December's Book of the Month

December's Book of the Month, Santa Claustrophobia, authored by Mike Reiss and illustrated by David Catrow is a comical children's book that begins "North of the North Pole and south of the stars, lies a beautiful village called Stinky Cigars..." Principal Phillips, a former Kindergarten teacher, reads aloud beautifully and has the ability to engage the adult teacher audience. The room is full of giggles and teachers thoroughly enjoy their experience as she reads.

Each month, Mrs. Phillips ties a strategy to the Book of the Month, and this month's strategy is Fun Theory. As our forty minute session got underway, she engaged the teachers in a fun game of charades that involved parts of the text, the teachers then used their gestures throughout the text each time they heard their phrase, just an added piece of interactive fun! Then, after reading the text, she introduced the Fun Theory experiment.

She encouraged teachers, in this month of joyful celebration, to engage students and offer joyful fun experiences in their classrooms. Joyful classrooms offer rich learning environments where students enjoy active involvement and participation which leads to deeper learning.

As a coach, this strategy is very interesting to me, because it is all about the classroom culture. From my first hand experience, the classrooms that I enjoy visiting most are those that are joyful. Where students are excited about learning, where they sing, dance, and act silly, but not just for fun--for engaged learning activities. That is why I love visiting classrooms with interactive Skills Blocks, where teachers have replaced mundane pencil and paper activities with active participation from students. These classrooms don't sacrifice learning, in fact many times the learning is richer and lasts longer. I have to think if I am more engaged when I visit these classrooms, then students must be, too.

September Book of the Month

Each month, Principal Susan Phillips, serving as our instructional leader, introduces a new children's literature text to teachers, and teaches them a new strategy to implement with their students. Her book selection is diverse and her reasons for selecting a particular book varies significantly. But, some things remain the same. She purchases a text for each classroom, expects the teachers to read the book aloud to the students, and wants the book to be accessible for students' reading enjoyment. At her monthly 40 minute Book of the Month presentation, she always gives teachers a one page handout with a summary of the book, a paragraph on why she selected the text, and a summary of the new strategy she is introducing. This long standing tradition, first brought to us by the America's Choice School Design, remains a stable constant in our culture.

Last year, our technology coach Melanie Holtsman, had the idea of building a wiki to house each Book of the Month. This digital warehouse acts as a bank not only for our CCE teachers but for teachers nationally who visit our school in person or virtually. Many times, the wiki holds not only the book selection and one page summary sheet, but also a video of Principal Phillips delivering Book of the Month to her faculty, or a video of Mrs. Phillips reading the book.

On Friday, although Principal Phillips wasn't in school, she introduced September's Book of the Month, Carmen Agra Deedy's new text, 14 Cows FOR AMERICA in remembrance of

9-11. Her Skyped conversation with faculty began with a water buffalo gift video, and then conversation about intangible items. She followed the video by explaining why she selected 14 Cows FOR AMERICA as September's Book of the Month, and she read the book to the faculty. And, she shared ideas on a new strategy taken from the professional text, Deeper Comprehension. You can visit the 2009/2010 tab on the Book of the Month wiki to read Mrs. Phillips' summary page and learn more about this text. In addition, you can check in with us monthly, on this BOM wiki, to see which titles and strategies we will be introducing to our elementary students this year.

Read Aloud of 14 Cows for America from Melanie Holtsman on Vimeo.

May Book of the Month

Book of the Month, a Chets Creek tradition which began 10 years ago, as part of our America’s Choice training, provides the platform for our principal to be seen as our instructional leader, enhance each classroom's genre library, and have a common book all students and faculty have read to foster conversations on rich literature.

Each month, Principal Susan Phillips, selects a children’s book and buys a copy for each classroom. The faculty gathers, the first Friday of each month, in our media center. They hear the story read aloud and learn a new strategy that will enhance their classroom instruction.

Last Friday, the book our principal presented was Pamela Duncan Edward and Henry Cole’s new picture book, This Old House. The scene was set as we arrived with a huge painting of the old house draped from the ceiling. As Susan read the literature, a few tears were shed as some connected emotionally to the text. Toward the end, when the old house is loved and renewed, the painting from the ceiling is shed, and in its place is a painting of the new old house. The audience at this point is totally hooked!

Afterward, Susan asked us to close our eyes and imagine where we felt like home. We were asked to quickly sketch our visual image of home and turn the paper over to write about our home. Melanie, our instructional coach, then collected our work, scanned the pictures, and over the course of several days, recorded us reading our pieces into a voice thread.

This learning experience gave us the opportunity to do a task we so often ask students to do-respond to literature. I will admit that it was met with more than one groan, but the finished product proves that it was well worth the angst that some people felt. I hope this experience will lead many teachers to try it in their own classrooms with their students. And, I think you will enjoy logging on to our Book of the Month wiki to check out our unique voice thread.

"Behold! I bring you tidings of Great Joy!"

The first Wednesday of each month, our principal, Susan Phillips, holds our monthly faculty meeting. Per teacher contract, she is able to call twelve ninety minute faculty meetings each year after school. She doesn't call any. Rather, she calls one monthly meeting, held on the clock, and it has nothing to do with the traditional dissemination of information. She uses her weekly Memo and Blog to communicate with staff, and face to face meetings are reserved for professional learning through the use of children's literature. Her meetings are not faculty meetings, rather they are Book of the Month meetings.

The Principal's Book of the Month has been happening at Chets Creek since 2001 when we became an America's Choice school. America's Choice uses Book of the Month to introduce all school stakeholders to the same piece of rich children's literature. The principal is then able to have dialogue with all learners and leaders surrounding this one common text.

From the beginning, our Principal has purchased a copy of the selected book for every teacher. Not only does she read teachers the text but she's taken it above and beyond by introducing a strategy with the text. For example, one year she took the reading strategies from Kylene Beer's professional text, When Kids Can't Read-- What Teachers Can Do and introduced each strategy at Book of the Month through the use of her selected children's text. Teachers leave Book of the Month with the text in tow and a strategy sheet which explains why she selected the text along with how to implement the strategy.

December's Book of the Month, Kate DiCamillo's first children's text, Great Joy was unveiled today using the strategy of Digital Storytelling. Susan began by walking staff through how she created the voice thread account, recorded her reading, and how she saved the pictures. Afterward, the final product, which took her only 20 minutes to create, was unveiled. The digital story of Great Joy left the learning leaders thinking about the possibilities.

In fact, it is not uncommon on a Book of the Month day to walk the building and see teachers rolling out the book or strategy that same day. Today was no exception. A 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Young, hustled back to her room and got busy having several students make a digital story from their published narratives. By the end of the day, they had the digital story posted on their class blog for students, parents, and other teachers to enjoy. Now that is rapid implementation!