So this week was enlightening by a video of a student shown on the news, telling a teacher, "We are tired of these packets you give us, why can't you stand up and teach us, and not just hand us another packet."   As I watched I thought - YES more students need to stand up and say this. NO to packets of work that a teacher doesn't even explain.  Well then one of my own students asked me about it and I said  yes I had seen the video and I agree, more people need to take ownership of their learning and demand a different way.  So the student says to me, "we (as in kids in my classes) decided we should not do packets in your room anymore also."   To which I was shocked.  This is something that really bothers me, yes for prep for testing I give packets that directly discuss the skill and I teach a mini lesson on the packet before or as we are reading it.  I don't just hand it to them.  But I really really really want to be that teacher that does not use packets.  So how to do that?  I am reading - Who Owns the Learning?  By Alan November and he has a way to hand the reins over to the student.  So when I saw this picture today I thought, yes, lets follow their lead and let them learn like they would like.  So for the next 4 weeks in my classroom - No more packets.  I find good samples in good mentor text, and I ask them to find answers to the questions posted in the room. I ask them to become the scribes and notetakers to post on the blog, and I turn the learning over to them.

What I need to do this is a list of questions?

Infographic for IPads

iPad as Teachers Pet by Tony Vincent

A friend of mine told me about a school where friends of his, host appy hour for teachers with ipads and apps in the classroom.  How fun would that be in the library after school say once a month.  Appy Hour with some punch or something refreshing, lemonade, or coffee.  I am going to work on this for next year and see what happens with more and more people adding ipads to their classrooms.  This Scoop it. was incredible too.  Will be spending  days here -http://www.scoop.it/t/appy-hour-with-apps-to-rock-your-edtech-world

It has tons of stuff about appy hours and great apps.

Then I got lost and came across an old friend from Teaching like it is 2999's blog Ms. Magiera. Wow!  Check this out. Awesome Article from Education Week Teachers - http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2012/01/25/tln_magiera1.html?tkn=QORD11FsJxrxiKUl1%2FvOUnVr9dq%2Bie3Pg2Zq&intc=es

Displays in Library

This last month I made two displays for our library.  It was fun.  I made a READBOX that I found from Pinterest  Such a cute idea, I thank Naomi Bates for posting great ideas.  So my READBOX featured the top ten of books checked out recently, students could then see what everyone likes.  I just found a big box covered it with red paper and cut letter from my Cricket to make it look like one.  I used a color copier to feature some books and then I used a revolving picture frame to honor the top ten titles.  Students started conversations about the books from this, which of course was my goal.

Many asked for books featured on the screen.

This is my MUSTACHE display - actually it was in a window but for testing I had to take it down so I snapped a picture before moving it out of the window.  This was for April National Poetry Month and I added several books on poetry to its display and asked if students have read some poetry.  It caused as stir as many wanted a mustache - I gave out the mustaches as they checked out a book on poetry.  Perfect Fun for a book mark and SMILING with their Friends!!