Too many elephants in this school!

NSS

Coinciding with today’s National Simultaneous Storytime 2014, here’s a box of elephants from the picture book, “Too many elephants in this house” by Ursula Dubosarsky and Andrew Joyner. It was created with masking tape, red acrylic paint with sponged shading, blue corrugated cardboard, black ink permanent marker and pink and silver waterbomb balloons. Trunks were cut from matching pink and silver plastic partyware bowls.

Week 21 Boxes

Week 21 Boxes Back of Elephant house

This back panel was left unpainted deliberately. Note the yellow plastic ladder emerging from the chimney hole.

Week 21 Boxes last one in
One more elephant squeezes in!

Here’s a great book trailer for the picture book:


Too many elephants in this house by Ursula Dubosarsky
& Andrew Joyner


And an elephant story we once retold as a digital slideshow on PhotoPeach:


The elephant’s child

UPDATE:
Just before 11.00 this morning, the school library at Penrith Public School was invaded by a herd of tiny elephants, to help celebrate National Simultaneous Storytime 2014:

Elephants

Elephants 2

Elephants 3

Book trailers and other digital stories

This presentation to the teacher-librarians of Granville District, followed by a practical workshop, looks at how teacher-librarians can work with students to create book trailers to enrich learning, maximising the engagement of students in literacy activities. Applications used to make trailers will be looked at and discussed, also how they can be used as a resource in a school library and in classrooms, and how they can help promote reading.


The kookaburra who stole the moon: retold by Class 1/2Sa

* BRAINSTORMING (using Circle Time) – consider audience, theme, length, 30 images
* STORYBOARDING (using a book rap template) – small groups
* WILL YOU USE PHOTOS (“Creative Commons”), drawings, cutouts, puppets, toys, claymation, or actors in dress-up box clothing?
* UPLOADING – to Photo Peach or other Web 2.0 facility – Flickr slideshow, PowerPoint/Keynote, podcast/Youtube, IWB Notebook software?
* EDITING, and adjusting timing to the selected music
* SHARING with the wider community – monitor incoming public comments regularly, or close them off.

* RAP RESOURCES (NSW DEC) for making digital stories and book trailers

* Bear and Chook POWERPOINTS

* FLICKR slideshow repositories – and with CAPTIONS added or EXPLORE Creative Commons

* Commercial BOOK TRAILERS on Youtube, eg:


In the lion book trailerJames Foley

* This year’s CBCA Book Week theme was: “Read across the universe”. A starting point?

* The kookaburra who stole the moon on FLICKR, and also on PHOTO PEACH.

Kooka10

Further reading (articles by Ian McLean):

* ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
Stage 1 students narrate how they inquire, learn, create and share with ICT and Web 2.0 to produce online Photo Peach slideshows at Penrith Public School. View the article online HERE. The Photo Peach slideshow featured in this article is recently restored, and now located at photopeach.com/album/18cw2b6.

* ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.
Stage 2 students at Penrith Public School created storyboards and PowerPoint digital stories as resources to support Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students working on the Bear and Chook books rap, which ran during the subsequent term.

* ‘Circle time: maximising opportunities for talking and listening at Penrith Public School’ in Scan 26(4) November 2007, pp 4-7.
Circle Time is a structured framework for social and emotional learning which promotes a positive class ethos. Moving from class teacher back into the school library, I incorporated Circle Time and information skills into a range of collaborative literacy and ICT activities, including book raps.

QR codes and MANTLE conference

Workshop 1:

QR codes – those now-ubiquitous, distinctive, square barcodes – are on advertising posters, business cards and websites. For last year’s MANTLE conference, I made use of a QR code phone app, I-nigma, from iTunes. Apart from a few tests, I haven’t really done very much with this aspect of technology. But the possibilities may be endless!

I have created QR codes for the websites I am referencing in my MANTLE talks this week. For example:

QRCodeBooked Inn blog

Blue

GoldQuest

QRCode
GoldQuest blog

Blue

Penrith PS Library wiki

QRCode
Penrith PS Library wiki

Blue

Penrth PS rappers and bloggers

QRCode
Penrith PS rappers & bloggers

Blue

PhotoPeach

QRCode
My PhotoPeach profile page

Blue

QRCode
PMBW TL professional learning group

QRCode
QR codes Kaywa generator

QRCode
NSW DEC CLIC raps and book raps

Blue

Endangered animals

QRCode
Stage 3’s Endangered animals: beyond the rainforest

Blue

Workshop 2: This workshop will look at how to make book trailers and their use in engaging students in literacy and reading activities. Applications used to make trailers will be looked at and discussed, also how they can be used as a resource in a school library and in classrooms and how they can help promote literacy and reading. Ways to engage students in these resources to augment their learning experiences will be modeled and discussed.

* Brainstorming (using Circle Time) – consider audience, theme, length, 30 images
* Storyboarding (using a book rap template) – small groups
* Will you use photos (“Creative Commons”), drawings, cutouts, puppets, toys, claymation, or actors in dress-up box clothing?
* Upload – to Photo Peach or other Web 2.0 facility – Flickr slideshow, PowerPoint/Keynote, podcast/Youtube, IWB Notebook software?
* Edit, adjust timing to the selected music
* Share with wider community – monitor incoming public comments regularly, or close them off.

* Rap resources (NSW DEC) for making digital stories and book trailers

* Bear and Chook PowerPoints

* Flickr slideshow repositories – and with captions added or Explore Creative Commons

* Commercial book trailers on Youtube, eg:


In the lion book trailerJames Foley

* This year’s CBCA Book Week theme is: “Read across the universe”. A starting point?

Further reading (articles by Ian McLean):

* ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.
Stage 1 students narrate how they inquire, learn, create and share with ICT and Web 2.0 to produce online Photo Peach slideshows at Penrith Public School. View the article online HERE.

* ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.
Stage 2 students at Penrith Public School created storyboards and PowerPoint digital stories as resources to support Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students working on the Bear and Chook books rap, which ran during the subsequent term.

* ‘Circle time: maximising opportunities for talking and listening at Penrith Public School’ in Scan 26(4) November 2007, pp 4-7.
Circle Time is a structured framework for social and emotional learning which promotes a positive class ethos. Moving from class teacher back into the school library, I incorporated Circle Time and information skills into a range of collaborative literacy and ICT activities, including book raps.

UPDATE to Workshop 2:
During the above presentation, members of the audience suggested a few possible captions, in keeping with Book Week’s “Read Across the Universe” theme, and my intention was to get the Stage 3 students, back at school, to complete the brainstorming of the rest of the captions during Book Week. As the events of that week overwhelmed us, I filed away the groups’ A3 planning sheets, but dug them out again this week – and was thrilled with their results. A reminder to those on iPads: the latest version of Flash is required, so you’ll need to use a regular computer to see Photo Peach slideshows.

As promised, here is the finished slideshow:


Read across the universe by 5/6E

and an additional set of bookish/SF images that got the students’ conversations going:


Book Week 2013

By the way, we found “Robot jokes” during a Google search:
boyslife.org/about-scouts/merit-badge-resources/robotics/19223/robot-jokes/

and we were surprised to find that there are interactive “Yoda speech generator” sites (it started out as a joke that there might be one – and there were several!), such as:
www.yodaspeak.co.uk/

A magical morning with Phyllis Wong’s friends

Phyllis Wong cover

Today, at The Children’s Bookshop, Beecroft, Paul Macdonald introduced the irrepressible author Geoffrey McSkimming, of “Cairo Jim” fame, to a young audience who’d come to celebrate the start of Book Week with some magic! Geoffrey read from his new novel, “Phyllis Wong and the Forgotten Secrets of Mr Okyto”, the first in a projected series of six books. His professional magic adviser on the book, Sue-Anne Webster, performed some wonderful feats with the help of members of the audience. There were autographs and collectible lapel badges for all!

Paul Macdonald introduces Geoffrey McSkimming
Paul Macdonald introduces Geoffrey McSkimming

Geoffrey 1

Geoffrey 4

Sue-Anne Webster

Geoffrey and Sue-Anne

Geoffrey's imagination
Author Geoffrey McSkimming is about to unleash his “Saturday imagination”, and magician Sue-Anne Webster prepares to catch it in a paper bag at The Children’s Bookshop. For his weekday imagination, Geoffrey would need a bigger container.

Geoffrey 3whiteGeoffrey 2

A highlight of the event:

Geoffrey: “Any questions?”

Comment from audience: “What’s behind that black cloth?”

Geoffrey: “Books I didn’t write.”


Phyllis Wong and the forgotten secrets of Mr Okyto – book trailer

and, as presented by the author, Geoffrey McSkimming:

I found a Youtube clip of Sue-Anne performing rope tricks:

Sue-Anne Webster magic ropes

Book trailers for Book Week

The students and I have begun to explore some book trailers, both official and student-created, for the CBCA shortlisted books of 2012:


The last Viking book trailer – Norman Jorgensen & James Foley


The golden door book trailer – Emily Rodda


Rudie nudie book trailer – Emma Quay

Here’s a persuasive digital slideshow questioning whether the Tasmanian thylacine is really extinct:

Compare this Youtube video clip to the picture book, “The dream of the thylacine” by Margaret Wild & Ron Brooks.

Jack’s ponto

Ponto

I am currently reading “I am Jack” by Susanne Gervay to all of Stage 2 and 3. Here’s my newly-made prop: Jack’s “ponto”, from the novel. (Jack has managed to graft an onion to a potato to invent a new vegetable, which he calls a “ponto”).


“I an Jack” trailer on Youtube


Highlights from the “I am Jack” stage show – with Tim McGarry as Jack.

Sneak preview: new from Emma Quay!

What a thrill to receive an email from writer/illustrator Emma Quay today, with a link to her just-off-the-hard-drive video book trailer for her new Early Childhood picture book, “Nudie rudie”! The book is due in November.

It’s wonderful, and I reckon it might have you thinking back to days of bath times past at your house?

“Bear and Chook by the sea” trailer

Bear and Chook Book Trailer by Marcus from SLJ Trailee Nominees on Vimeo.

This wonderful book trailer is currently nominated in a competition being run by the School Library Journal in the USA. Marcus Graham, son of a teacher librarian colleague I’ve only ever met online (via the NSW DET book raps) is ten years old and recently won the CBCA Book Trailer competition. He is now in the top four for student-created trailers for elementary (primary) students. His trailer is based on “Bear and Chook by the sea” by Lisa Shanahan & Emma Quay.

The winner is chosen by a an online voting facility. The link for viewing the nominees’ trailers and voting is here and is open until 21 October, 2010. Thanks for the tip Stacey and Marcus. And good luck in the Trailee Awards!

Emma Quay’s first book trailer!

The students at my school are thrilled that gold-medal winning illustrator, Emma Quay (of “Bear and Chook by the sea” fame), has just shared her first book trailer with us! It’s for her new picture book, “Shrieking Violet”:

Emma had been very impressed with our own efforts in video podcasting, and with the “Creative Commons” music we’d selected to accompany our images. And now it’s our turn to say, “Wow!”