I've been participating in Slice of Life, started by Two Writing Teachers. I love the challenge of composing a piece of writing at least once a week about life or teaching.
I'm so excited! Today is my first Mock Newbery Club meeting after school! This year, I decided to run a Mock Newbery Club through our school's PTO after-school club program. It's once a week through October and November, then runs again for 8 weeks in January/February and then finally in the spring. The kids also have the activity bus available to take them home. I have fifteen kids signed up. Honestly, I was hoping for a few more, but the Bigfoot Club is running simultaneously and that's tough competition! I lost a few members to that. Who can blame them? But I'll take my fifteen! We'll read as many 2013 Newbery contenders as we can in these two months and talk books, books, and more books! My nErDcamp BC friend, Janet Frost, inspired me to also invite teachers and parents, so I'll do that today and hope some come to help us read and book talk. Each member will get a booklet to help them keep track of the books they read. Some of my students from last year already started with their booklets last spring. I describe the booklets in this previous blog post. At the first meeting we'll talk about previous Newbery winners and make a chart listing characteristics we think the Newbery committee is looking for - we're scheduling a Skype visit with Mr. Schu so he can tell us a little about the committee and the process. I'll also be showing the club Katherine Applegate's acceptance speech. This is the full program:
Want to know what I've pulled from my local library and classroom library to book talk and make available to my members? Here they are!
Want to know what I've pulled from my local library and classroom library to book talk and make available to my members? Here they are!
That should keep them busy! Now, keep in mind, I know some of these are not really Newbery favorites, but I think it's important to read a bunch of 2013 books to determine which books we love but wouldn't win the Newbery for various reasons and which ones fit the criteria. Are there any we missed that you think we need to read? I notice there are only a couple nonfiction books on the list. Are there any more you recommend?
Stay tuned for our favorites when we vote in late November and pictures throughout these next eight weeks!
