Many Worlds, One Li-Bro-rian

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!  I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like!  Sorry, got a bit of Queen stuck in my head. I recently finished reading my next Bluebonnet list book, The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss and boy did it take me for a ride! Uss, C.(2018) The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle . New York, NY: Margaret Ferguson Books As a small child, Bicycle is a abandoned at a monastery of the Mostly Silent Monks.  She is found by the former nun, Sister Wanda, who runs the place.  The monastery takes her in and raises her.  They call her Bicycle because of the shirt she is wearing with a bike on it.  Growing up in a mostly silent monastery, Bicycle doesn't make many friends.  She'd rather ride her bike anyway.  When Sister Wanda decides to send Bicycle away to the Friendship Factory, a camp that forces you to make friends, Bicycle knows she has to do something drastic....

I continue my reading of the Bluebonnet list with The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty. When Lucy was 8 years old she was struck by lightning.  The accident left her a math genius, but also gave her some interesting quirks.  She's germaphobic, and has to sit and stand 3 times every time she sits down.  Now twelve, she's already taken homeschool classes through high school and now wants to apply to college.  Her Nana however, doesn't think she's ready and makes her promise to attend middle school for a year.  She's been instructed to make 1 friend, do 1 thing outside of home, and read a book that isn't math.  Math is easy, but middle school may be impossible! I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It has all the makings of the middle school drama book, but add a fish-out-water story and math!  The book is humorous, smart, and relatable.  Being different is okay, even if it can be scary.  I'm only three books into the Blu...

This week I've a got another one making me feel the feels!  Captain Superlative! Janie doesn't feel like she's anything special.  It's her mission in life not to stand out, or get involved.  When a strange girl in a swimsuit and a blue wig starts tearing down the hall at school and doing nice things for people however, she starts finding that maybe getting involved is just what she, and the rest of the school, needed. This book was pretty interesting.  It's both sweet and sad.  The moral was good and it's one I hope most kids can pick up on and follow.  It has a good focus on how doing a lot of little good things, can really add up to a big change.   Overall, a pretty good book. Puller, J (2018) Captain Superlative! . New York, NY: Disney Hyperion

Hello!  Now that I have a break between my classes, I can post about books again!  The next series of books I'm going to post about are on the Texas Bluebonnet list.  I decided I'm going to read all of this year's list and do my part and vote on my favorites.  So without further ado, here is my first review of one of the bluebonnet books! Rhodes, J. (2018) Ghost Boys . New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company  Jerome is a good boy.  He usually listens to his parents, tries not to stand out in school, and does his part to help at home.  Then one day, after a new friend gives him a toy gun, he is shot by a policeman.  As a ghost, he wanders around, wondering why he's still around.  At home, he has to deal with his families grief, and he doesn't have the ability to comfort anyone.  In fact, the only one who can see him is the daughter of the policeman who shot him.  Jerome has to learn to deal with his own death, and how he can he...

I made it!  Woo!  It's that time of year again, the end of the semester!  But oh we aren't done yet, I still have on more assignment to go. It's the reflection itself.  Nope sorry, you don't get to here me ramble on the semester here, you get read a story about it!  I used Bookcreator to write a story about my time in LSSL 5391.  In order to view it though, you do need to be using Chrome.  here is the link: https://read.bookcreator.com/6bT8LO67WKMYytuUvGtUngB6U5E2/wOjet-u8TziTcS5-ze94Tw Look at my story to get my thoughts and a look back on the semester.  Before I end for the day, I would like to give a shout out to my partner this semester, Jaime Vezurk.  One of the best partner's I've had the pleasure of working with, and without whom I could not have done some of my assignments (literally).

Today's blog is all about podcasts! Years ago, before Ipods were Iphones, I had participated in a teacher workshop that was all about podcasting.  While it had seemed mildly interesting back then, today it is something that has really blown up!  The information gathered from the class I'm taking now has really renewed my interest in not only listening to them, but bringing them into the classroom.       Podcasts can be a great way to reach kids, who are already glued to electronics as it is.  There are a multitude of them out there with a variety of subjects.  These can be used in the classroom as an additional resource to get kids to learn about a certain subject.  I currently teach Food Science at the high school in which I work, so I started looking for food, science, and food science related podcasts. And lo and behold I found them!  I've been thinking a lot lately how to get around the old and tired lecture to a presentation,...

Ever wanted to create your own comic online?  Well today I'll show you a few tools that you can use and give you my thoughts on them.  Comics can be a great way to connect to students and make a lesson much more interesting.  I've used comics in a few different ways in the classroom, like using particular graphic novels as part of a lesson and having students create their own comic strips.  One of my favorite beginning of the year activities is having the students create comic strips demonstrating lab safety rules.  Though they usually do them by hand, I do give them an option of turning in their work digitally.  And now I have a few more tools to offer! Pixton Pixton is a pretty neat tool that even has educator/ student accounts.  The interface is pretty easy to use, and it has plenty of options in the graphics you can put into your strip.  With an educator account, you can set up a class for your students to join.  The program has you c...