5th grade tech + K-3 picture books = lots of fun for all!

Animoto is a great site that lets users quickly and easily make their own videos using a variety of templates and different musical scores. Recently 5th graders learned all about Creative Commons, why it's important to use images that are licensed for re-use, and how to search for, download and save the URLs for these images.

They worked individually or in pairs, selecting one of the Washington Children's Choice Picture Book Award nominees, and creating a video book trailer to promote their title. Along the way they also developed a greater appreciation of how trailers work - how to make them tantalizing by including a hook that catches your viewers' attention, and how to reveal enough, but not too much, of the plot.

In classes this week, K-3 students are viewing the trailers before voting. They deliberate seriously over their choices and wait with anticipation for the results to be announced! We will announce our school's winner next Monday but may have to wait a few weeks to find out who won at the state level - typically over 100,000 students vote every year!

All the 5th graders did a wonderful job with their videos. Here are a few for you to enjoy!

Out of This World: Poems and Facts about Space by Amy Sklansky - trailer by Zoe

The Monster's Monster by Patrick McDonnell - trailer by Lindsay and Tristan

 

Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet by Kelly DiPucchio - trailer by Thomas and Adam

 

Our 3rd & 4th grade book club: Ramin Ganeshram's Stir It Up!

This year our 3rd & 4th grade book club choice was Stir It Up! by Ramin Ganeshram. I chose this book thinking it would resonate with our students - and it certainly did! Stir It Up! tells the story of Anjali, a Trinidadian American girl of Asian Indian descent growing up in New York City. She is a talented and passionate cook who dreams of becoming a celebrity chef. But she is torn by her love and loyalty to her family who have worked hard starting over in America so that she can get a great education. Becoming a chef seems like a let-down compared to going to the academically exclusive Stuyvesant High School. What happens when Anjali has to choose between taking the Stuyvesant entrance exam and auditioning for a Food Network show? Read the book and find out!

 

 

Students role playing a crucial scene between Anjali and her parents.

Take a look at some of these wonderful letters students wrote to Ms. Ganeshram! The original book is sprinkled with mouth-watering recipes from Trinidad, as well as creative ones for success, inspiration, etc.  

 

 

 

Carmen Agra Deedy came to our school!

We were incredibly fortunate last week to welcome renowned storyteller and author, Carmen Agra Deedy, to our school all the way from her home in Georgia! She kept kindergartners, and first and second graders spellbound for a full 45 minutes with a hilarious Juan Bobo noodlehead story! Third and fourth graders got to hear one of her beloved Dill and Corky tales, about her early years in Decatur, not long after her family arrived from Cuba.


Carmen also did a mini workshop with third graders as well as conducting a full-day writing workshop with fourth grade. It was so rewarding for students to have a chance to learn tips for improving their creative writing and better understanding how a compelling narrative structure works.

Carmen's warmth, sense of humor and enthusiasm were contagious. I saw children brimming over with delight and, despite the long and intense day of writing, some couldn't bear to tear themselves away from their notebooks and go outside for a break.

 

Her visit supported our Spanish program and also gave students in our very diverse, multicultural community access to a successful, bicultural, bilingual adult role model! Teens and adults will enjoy her TED Talk, "Spinning a Story of Mama," and upper elementary through adult listeners shouldn't miss "My Father the Whiz: A Cuban Refugee's Response to Jim Crow."

Having fun while learning research skills in 4th grade

Frankly learning research skills isn't at the top of most students' list of fun activities. However, in this digital age there is no question that it is a must! 4th graders recently completed their Mystery Square projects. This activity immersed them in print and digital resources, synthesizing what they learned into something new, reinforcing previous paraphrasing practice, and giving them honest feedback from peers!

First students selected a country by choosing a popsicle stick from a jar. This introduced suspense but let me exercise a bit of control (I excluded countries that might be too obscure, as well as ones that many students have a lot of personal familiarity with)!

Next, they practiced their nonfiction comprehension skills by locating and paraphrasing facts about their country from the Enchantment of the World series and the CultureGrams database.
They reflected on all they'd learned and answered the following questions:

1. What is one important thing that you think everyone should know about your country?

2. What is one thing you admire about your country that we in America could learn from?

The answers to these questions were thoughtful and fascinating! For example, one student wrote about Haiti, "This country has suffered from poverty, but even through tough times they still managed to push through," and "The kids in this country have to help their parents to survive and I think kids in America should help their parents more."

The next step was creating their mystery squares with their four clues they thought were best on the outside flaps. Here's one for France: 

 

In the middle of the square they put their country's flag. Here is Ethiopia: 



 

We recorded each student reading out their clues and our last class session was devoted to a lively guessing game. They watched the videos, wrote their guesses on a mini whiteboard, and then waited with bated breath to see if they were right!

 

 

Video contest for teens - spark your own reaction!

Think you can "Spark a Reaction" and encourage other teens to read? If you're 13-18, you're eligible to enter this year's Teen Video Challenge sponsored by the Collaborative Summer Library Program.

You need to enter through your state of residence; the link to the Washington State Library's contest page is here. Your video encouraging teens to read over the summer should be 30-90 seconds long and should pertain to this year's theme, "Spark a Reaction!" Each state winner/winning group receives $275 - and, of course, the honor of publicity for their work.

Get out those video cameras - and take a look at this clever past winner from New York state - Alice in the Maximum Potter Games:

 

If you search YouTube or Vimeo for "CLSP" or "Teen Video Challenge" you can find many other entries for guidance and inspiration.

Book club fun!

Our second grade lunch recess book club had their first meeting on Wednesday! We're reading Almost Zero by Nikki Grimes, the third installment in her Dyamonde Daniel series. (The third grade club, which is reading the same book, starts today and the combined third/fourth grade club, reading Ramin Ganeshram's Stir It Up, meets on Monday!)

Kids who join book club are voluntarily giving up recess once a week to gather in the library learning commons to talk about what they read.

Almost Zero is a short book with a lot of depth. It is accessible even to young chapter book readers, but the subjects it deals with are profound ones: needs vs. wants, what parents owe their children, good manners and respect for others, compassion and generosity and gratitude...

We started off by discussing some of these topics. Students talked in pairs about what parents should do for their children - and they came up with some very insightful answers. Everyone agreed that one thing parents owe their children is guidance, which includes limits on behavior and possessions - sometimes saying "no" to requests or demands. This insight emerged independently from a group of 7 and 8 year olds, which really impressed me!

Next, the students worked in pairs to act out the scene from the book in which Dyamonde rudely insists that her mother has to buy her the expensive sneakers she wants. As you can see from their body language, they really got into the spirit of things! Their goal was to see if they could negotiate a different solution. We had some very strict "mothers" who reacted even more strongly than the mom in the book - but others gave a conditional "yes" (as long as Dyamonde saved up to pay for part of the cost herself).

We had so much fun on Wednesday and I can't wait to see what third graders do today!

Growing the next generation of leaders: the Student Diversity Leadership Retreat

In February, two 7th graders and two 8th graders (one boy and one girl from each grade) will represent our school at the third biannual middle school Student Diversity Leadership Retreat sponsored by the Northwest Association of Independent Schools.

Featuring around 100 attendees from schools in Washington, Oregon Utah and Nevada, the conference brings together caring young people and challenges them to become more aware of issues surrounding inclusivity and diversity in their school communities - and beyond. The hope is that they will use their new awareness to improve their middle schools and also hit the ground running as leaders in diversity when they enter high school. (Scroll down for more information on how to apply!)

Here are our 2012 OWS representatives at Northwest School!

The theme of the last middle school SDLR was "Is There a 'Me' in Media?" On Friday evening, students watched the young people's version of the powerful documentary, Miss Representation, which was created by an independent school parent. Afterwards they discussed the points raised by the film about bias in media portrayals of women.

Saturday was devoted to sessions led by high school students on a wide variety of topics relating to media literacy, including social networking (how we perceive others and how they perceive us), being advocates for equality through social media, reality TV and the value of privacy, and humor and stereotypes. Students concluded the retreat by creating public service announcements in their school groups to share the messages they found most important with their peers.

If you are a 7th or 8th grader at OWS and would like to apply to represent us at the 2014 middle school SDLR at Catlin Gabel School in Portland, OR, just fill out, print and sign the brief application form available on My Open Window on the Information Literacy Resource board and in the Downloads section of the 7th and 8th grade Advisory pages. It was also sent to your parents in email on November 8th. ***The deadline is November 22nd! Decisions will be announced by winter break!***