and what kinds of things can be composted, what can't and why.
Their comments about the book included:
It's a rhyming book!
It's an ABC book!
The illustrations are nice.
I like the words and the pictures.
We learned about composting.
I liked the part when they took the lid off at the end.


The students then needed to think of something from the book (there were 26 things mentioned!) or something they knew could be composted (we talked about natural, from plants, etc) and they each contributed one item to our compost stew!

~Ms Novakowski

Chocolate Lily Book Awards 2012

Last week, the primary classes were introduced to the Chocolate Lily Book Awards and the picture book category winner from the 2011. The Chocolate Lily Book Awards acknowledge the talent of BC authors and illustrators in three categories: picture books, chapter books and novels. At the Blair Library, we began the picture book program last year as a way to involved the primary students in a book award program. We read all the books in the picture book category and the students reviewed, discussed and responded to the books in different ways. After reading all of them, we voted for our favourites and submitted our votes. Votes from all across BC were tallied and last year's winner was Fred and Pete at the Beach by Vancouver author and illustrator Cynthia Nugent, which happened to be our first choice as well!

We read Fred and Pete at the Beach and discussed what made it an award-winning book.

A special thank you to our PAC who contributed the funds to the library so that we could purchase two copies of each of these books.
~Ms Novakowski