Today was the BEST day EVER! I want to write this down while it is fresh in my mind.
Today the Caldecott Medal would be announced. Our second graders had participated in a Mock Caldecott Medal and today we planned on watching the event live which would start at 11am our time, right after gym. So, when we got back to the room I logged onto the website where the American Library Association Youth Media Awards would be streamed. I kept the sound off and didn't turn on the projector because I knew it would be a long wait for my second graders before the Caldecott would be announced. I planned on doing Writing Workshop while we waited, but I was so nervous I couldn't concentrate on settling myself down to start conferring! So, I took my ipad out and started following #alayma on twitter. I couldn't wait any longer and like an impatient child waiting for their birthday party to begin I called my colleagues and told them it was time to come down to my room for the Caldecott announcements. There was a buzz in the air as I announced our Mock Caldecott Winners. I explained that there was a very good chance that our choices would not win, and in fact we may have not even read the winning books. However, I assured them if this was the case we would have new books to read!
We got warmed up when Each Kindness was announced as a Coretta Scott King Honor book. There was surprised applause all around. When it was announced that there were 5 Caldecott Honor books you could hear everyone OOOHHHH! The cheers and applause were deafening as students heard the names of books that we had read together and that they loved so very much. I was jumping up and down I was so excited. When Jon Klassen's This Is Not My Hat was announced I couldn't believe it! More cheers and applause. I was near tears to see how excited my students were and how excited my colleagues were - it was incredible. It felt like we were at a rock concert and we were cheering our favorite rock stars. And I thought, this is how it should be, our authors and illustrators should be celebrities to these kids!
As we listened to the Newbery Award be announced and I heard the words, The One and Only Ivan, I cheered so loud you would have thought I wrote the book! As I looked around the room and saw the delighted surprise on the faces of all the second graders tears welled up in my eyes. We had read Ivan earlier in the year as part of the Global Read Aloud, but our focus on the awards had been the Caldecott. After all, Newbery books are not often read in second grade classrooms. I had fell in love with the book over the summer and followed all the twitter chatter about this glorious book, but I knew there were probably many other Newbery contenders that I had not read.
Today was an incredible and amazing day. With all the focus lately on budget cuts, testing and teacher evaluations it has been difficult at times to keep my "eyes on the prize" as they say. I am so glad I had the honor and privilege to share these books with my students and colleagues, and I am so very thankful for my inspiring Twitter PLN. I can go back to school tomorrow energized, with my new bag of books from the bookstore, and continue helping my young readers fall in love with reading and books.
Congratulations to all the book award recipients. You truly are rock stars!
You can view a list of the award winning books here.
Showing posts with label Caldecott Medal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Caldecott Medal. Show all posts
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Mock Caldecott 2013 - Part 1
I love picture books. I read at least 2 to my class of second graders on most days. I use them to model all sorts of reading strategies and writing craft. They are wonderful for teaching valuable lessons and to help solve many a problem that occur with a group of 7 year olds. And sometimes I read them just because they make me laugh or cry, or they have touched me in some way. And I think, I can't wait to read this book to my class!
This year I decided to hold a Mock Caldecott Award. I first got the idea while reading Mr. Schu's blog, Watch. Connect. Read. He and Colby Sharp had joined forces to hold a Mock Caldecott together. They both are full of information, energy and book love. Travis Jonker, author of 100 Scope Notes was also kind enough to share documents he used to create his Mock Caldecott project. I was able to change them a bit to meet my needs easily.
Choosing the books was extremely difficult for many reasons. First, I needed to create a manageable number of titles so I decided that about 20 titles would be a good number. (I ended up with 18.) When deciding which titles to include I made sure that I liked them a lot and that other readers in my PLN also agreed with me. I also tried to include a variety of different types of illustrations and stories. There is a wordless book, an alphabet book and even a book that uses photographs. Then I also had to either own a copy or be able to check one out at the library. This is where I had some difficulty. Some of the books were not available at the library for check out this month - someone else had checked them out.
Of course I know there are books I left out simply because I have not read them yet. I wish I had a book store that was very close and I could visit weekly to purchase newly published books, but I don't. It is so nice to look inside them before purchasing. My public library will always order books I request but they can take months to arrive. (Note to self: buy more books.)
All 5 second grade classes at my school are participating so that will be lots of fun. I arranged the books in groups of 3 or 4 and these groups will rotate through the classrooms until everyone has rated the books. Each class will rate the book on a scale of 1-5 for the story and for the illustrations. The illustration ratings will count for double I decided.
My class began rating several of the books last week. The conversations were very passionate and students had strong opinions about each book. Although I explained over and over that the award was for the best illustrations, students often had a hard time separating the two, which isn't surprising because they are so connected. We have talked a lot about the style of illustrations that each artist used and I was delighted and impressed when students noticed the choices made regarding the use of color. One student was so passionate about the illustrations in One Cool Friend I thought she would start to cry when she couldn't get the rest of the class to agree that the artist was clever to use color so sparingly. I thought it was interesting that many of my students said they didn't like the story, Each Kindness that much because it was sad. But they gave the illustrations high marks because they said they looked so real.
On Friday my class was so excited about the Mock Caldecott Award that I decided to let them videotape their opinions for our class blog. They were done very quickly, and I provided only general guidelines. As with everything in teaching, they are very informative about what my students understand! (But they are cute.)
What books do you think I left out that should have been included?
What book do you think will win the Caldecott Medal?
This year I decided to hold a Mock Caldecott Award. I first got the idea while reading Mr. Schu's blog, Watch. Connect. Read. He and Colby Sharp had joined forces to hold a Mock Caldecott together. They both are full of information, energy and book love. Travis Jonker, author of 100 Scope Notes was also kind enough to share documents he used to create his Mock Caldecott project. I was able to change them a bit to meet my needs easily.
Choosing the books was extremely difficult for many reasons. First, I needed to create a manageable number of titles so I decided that about 20 titles would be a good number. (I ended up with 18.) When deciding which titles to include I made sure that I liked them a lot and that other readers in my PLN also agreed with me. I also tried to include a variety of different types of illustrations and stories. There is a wordless book, an alphabet book and even a book that uses photographs. Then I also had to either own a copy or be able to check one out at the library. This is where I had some difficulty. Some of the books were not available at the library for check out this month - someone else had checked them out.
Of course I know there are books I left out simply because I have not read them yet. I wish I had a book store that was very close and I could visit weekly to purchase newly published books, but I don't. It is so nice to look inside them before purchasing. My public library will always order books I request but they can take months to arrive. (Note to self: buy more books.)
All 5 second grade classes at my school are participating so that will be lots of fun. I arranged the books in groups of 3 or 4 and these groups will rotate through the classrooms until everyone has rated the books. Each class will rate the book on a scale of 1-5 for the story and for the illustrations. The illustration ratings will count for double I decided.
My class began rating several of the books last week. The conversations were very passionate and students had strong opinions about each book. Although I explained over and over that the award was for the best illustrations, students often had a hard time separating the two, which isn't surprising because they are so connected. We have talked a lot about the style of illustrations that each artist used and I was delighted and impressed when students noticed the choices made regarding the use of color. One student was so passionate about the illustrations in One Cool Friend I thought she would start to cry when she couldn't get the rest of the class to agree that the artist was clever to use color so sparingly. I thought it was interesting that many of my students said they didn't like the story, Each Kindness that much because it was sad. But they gave the illustrations high marks because they said they looked so real.
On Friday my class was so excited about the Mock Caldecott Award that I decided to let them videotape their opinions for our class blog. They were done very quickly, and I provided only general guidelines. As with everything in teaching, they are very informative about what my students understand! (But they are cute.)
What books do you think I left out that should have been included?
What book do you think will win the Caldecott Medal?
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