EdTech Review: Oooo! Gimme SMORE!

Image from smore.com

It's not hard for me to get excited about something I know will help get the message of READING across to students, parents, and teachers.  At the end of the last school year, I found just that!  Sending home more than just a summer reading list was my goal.  I wanted to supply parents with resources to not only find books, but to foster reading love and fun.

Throughout the school year, I'd been sending home library media paper newsletters in the form of infographics (more about this in a future post).  Deciding to provide more content for the summer newsletter, I searched for digital newsletters and came upon Smore.  You can sign up for free and create 5 newsletters (called flyers) with this plan (to view education pricing for unlimited flyers, click here).

With Smore, my newsletter was nicely formatted and included images I could upload, links, and buttons (for summer reading lists).  There is SO much more that is possible to add--such as audio, video, events, etc.  You can share the newsletter via email or other social media platforms.

I emailed the newsletter to all teachers.  I asked them to share this with the parents of their students.  Since not all parents have email, I created a PDF through Smore and printed it for teachers to share.  Also cool, I was able to track how many people viewed the emailed newsletter.

Here is what my newsletter ended up looking like (note: the formatting is different because it's embedded in my blog: link here for original formatting).

Children's Book Week Has Begun!

Join me in becoming a @CBCBook Children’s Book Week Champion, celebrating children’s books and the joy of reading!

Click the picture to access more information and tools.

Researching ideas for this week, I decided to have my students start to prep for summer reading.  This includes making a list of potential titles to read during the summer, add reading locations to a summer bulletin board, create reviews to guide other students to titles they might have interest in reading.  Also, the youth services public librarian is coming in the next two weeks to introduce their summer reading club.

Any good plans?  Please share!

Never the Same Read Twice

You never realize the true versatility of a book until you've re-read it.  I'm talking about the types of books you read for pleasure.  I always discover something new.  Different emotions get involved.  New meaning to aspects of my life come about.  At times, I love it or I can't stand it!  I'm obviously in a relationship with the book.  

Summers are usually the time of year I have the chance to re-read some of the books that make me feel refreshed. This year the list includes: 

•  Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell (review of book here)
•  Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr (review of book here)
• part of the Harry Potter series (what would appear to be my love letter to the series...no joke, I just re-read the post and teased myself, "heeeeey, love letter")
• whatever else suits my fancy

What are your favorite books to re-read?

Image courtesy of Sicha Pongjivanich / freedigitalphotos.net

CELEBRATE Good Books, Come On!

It's Children's Book Week! Hip, hip hooray!  It's also the beginning of St. Louis County Library's Summer Reading Club.  What a terrific match-up!  I've already got the reading logs to pass out to my students this week.  One of their library centers will include watching the promotional video.  This is their last checkout week of the school year and I'm hoping they will earn some minutes reading for the summer club before summer break begins.  I'm excited for them!

I hope this post will remind others to celebrate the joy that comes with reading during Children's Book Week.  Visit the site to find toolkits, kids activities, and ideas to celebrate.