Wake County Library gives you great access!

                 

Way back in June, I wrote about one of my favorite online reading resources:  NC Kids Digital Library. (You can find that post here.)   My Wake County Public Library card (and PIN) gives me access to all of the ebooks available from Wake County Libraries and the many fantastic books available from the NC Kids Digital Library.   It is even more convenient to use those 2 resources within the Libby app.   I can search for books in either library and check them out and read them using that one app once I have entered my library card information. 

If you do not have a library card, you are not out of luck!  The Wake County Library is offering a temporary card and PIN on their website.   Click here to request yours!

Some of the books I have read from NC Kids Digital Library since we have been out of school:

Bob by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead:   This would be a great family read-aloud.   Chapters alternate between Bob's point of view (Bob is an unusual creature!) and Livy's point of view (Livy is an 11-year-old girl visiting her Grandmother in Australia.  A fun, heartwarming story!

All the Answers by Kate Messner:  A fun book for 4th and 5th graders.  Ava, who always studies but never knows the answers when she takes a test, quickly finds a pencil to take to school on the day of her math test.  She soon learns that this pencil has some sort of special magic to it!  Is knowing all the answers the best thing?






Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga:   Wow!  What a wonderful book!   Jude's whole world is in a seaside town in Syria.   As violence moves closer and closer to her town, she and her mother move to America to live with her uncle.  She misses her father and brother who have stayed behind while she and her mother begin to call America home.   This book would be a wonderful selection for a mature 5th grade reader.





I would love to see what your families are reading! 

Check Out Discovery Education

One of the most amazing resources Wake County Schools subscribes to for our students is Discovery Education.   Discovery Education offers content in almost every subject area for every grade level.   For elementary students, parents can find all those "classic" Reading Rainbow episodes that we remember fondly.   Kids enjoy finding episodes of Sid the Science Kid, Magic School Bus or watching videos from the Discovery Channel. 

Some things that are not as obvious as the videos that are worth searching for include audiobooks.  Fans of the Goosebumps series will be happy to find that there is a "Goosebumps" channel with audiobooks and videos.   Other audiobooks include Call of the Wild, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Treasure Island, and other children's classics your family may enjoy. 

You will see that most of the WCPSS Remote Learning Resources for Elementary School recommend resources from Discovery Education.   To access this incredible resource, students log in to their Wake ID portal.   If you need any help getting your student logged in, please email me at agalvan@wcpss.net.  I will respond as quickly as I can. 

EPIC! Access at Home!

These last few days have been strange, to say the least, but I have been amazed at the many resources flooding in to educators for students to use at home.  Many companies are being quite generous with their resources.   If I sent it all out at once, it would be overwhelming, so I'm going to highlight one resource that our students and their families can use at home per day here on my blog.    I'm starting today with the one that has been consuming my life for the past 2 days -- EPIC!


EPIC is a subscription book (and video) streaming service for kids.  EPIC boasts that it has "35,000 high-quality fiction and nonfiction books for kids 12 and under."   Like Netflix, it uses a sort of artificial intelligence to "learn" what a student may enjoy and recommend other books or videos that may interest the student.   EPIC always allows schools and teachers to use their service for free, so we have really enjoyed using it at school.   Right now, EPIC is offering free access for students to use at home until the end of the school year (June 30, 2020).   EPIC works well on a variety of devices.   If you are a Stough parent and have not requested (and received) access to your child's EPIC account and would like access, please fill in this simple form.   I will send you an invitation for signing up!

Here's a short video showing a few of the things I love in EPIC!

July #bookaday wrap-up

Why does July always pass by so quickly?!   After a trip to the library, I continued reading some of the books that are nominated for this year's NC Children's Book Award.   The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet is on the picture book list.   I decided to listen to the audio book (it's on EPIC!) because Carmen Agra Deedy narrates it herself.   Anyone who has heard her telling of her book Martina the Beautiful Cockroach knows that she is an amazing storyteller.  (If you haven't heard it, what are you waiting for?   It's the best!)   I am looking forward to reading this book with my classes and bringing her marvelous voice back into our library.    I had also checked out Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History.  This one is on the NC Junior Book Award list.  This is an really nice collection of rather simplified biographical sketches.  It gives just enough of each woman's story to make a reader want to seek out more information.  The illustrations are ... well... sweet.  And I mean that in the nicest of ways.   Our girls will be drawn to this book.

After reading Little Leaders, I had to read its sister book Little Dreamers: Visionary Women Around the World.  Oh, this one was good, too!  The one page/ one illustration format for each woman was the same as in Little Leaders.  The women were from all over the world -- going back for centuries. 

I've also started reading the books I will use when our students join in once again for the Global Read Aloud.  This year, the picture book Global Read Aloud is centered around an author study of Yuyi Morales.  I had read her book Dreamers earlier this summer, so I picked up Viva Frida on my most recent library visit.  As I read through this artistically bilingual book, I had a feeling I had met Frida before.   Ah, I had!  This is a tribute to Frida Kahlo, an artist I had read about in Little Dreamers.  Well, I needed to learn more, so I found another biography in the library about her:  Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos.  I think our students are going to enjoy learning about her and her art.

I read a couple of other books by Yuyi Morales.   Nino Wrestles the World is one we already have in our library.  It has been popular.  Students will be excited to see that it is one we will read for the Global Read Aloud.  I also read Rudas: Nino's Horrendous Hermanitas.  This one is not on the scheduled reading list, but I'm pretty sure it'll be another popular one when we add it.

July was the month of our family vacation.   Our destination this year was San Francisco, so I found some ebooks on our NC WiseOwl ebook collection about San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.   I finished up The Season of Styx Malone while we were traveling. 

Two of my favorite books I read this month are Alma and How She Got Her Name and The Remember Balloons.   Oh, these books!   If I start writing about my love for these books, I'll go on for pages.  Maybe another day.   Just read them.   They're so good.

And the rest of the books I read this month:

It has been a good month of #bookaday reading!   Looking for more reading days in August. 

Catching up with #bookaday! June 22-July 2

I have some catching-up to do on my #bookaday posts!  Since my last post, I have been reading, so I'll catch you up on what I've done.

First, I've been reading (or re-reading) the books that are nominated for this year's NC Children's Book Award.  My K-3 classes will read these sometime during the year before next March so the students can vote for their favorite.  I try to read these books and connect with the Positivity Project character strengths as we learn about them.  So far, I've read the following:

• The Very Impatient Caterpillar (Burach) -- Most of my classes read this in the spring before I knew it would be on this year's list.  We loved it, so I can't wait to re-visit it. The obvious tie-in here is with self-control, but it could also work with curiosity.  
• Potato Pants (Keller) -- What another fun book! This one will tie in with courage/bravery, forgiveness and some other character strengths that we learn about.
• Mixed: A Colorful Story (Chung) -- A great tie in with art, of course, but also a good book to talk about open-mindedness.
• Because (Willems) -- Okay, it is no secret that Mo Willems is one of my heroes!  What a beautiful book this one is.   I'll probably tie it to gratitude, but it could also work with the broader connection/purpose theme. 
• Misunderstood Shark: Starring Shark! (Dyckman) -- Oops! I just realized that the wrong one is in the picture.  (I read that one, too!)  I enjoyed Misunderstood Shark: Starring Shark!  I think our students will enjoy the facts they learn and will want to learn more about sharks after reading this book.  
• Can I Be Your Dog? (Cummings) -- What a sweet book!  This may be a good one when we learn about love, kindness, or even perseverance.  
• The Crayon Man (Biebow) -- (not pictured) -- This one tells the story of Edwin Binney and the process he went through to invent Crayola crayons.  

I've read some other books, too, since my last post:

• Misunderstood Shark: Friends Don't Eat Friends (Dyckman):  Honestly, I like this one better than the first! There are some great facts in here that I didn't know, and it's quite funny.  
• Saving Fiona (Maynard):  This one is a nonfiction book from the NC Junior Book Award list.  
• Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea (Clanton):  This one has been really popular in our library this year, so I had to give it a try for myself.  
• The Secret Life of Squirrels: Back to School (Rose):  My 13-year-old son made me read this one.  He picked it up while we were in the library and read it because... well... squirrels.  The pictures are great.  I especially appreciated them after reading the information at the end of the book explaining how she takes the photos.  

I think that's 11 books for 11 days!   And just like that, I'm all caught up on my #bookaday challenge!

The Undefeated #bookaday

Choosing this book was a no-brainer.  I will read anything that Kwame Alexander writes.  (In fact, I hope to read more of his books this summer!)  And Kadir Nelson's illustrations are always amazing.  What a powerful team!  And the word I'm left with after reading this book is, indeed, "powerful."  This book celebrates strength. The strength of each person is captured beautifully in each illustration.  What is amazing is how both the author and illustrator capture that strength of African Americans through history to the present and then give hope for the future. 

Dreamers #bookaday

My #bookaday book today is Dreamers by Yuyi Morales.   What a beautiful book!   This the the author's own story of coming to America.  Of course, it pulled at my heartstrings because of the home she found in the library and the delight she found in children's picture books.  Yuyi Morales shares a more detailed account of her story at the end of the book and even a list of the books that inspired (and continue to inspire) her.   I read it digitally.  (Thanks, NC Kids Digital Library!)   But this is one I want to hold in my hands and spend more time in the illustrations.