Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy, me Hearties!

All Buckaneers should check out what Ye Library has been up to on Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Buckos from Castleberry Elem., AV Cato, and Joy James joined Renee Smith-Faulkner, Stephanie Martinez, Kelly Kelso, & Jessica Batchko on Google Hangout to see and hear a pirate read poems from the book Pirates by David L. Harrison.

Then the landlubbers at CE created thier own scallywag stories focusing on story elements: Characters, setting, problem, solution. Awesome creations using Pirate Cam and Chatterpix! Savvy?



Our guest Pirates:

Our Pirate Creations
focusing on the story elements of Characters, Setting, Problem, and Solution:

3rd and 4th grade Pirate Story creation - Captain Intermill, Captian Stapp, Captain Adams, and Captain Harper crews

Captain Mejia's Pirate Story

Captian Yzaguirre & Captain Hendrix crew

Captain Hazard, Captain Mcmillion, and Captain Jaresh crew

Captain Parks and Captian Remis Kindergarten crew sing ABC's

                       Captain Munion                                                           Captain Gadberry

Collaboration Friday: 2nd Grade ELA/Social Studies

Today the CE 2nd grade students had the opportunity to interview a Fire Chief and RN via FaceTime in the Library! Prior to attending the virtual field trip, students in 2nd grade have been studying community helpers and the ELA skill of comparing and contrasting.  Students brainstormed interview questions for the Fire Chief and RN, interviewed both during a FaceTime session, and then completed a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting the two community helpers.

During this virtual field trip students were able to meet Fire Chief Brad Hargrove and visit the Crowley Fire Academy (trainingdivision.com).  Brad showed the students a fire truck and gear in addition to answering interview questions from the students. Following this interview students had the opportunity to interview nurse Karen Fimbrez.  She gave the students information on her tools, daily activities, and the college experience needed to become a nurse.  

Thank you so much Brad and Karen for helping our students learn about the importance of community helpers and how to compare and contrast!

Thank you 2nd Grade team for collaborating with the Library! I look forward to Collaboration Friday: Talk Like a Pirate Day - Next Friday - Sept. 19th!!

CE Library Newsletter

ThingLink

I don't know if you guys have heard of ThingLink, but it is a great tool available for infusing technology into the classroom. 

One of my favorite bloggers, Lisa Johnson is the author of the TechChef4u blog, posts many ideas and tips on using ThingLink in your classroom. So, what is ThingLink? It's a tool where you can insert links into a photo or created graphic.

Check out what it looks like by clicking the target links below. This ThingLink was created by TechCef4u in helping elementary classrooms infuse technology.




ThingLink has now released ThingLink for video!  You can now link information to points in a video.

Click here to check out a recent blogpost for more information!


Here is a quick video showing four ways a teacher used Thinglink for a video with her student created books!




Interested in trying it out? Let me know! I would love to collaborate with you!

-Sallee Clark

Odette's Secrets

                                                        
                  




Like the book on facebook and recieve 6 chapters free to read online. Click here.

This is a sweet, poetic prose, story of a young Jewish girl in France during WWII.  Odette's world changes as her father, mother, community, and country are affected by war.  Change creeps in at first and then overtakes young Odette.  Fear and lies turn into a beautiful life of hiding for Odette and other Jewish children in France.  Will the lies become truth for these children? Will they survive? Find out by reading the Texas Bluebonnet Award Nominee, Odette's Secrets!
-Mrs. Clark



Reviews:

School Library Journal

This story opens as World War II is beginning and the persecution of Jews in France is escalating. After Paris falls to the Nazis, Odette is rushed to the countryside, where she hides in plain sight by living with a family and pretending to be Christian. There she struggles with her identity. The strength of the novel lies in MacDonald's meticulous research, which is explained in an author's note, of the real Odette Meyers, whose photos are included. The author weaves in facts about Odette's life and the events taking place at the time with imagined scenarios in which Odette may have found herself. However, the author's free-verse prose style makes readers acutely aware that an adult is trying to write from a child's perspective, and it sounds not so much poetic as fragmentary and unorganized. This book is a good introduction for children interested in how the war and the Holocaust affected the everyday lives of kids their age, but in a field with so many classics and reinterpretations of similar stories, such as Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (Collins, 1971), Lois Lowry's Number the Stars (Houghton, 1989), Jennifer Roy's Yellow Star (Marshall Cavendish, 2006), and Sandi Toksvig's Hitler's Canary (Roaring Brook, 2007), it's an additional purchase.—Anne Barreca, New York Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

Introspective and accessible, this fictionalized history of a Jewish child surviving the Nazi occupation of France uses an elegant simplicity of language. Odette, quite young, lives comfortably in a Paris apartment "on a cobblestone square / with a splashing fountain." Watching a newsreel, she sees "soldiers march, / their legs and arms straight as sticks. / A funny-looking man with a mustache / shouts a speech." The next day, she sees a Jewish-owned store with smashed windows. Mama and Papa are secular, but "[w]e are Polish Jews because / Mama's and Papa's parents and grandparents / in faraway Poland / are all Jews." Papa joins the French army and is taken prisoner; yellow stars are assigned; Mama sends Odette out of Paris. For 2 1/2 years, Odette practices Catholicism in one village and then another, growing attached to religious ritual and the countryside. Macdonald's free verse uses unadorned images: A blanket from Odette's devoted (Christian) godmother; schoolchildren pounding out "La Marseillaise" on desks with their fists to drown out rowdy German soldiers; those same children rolling Odette in a thorn bush when they suspect her secret. Odette's first-person voice matures subtly as she grows in age and in comprehension of the war's horrors. Based on the real Odette Meyers (née Melspajz), this thoughtful, affecting piece makes an ideal Holocaust introduction for readers.