Category Archives: Uncategorized

Revelations and Resolutions

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How can it be 6 weeks since I’ve blogged here? (That’s a revelation) leading to the resolution…Must Blog More Regularly. aka MBMR!

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Our school platform has changed to schoology; after about 10 years with blogs, I’m adjusting to the change.

One of the best things about living in China, and there are many, is that we get TWO chances at New Years Resolutions…the standard old January 1st…. lose weight, exercise more, drink water…blah blah blah…AND we get Chinese New Year, which this year falls on January 28, a wonderful FOUR weeks after our first set of resolutions; so perfect for a little bit of necessary fine tuning…

Resolutions I’m dallying with include…but are not limited to:

*Making more effort (any effort) on Goodreads as right now it is just embarrassing! (so to help that goal, I’ve signed up for the 2017 book challenge to read 250 books this year; started the year with a bang thanks to 12 hours on a plane and have knocked over about 8 so far!)

*Writing letters and postcards, or at LEAST some long e mails. I collect postcards everywhere, I even have some local stamps tucked away. My best writing effort was when my Nanna (grandma) turned 90. I mailed her a postcard a day for 90 days, she loved it! So time to put the pen in to gear and start culling the last ten years worth of collected cards by mailing them to those near and far…Need to smarten up that goal a little, but hey, that’s for CNY!

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-11-52-00-am*I’d like to tighten up my social media presence and get more serious with insta…try a couple more # like #bookaday #authorofthweek #student reader etc. I can do more with my barefoot librarian feed…stay tuned! I might try and get back into FB with the Barefoot Librarian Page…but otherwise, that platform is over for me.

*Keep sorting out our possessions and stop hoarding; enough said.

 

Taipei Success

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I had such a great time presenting at Taipei American School last weekend. I was one of more than a dozen presenters speaking at The Tech-Integrated Library conference, with an audience of 70-80 other librarians and teachers from this region. Being with so many other inspired and inspiring educators, all there to learn about the same thing, was wonderful. Thanks EARCOS for allowing us have this valuable time together.

Here is a small sample of what I shared, thanks to those who participated in my session. I hope to see you again soon.

An Author to See-Grades 2 and 3

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Second and Third Graders had two action-packed creative sessions with Illustrator and Author Bryn Barnard last week. They weren’t quiet, they weren’t always still, but they were TOTALLY focused for 50 minutes as they drew, watched, oohed and aahed with Bryn, creating together, laughing and learning.

We are so fortunate to have a brilliant visiting author program at Shanghai American School, our children benefit greatly by witnessing a wide array of professionals from around the world, who share their expertise, passion and day to day lives with us.

 

Congratulations to 5MR

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Well done 5MR for getting it together and returning all of your overdue library books; you went through cars, cupboards, drawers, under the bed and in the closet… good on you and I hope you enjoy your pizza with Mr. Kenn Nesbitt on Thursday the 27th of February, in the library, by the Green Screen at 12 pm sharp.

In other news… as soon as Kenn leaves us for Puxi, we will be readying for the next two library-ish events…World Read Aloud Day and Books to Eat 2014. We held our very first Books to Eat Competition last year, celebrating literacy and food, two of my favorite things at the same time as another favorite event, the Shanghai Literacy Festival which this year will run from March 5th-21st at M on the Bund, Puxi. Have a look at some of the amazing cakes that were made by the students and don’t forget, books to eat means ANYTHING edible… it doesn’t HAVE to be sweet and pretty…. example: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…. imagine that!

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D6914%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

World Read Aloud day falls on Wednesday March 5th this year and we hope to have at least one visiting guest for every classroom. Considering we have 24 homerooms, and more than 24 specialists, that should be easy…throw in all of the parents and we won’t have a problem. We’ve also had authors contact us offering to skype in with our students; what a wonderful opportunity that would be. World REad aloud day

Oh, and we have some NEW books… come in and check out one today! Thanks to Mr. Schu for the inspiration on how to present them to you.

 

http://videonew.saschina.org/player/pak_player/pakplayer.swf?config=http%3A%2F%2Fvideonew.saschina.org%2Fplayer%2Fpak_player%2Fembed_player.php%3Fvid%3D6879%26json%3Dtrue%26autoplay%3Dno

 

Nutrition Unit for Fifth Grade

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In my 7 years teaching 5th grade at SAS, one of my favorite units was the health and nutrition unit. Even now, I still can’t go past a blog or a book that I think would be complementary to the students’ learning.

So, here you go 5th grade teachers and team, have a look at some of these great websites.

First of all, here is one of the coolest ongoing blogs I’ve seen from a young person, such a simple idea, but you can see from Martha Payne’s latest blog visitor, Jamie Oliver… that she is doing something right. Oh, did I mention Martha is only TEN YEARS OLD? I’ve bought her story on kindle in our library.

NeverSeconds is a blog showing and reviewing school dinners (lunches) around the world that Martha started up to raise a bit of money for her favorite charity, Mary’s Meals. Martha went on to raise almost $200,000 US dollars… that’s well over a million RMB!

Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 10.12.25 AM#never seconds

Next up, these sites contrast food around the world in the form of a weekly grocery purchase… Where does YOUR family fit in? How different is what YOUR family purchase compared to the families represented from your passport country/country you live in now?

Just yesterday, here is a study of what 30 families eat in one week, which shows the enormous gap between diets in different countries.

The Daily Mail

Now here is a photo essay from Peter Menzel, and we have his books in our library too.

American Photo Journalist Peter Menzel

Here’s more of Menzel’s work in Time magazine

Time Magazine

OK, and here’s something a little extra for all you people living in Shanghai… Check out these before and after shots of Pudong that I found on another great photography site, while I was looking for great nutrition ideas for you. If you click on the images, they fade in and out for before and after effects.

So Parents…What exactly do you do???

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Hi Parents,

Today at our 5th Grade Planning Retreat, we were discussing what sort of field trips we could plan for your children this year, and you came up in the conversation. In the past, we have had field trips to GM as one of our 5th grade parents worked there; it was a real blast for the kids to see how different parts of the factory and offices worked and the visit complimented our Science units on Inventions, and on Models and Designs beautifully.

So… where do YOU work? How do you spend your days? Is there any way you could allow our students a peak into your busy world? We know this won’t be an option for all parents, but if you believe that your occupation might have something to offer our students, whether it be us coming to you for a fully fledged field trip, or you would be able to come in and share your story with us like Annette’s Dad Wayne will be doing during our Inventors Unit… then please, PLEASE, drop us a line so WE can learn from YOU!

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In other news, we had a great time this week in class, so many fun things are going on right now. We finished our fantastic Read-A-Loud, The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine which taught us many things about friendships and standing up for what you believe. We continued in our social issues book clubs, some groups even moving onto their second novel; engaging in rich and thought provoking discussions and learning valuable lessons along the way, our second personal narrative was read, reviewed, revived and re-written on its way to being published next Monday and we divided our time nicely as we moved through our 4th unit in math. If you have not checked out the division movies in the previous post, please do so now, (although remember they won’t work at home without a VPN). I am sure these movies will be of help to you as we prepare for our test next Thursday. So will this list of what will be on the Unit 4 Test:

· Find multiples and use them to rename numbers
· Know and use multiplication facts
· Divide using a friendly numbers strategy with the partial-quotients algorithm
· Divide using “at least…not more than” strategy  with the partial quotients strategy
· Make magnitude estimates with decimals
· Measure and draw line segments to the nearest half inch
· Estimate using a map scale
· Write an open number sentence for number stories
· Determine what to do with a remainder

· Find multiples and use them to rename numbers
· Know and use multiplication facts
· Divide using a friendly numbers strategy with the partial-quotients algorithm
· Divide using “at least…not more than” strategy  with the partial quotients strategy
· Make magnitude estimates with decimals
· Measure and draw line segments to the nearest half inch
· Estimate using a map scale
· Write an open number sentence for number stories
· Determine what to do with a remainder

There were more exciting things going on this week too; did I mention our Brownie ‘Throwdown’ Bobby Flay Style? Happy Birthday to Pepo and Erika, we LOVED both of your brownies…