Graphic Novels - A Reluctant Convert

This is the second year that the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan award program has included graphic novels.  I believe in the importance of this children's choice award program, and so I also added a graphic novel club to the book clubs we currently host.  Last year we had a modest turn out with 15 boys who were passionate about reading graphic novels.  This year our participation has doubled. 

I see a few reasons for the increased participation.  The enthusiasm of last year's participants helped to spread the word.  There's truth in that old adage, "Success breeds success."  The books that have been selected are quality graphic novels.  The illustrations are truly art and the stories are well crafted.  Many of them are entries in a series, and the boys are immediately asking to read the other books in the series -- always a good sign.

I think that having a graphic novelist visit the school, and meet with students was the most important reason our participation doubled.  He really legitimized this book format in the eyes of our guys..  In preparation for the author visit, the boys learned a lot about graphic novels, how they are created, what goes into them.  They came to understand graphic novels are much more than doodles.  I am also a reluctant convert.

March Book Madness: A Tournament of Books

March Book Madness has arrived in the library.  This year our students will be able to participate in a March Madness book tournament.  I looked at our circulation statistics and used this year's sixteen most circulated books to become our entries in the Sweet Sixteen portion of the tournament.  I created the brackets using those sixteen books, and my library assistant created a large bracket for display.  Boys have the month of February and the beginning of March to read from the list of Sweet Sixteen books.  They will be able to vote to determine the Elite Eight in any of the matches in which they have read both books.   Final Four voting will happen on April 1, and the Championship vote will be on April 7.  In a side competition boys can complete brackets, and turn them in before they vote for the Elite Eight.  Those boys with the most complete brackets will win a prize.

 This is the first year the students are participating in this challenge.  It's been fun teaching many of the boys how the brackets work.  The book list is an interesting one, and ranges from Lego and Waldo books, through Captain Underpants and Stick Dog, all the way to Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.  It will be interesting to see how the voting shakes out.

What is an Ozobot?

Over the last week couple of weeks the fourth graders learned the answer to that question in their Research and Digital Literacy class. An Ozobot is a smart robot designed to teach students about robotics, programming and coding.  ​Students can program ​Ozobot to move, play​,​ and dance through intuitive color code patterns.

​As a culminating activity for a research project that had the boys "traveling" around the world, the boys are programming the Ozobots to follow a line to map out their journey.

This is a guest post from our technology coordinator and the other teacher I team with to teach our 4th graders a Research and Digital Literacy class.

Bentley Boyd - Author Visit

Bentley Boyd, author and founder of Chester Comix, came for a visit a few weeks ago.  He's a graphic novelist who writes mostly about social studies and history related topics.  He uses Chester, a Chesapeake Bay blue crab to help explain history through engaging story telling.  His books bring American history alive, and make learning fun.




In addition to meeting with all of the boys in a large group setting, Mr. Boyd met with a small group of students for lunch.  He also conducted an illustrator's workshop for selected 4th and 5th grade students. Mr. Boyd was generous with his time, and patient with his boys.  Since his visit all of our graphic novels have been flying off our shelves.

Meeting with 3rd-5th graders

Portfolio review with budding artists

Illustrator's Workshop

Illustrator's Workshop