National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

What a fun day, as about 400 Penrith PS students (including the pre-schoolers in our “Play and Chat” group) joined thousands of Australian children and teachers across Australia, in schools and in public libraries, in a simultaneous reading of Rod Clement’s picture book, “Feathers for Phoebe“. Some of us watched a Youtube video clip (below), others read the book on an IWB (above, in our new school library), or using the book with buddy classes.

Here is the ALIA podcast of “Feathers For Phoebe” via Youtube:

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011
Mr McLean reads “Feathers For Phoebe” for Stage 2.

National Simultaneous Storytime 2011

View our Photo Peach slideshow of the event!

UPDATE:

Here is a close-captioned, Auslan version of the ALIA Youtube podcast:

And our PhotoPeach digital story:


Clifford & Phoebe at Penrith PS

Finding feathers for Phoebe

This year, ALIA’s annual National Simultaneous Storytime event is Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clement. Phoebe is a small grey bird who gets herself decorated in colourful feathers, and develops a new song and new moves, in order to attempt to get noticed. We plan to do this as a whole school event, probably split across four groups.

Phoebe

I was thrilled to notice some black-painted wooden bird templates in a local “Sam’s Warehouse” bargain store (at $4.00 each), which I’ve since painted with grey enamel. I hope to have one decorated in feathers in time for the big event on 25th May at 11.00am.

Phoebe feathers

Yesterday, I found a great little mask, decorated with peacock-feathers and sequins, which should prove useful as part of Phoebe’s new look. Numerous bargain stores sell packets of assorted feathers for craft work – and then I found these cute little styrofoam birds, already decorated with sequins, gold tinsel and coloured feathers, at just $3.00 each:

Phoebe birds

Green eggs and little white dogs

National read-aloud

The last few years we’ve participated in ALIA’s Simultaneous Storytime (K-6), but we were inspired by the success our K-2 students being a part of the “Cat in the hat” Read-aloud of 2007, which celebrated an important Seuss anniversary.

This year, we”d already planned to have a K-6 (and extended school community) reading picnic at the end of Term 1, so adding “Green eggs and ham” to the agenda of the afternoon was relatively easy. We realised that, being so close to Easter, there should be no shortage of green eggs: every supermarket should have green foil-wrapped chocolate eggs on hand, and we are thinking of some rhyming challenges to add to the day. A green clothing mufti day might also be fun!

Of course, having celebrated the 50th anniversary of “Green eggs and ham” in Term 1 won’t stop us from joining the Simultaneous Storytime 2010, which this year is “Little white dogs can’t jump” by Bruce Whatley & Rosie Smith (HarperCollins).

Sheep thrills

The annual National Simultaneous Storytime is almost upon us again! 27th May, 11.00am. Our school had so much fun with “Arthur” last year, and we are sure the students will enjoy this year’s picture book, “Pete the sheep” by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley.

I just received an email from ALIA containing a link to a downloadable “Pete the sheep” PowerPoint presentation. (We’ll be able to use it to christen our new interactive whiteboard!) HarperCollins Publishers Australia has organised for “Pete the sheep” to be available as a PowerPoint presentation for NSS participants to assist with large storytime readings of the book.

Register on ALIA’s site to access the PowerPoint file. The email also contained a link to some promotional “Pete the sheep” blackline activity sheets, drawn by Bruce Whatley himself, and these are also downloadable from the National Simultaneous Storytime site. Bruce is to be a special guest at Shoalhaven Libraries’ Storytime in Nowra, for those in that vicinity.

Mmmm. How can we top that? Well, one of our teachers lives on a farm, and we are now wondering if she has a friendly sheep she can bring to school on the day?

Simultaneously split loyalties

Sometimes you just can’t be in several places at the same time! (Even when uploading posts; it should have still been 21st May when I posted this!)
Arthur
For our very successful Simultaneous Reading of the picture book Arthur, the teachers had voted to do the readings in three sections and three locations, but I wasn’t able to stretch myself sufficiently to get to all three places. As agreed, Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students and teachers (and lots of parents) gathered in the assembly hall with a big book version of Arthur, an official Arthur finger puppet, and a large, fluffy dog hand puppet, which had a striking resemblance to the title star. Stage 2 came to the library and had orgainsed selected students to reading passage. Stage 3 went to the old upstairs hall, and used an online version of the book, enlarged onto a big screen via the data projector. (That was the group I couldn’t get to, but the students seemed to enjoy their experience.)

Speaking of split loyalties, I had realised a few days ago that we had so much on today (the above-mentioned reading; our first Stage 3 sessions of a new book rap; the Greatest Morning Tea charity fundraiser; a mufti day for a belated Loud Shirt Day; and a canned drink collection to prepare for our upcoming, annual Pedlars’ Fair), I didn’t have the heart to abandon it all for the local district teacher-librarians’ professional development day. Drat. (I wonder if the T-Ls, too, ended up reading Arthur at 11 am?)

Every day is different; I wouldn’t have it any other way. And somehow I must find time with each class, over the next week, to squeeze in a great little wiki activity, to further follow-up Arthur. Although our school doesn’t have an interactive whiteboard (yet), I do find myself reconfiguring lessons so they’ll work well with the IWB (next time) when it does arrive.

“Arthur” online

Era Publications have set up “Arthur online”.

You need to register at http://www.in2era.com.au/ by filling in the form at the bottom of the web page. You will be able to login and preview the book from 14th May in preparation for the ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime event on 21st May. Great for large groups.

Planning for simultaneous “Arthur”

Arthur

I have organised a wiki activity page based on the picture book, Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell, which is the book being used for the upcoming ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime on Wednesday 21st May at 11.00 am (Term Two, Week 5). A group of nearby Priority Schools Programs (PSP) schools have recently formed a professional network, to prepare for our forthcoming interactive whiteboards. The Penrith Reading Project: Books from Birth (another local PSP initiative, containing different local schools), has also been invited to join us for the reading.

My colleague, Kerrie Mead, and I have been brainstorming possible activities to support Simultaneous Reading Day. Here’s what a draft of what we plan to present to the staff of our own school on Monday, and we’ll be making the material available online – as a blog and wiki – for the other schools. (An email today tells me that the ALIA site offers even more activities, many downloadable.)

On Wednesday 21st May 2008, at 11.00 am, children all over Australia will be reading, listening to and commenting on the same story at the same time. The featured book is Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell.

At 11:00 am we could:

* Gather in the hall and listen to the story en masse: one reader, readers from a single group (class, Student Representative Council members, captains and prefects, teachers, parents or __________________ ).

* Gather in three groups (Early Stage 1 and Stage 1; Stage 2; Stage 3) in the hall, upstairs area and library and read the story as above.

Before the day: (in class, at Stage meeting, at assemblies)

* Let the students know about it – the purpose of the exercise, the significance of this kind of literary activity, how it might be the same/different in each school. (Great Circle Time material!)

* Familiarise your students with the text. (See ideas below.)

* Outline how the event will be held – ask for ideas which the students think might improve the plan and let us know before the day!

* Promote the event in the school newsletter.

* Signage around the school for parents and students.

* Check out the official ALIA page, and links to free blackline activity sheets.

* Supplement our resources with official posters and the link to Era Publications.

After the event:

* Ask your students for feedback – eg. The best thing was… ; I didn’t expect that to happen; next time… , etc.

* Tell the PSP committee what you really think.

Some ideas to familarise your students in all the wonderful ways you know how to capture their imagination! (Our school has rounded up several copies of the Arthur picture book, a big book version, two sequels and an Arthur hand puppet.)

Early Stage 1/Stage 1:

Who is in the story? Where does it take place? (eg. Paint Arthur or your pet, write a list, make a shop diagram, role play, add a pet image to the wiki.)

What is Arthur’s problem? How does he try to solve it? (eg. Feelings barometer, descriptive writing, pet ownership graph, alliterative pet adjectives for the wiki – perfect pup, quaint quarrion, timid tabby.)

Pets need… – but what might pets want?

If I was a pet I’d like to be a ………………………. because …………………………

Interactive learning objects from TaLe (click on Primary and use search engine).

Stage 2:

Any or all of the above, plus

Descriptor matrix (eg. “Purple, spotty, three-headed wombat”) – and then create it.

Research – eg. Which animals are the most difficult to keep as pets and why? What is the best dog breed for (type of person/situation)? Who is the most famous pet and why?

Extend-a-story – eg. What other pets could Arthur have imitated and what would he have done? Write a new version of the story. Compare this book with the similarly-themed Edward the emu by Sheena Knowles and Rod Clement.

The perfect pet for ………………….. would be a …………………… because.

Stage 3:

As above, plus

“Unpack” the form of the story (repetition, chorusing, types of words used).

What are the conventions of picture books? Examine favourites from home and the school library to discover similarities/differences. Write and illustrate your own picture book.

Read the story with your buddy (Buddy Classes – pairs of students from different stages) and ask them some prepared questions about it.

What is the moral of the story? What is a moral? what is the point of stories with morals? What other moral stories (and traditional fables) do you know? Which ones make good sense… or not?

Check out the interactive Stage 3 learning objects from TaLe (click on Primary and use search engine).

Synthesising about synthesis

I promised to get back to Monday’s professional development day with Jamie McKenzie. I’m finding it quite tricky to “report back” on an event, which offered so many seeds for further (and deeper) thought, without it sounding like I’m doing a cursory summary of the guest speaker’s main points – which are covered so much better in the “virtual handouts” Jamie has supplied on his official website(s). And it’s ironic that I’m now attempting to synthesise synthesis, think deeply about deep questions, authentically evaluate authentic evaluation and deconstruct the valuable elements of deconstruction!

It was certainly reassuring to be reminded that numerous aspects of the above elements have already become embedded into my teaching style over recent decades; the day certainly highlighted the need for all educators to be explicit about why we do certain things, to remind ourselves why these strategies work, and not to get too dismayed when it (often) appears that there are never enough opportunities to use them. It doesn’t matter how many of these days I go to, there are always be new ideas to try, ideas to scoff at (that I sometimes end up trying anyway, somewhere further along the track), and ideas I already use and now have additional confirmation that, yes, they really are worthwhile, and noteworthy.

My main purpose of starting up this blog was to reassure myself that it was the little, but purposeful, strategies we use in our teaching that can promote good – often excellent – results. The degree of planning and collaboration can vary, and when we are deep into a unit of work, it’s easy to forget that we are using them. So often, we launch into a unit with no pre-testing, or the end of term rushes up and blurs opportunities for authentic evaluation and formative assessment (Jamie mentioned that such assessment is “to enlighten, not frighten”), but when we do make the time to ensure it happens, the results can be very rewarding.. for the educators, their students and the school community.

Even more ironic, though, is that – among the brief notes (I didn’t have to take, because Jamie had given us all the URLs we needed) in front of me right now – I see that I have scrawled, under the “Strategies” heading, the point “4. Avoid heroics”. Now I’m writing this blog entry under a banner headline that promotes this site as “heroic adventures in teacher-librarianship”.

As I think I recall saying in my first few blog entries, on a day to day basis, we often overlook the amazing things we, as educators, do every day. Often, when I’m mentioning various parts of my day to others, it’s only then that it starts to crystalise how, or why, or when, certain elements were particularly effective/successful/innovative or worth repeating, testing, gathering evidence, or simply sharing.

Say these things around the PSP (Priorities Schools Programs) committee and one ends up chairing a sharing session for parents. Say these things around the editor of Scan and one ends up writing an article, sharing the ideas and findings with a much wider audience than the usual local group of teaching colleagues. Say these things too often around certain people and one can end up presenting panels at seminars!

I guess the important thing here is the sharing. Educators become educators for good reasons, and it was interesting that Jamie mentioned several times that – for quite a while – the so-called “digital literacy” and “computer literacy” buzzwords of one revolutionary information delivery service derailed us (temporarily) from the things that effective educators have always done well (ie. the titles of Jamie’s sessions on the day):

* “questions of import: wondering, pondering and comprehending

* authentic learning and assessment

* smart use of ICT

* quality teaching and learning: moves, tactics and strategies that inspire, challenge and engage

* embracing complexity: making sense of a confounding world.”

Jamie suggested many more strategies on Monday for us to try out, to test, and to incorporate. By osmosis, and also by design, some more of these shall no doubt permeate into my daily teaching, and those I’m already doing shall hopefully be strengthened – sometimes simply by highlighting them, and/or making them more explicit.

Well, I starting typing this on a Wednesday, and now it’s Thursday already. There are other gems I could share but, as I said, Jamie’s website talks about them far more effectively. Finding the time to focus on all, or even some, of the above, is sometimes difficult. Not focusing on them is worse. The collaboration opportunities for teachers to work with their teacher-librarians and other support staff become more vital than ever. In Australia, we are fortunate that the profession of teacher-librarianship continues to be valued (by many stakeholders), and it’s a profession that is ever-evolving; I hope we don’t ever have to go into battle mode to save it. (Again.)

Between the end of school yesterday, and arriving home, a colleague and I attending a meeting of Penrith Reading Project: Books from Birth, sharing our ideas and experiences about whole-school reading picnics, and how the numerous schools in our group might approach the upcoming ALIA National Simultaneous Reading Day, featuring the picture book Arthur by Amanda Graham and Donna Gynell. Using several points from Jamie’s sessions earlier in the week, we have come up with some fantastic, highly practical activities – which have quality teaching and learning embedded in them.

Just wait till you see the new wiki page we have planned for all the participating schools to dabble with in the next few weeks! (You just knew I was going to mention the word “wiki” eventually, didn’t you?) Roll on 21st May!