Gordon Korman

Gordon Korman visited the Chicago area last week and I had the pleasure of hearing him speak about his books. Not only was it inspiring, he was funny! Humor is a common thread through most of Korman's books, and that is what makes them so popular among middle school students.

Mr. Korman shared how he got his start in writing. During his second semester of seventh grade English in a Canadian school, he was told to write whatever he wanted and he had a semester to work on it. This piece turned into his first book titled This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall. Korman had his book published by the time he was a freshman in high school. Since then he has written over 55 books!

No More Dead Dogs has been a popular choice with our middle school students. Wallace Wallace, the main character, expressed his honest opinion about the book he was assigned to read. He writes, "Old Shep, My Pal by Zach Paris is the most boring book I've read in my entire life. I did not have a favorite character. I hated everybody equally..." He goes on to tell his teacher that any book studied in school with a dog in it has the dog dying in the end. This lands Wallace Wallace in detention to rewrite his review. It just so happens that Wallace's detention was held where the school play rehearsals were occurring and the play chosen was Old Shep, My Pal. Wallace can't help himself; he finds himself as the director making drastic changes to the plot.

Korman's latest titles: Schooled, Swindle, The 39 Clues: One False Note

Soon to be released: Zoobreak - a sequel to Swindle

Pop - a young adult novel

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day - a day that we get to reflect on what we are doing to give back to a planet that gives us so much. Visit http://www.earthday.net/ and learn how YOU can personally make a difference all year long.

"Unlocking the Writer Within You"

Have you ever daydreamed about becoming a writer one day? Are you searching for a way to start? Read Ralph Fletcher's book, A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You, for a simple suggestion on how to get your creative juices flowing. Something as simple as keeping a writer's notebook, a place to jot down things you wonder about, snatches of dialogue you overhear, memories from when you were young or thoughts about other writing you read may be just the springboard you need to writing your own pieces. Mr. Fletcher offers practical advice and backs up his suggestions with student writings as well as famous author's tips on how they use a writing notebook. Although Mr. Fletcher states that authors use just bits of ideas written in their notebooks, I was left with the feeling that keeping a writer's notebook is a very fulfilling personal experience. You are creating something that contains important "stuff" to you. Whether it is a drawing, photo, article, artifact, list, poem, saying or quote, all contents reflect you. How can you beat that?

Internet Search Strategies

Here's another great video from Commoncraft about searching the internet:




You can also practice your searching skills by playing the Boolify game.

How do you Bookmark?

So, you're at school and can't seem to remember that great website you found over the weekend for your history project. You've booked-marked the website but it's on your home computer. What do you do? That's when Delicious comes to the rescue. Delicious is a social bookmarking website that allows you to keep all your bookmarks online at the Delicious website.
For more info on how Delicious works, check out this blog post at the Tech & Learning website. Delicious also has a very good "getting started" guide here.

Earth Day Countdown!

National Environmental Education Week is April 18-22. This is the official countdown preparation to Earth Day, which is April 22nd. Here are some great online resources to learn more about our earth and how to make it a better place:
Extreme Ice Survey - a wide-ranging glacier study that uses time-lapse photography and video to document the rapid changes now occurring on the Earth's glacial ice.
The Day the Water Died - a film produced by the Sierra Club documenting the impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill that occurred in Alaska on March 24, 1989.
Energy Estimator - A tool from the Solar Energy Research and Education Foundation that estimates how much electricity you can produce through solar and wind power in your own backyard.
It Starts at Home - A National Geographic article in which the author chronicles his attempt to reduce his CO2 emissions by 80%.
United Nations Environment Program - The Atlas of our Changing Environment is a Google Earth mashup in which you click on one of the icons on the map, and it shows a picture and a story of an environmental impact of the region. Very informative and visual!

Award Winning Books

Have you caught the latest releases of award winning books? If not, try our link on the library page titled Find a Good Book to get a complete list. Below are a few of the main awards given. Stop by the library to check out a copy to read.

The Newbery committee has declared The Graveyard by Neil Gaiman this year's Newbery Award winner. Some of you may may be familar with another novel by this author. Coraline was written by Mr. Gaiman and has recently been made into a movie. If you enjoy creepy reads, check out one of these titles.

The state winner of the Rebecca Caudill award has also been declared. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan has won. Prairie students definitely agree with this choice. In less than a month, the last book of this series is due to hit the shelves.

RSS Feed

Are you looking for a quick way to keep up-to-date with your favorite Web sites? Try using an RSS feed to keep track of updates to these sites. Watch RSS in Plain English for a simple explanation of what an RSS feed is and how to set it up in a reader service.

Life.com photo archive

Over 7 million images of American life, history and culture are now available on Life.com. The site has recently been relaunched and makes the entire archived library of photos from Life magazine and Getty images available for free. This also includes 3000 current event images added daily by Getty. There are 5 channels on the site: news, celebrity, travel, animals, and sports. The photos can be printed out, shared through social networking sites, and are especially useful to educators and students. Many of the photos and captions were taken together and tell a full story. The site also plans to roll-out some new features in the coming months that will all be FREE, so check back often!

Here's an example - in honor of ER's last episode

Study Tools

Here is a good study tool for those of you who like using flashcards: Studystack.com. You can either create your own or browse the database of existing flashcards. The flash cards can be printed, viewed online, or exported to your phone or ipod. How cool is that?! Here are a few more to check out:
flashcarddb.com
Flashcardexchange.com
Quizlet.com

Don't forget to bookmark them with Delicious so you can access your bookmarks from any computer!