Hello all!
This week we enjoyed ghost stories and poems as part of our reading journey! We also explored blogs to share with the class. I found one that I am really excited to share with you guys. I look forward to reading yours as well. Did you guys have a favorite book this week? What do you think about Literacious? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks again for reading!
Lauren Jordan
Part One: This Week's Genres
Who doesn’t love a good ghost story, especially a funny one? My youngest daughter is a huge fan of the There Was an Old Lady book series so we were delighted to see that the old lady was back for some spooky fun in There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Ghost. Our other favorites were Creepy Pair of Underwear and Five Silly Ghosts.
My girls also enjoy poetry, but only if it’s short and funny. Their absolute favorite poetry book is Giant Children by Brod Bagert. It wasn’t published within the last ten years so I didn’t include it on my list, but I can’t write a blog entry about poetry books without giving it the shoutout it deserves. I’ll be honest, occasionally it does have to get “misplaced” because sometimes I just need a break from the booger poem. Out of this week’s poetry selections, we like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We have read it so many times that I can recite it by heart. They also enjoyed The I Hate Vegetables Book of Poetry for Kids. My kids are a tough crowd.
Part 2 Blog Share:
image created from stock images in Canva
I always struggle with blog share assignments because there are SO many good choices that I have a hard time picking one. I am really excited to share this one with you.
I chose the blog Literacious by Laura Arnhold. One thing that really drew me in to Literacious is the author’s experience in the field of librarianship. Arnhold is a former children’s librarian and current Library Director. She has been an active blogger for over a decade and still posts very frequently.
The whole site is easy to navigate on both a desktop browser and mobile browser. I LOVE the activities section because she shares so many ideas on how to engage young patrons on almost any topic. The activities section is also sorted into age groups 0-5, 5-9, and 10-13. The 0-5 section has tons of great story time theme ideas and she has several step by step entries on setting up story time.
Although this isn’t exactly related to storytelling, I wanted to draw attention to her Read Alike entries. Sometimes it is hard to branch out and read a new book. Arnhold’s Read Alike section helps ease readers into new books by sharing books that are similar enough to feel comfortable. You could get some great ideas for displays from these entries.
Literacious is an important resource, especially to new librarians, because it has so many ideas for programming and how you can implement the activities into your own library. Arnhold also provides book reviews, top ten lists, and very detailed debut title posts.
If you have social media, you can also follow Literacious on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. The Literacious posts would make for great reposts on your own library website and social media accounts. I hope that you’ll check out Literacious and give it a follow! I really enjoyed it and will definitely be returning to use it as a resource.
Literacious Links
Bonus Feature - A reading of my kids favorite poem
References:
Arnhold, L. (n.d.). About me. Literacious. https://www.literacious.com/about-me/
Arnhold, L. (2015, August 27). Storytime planning, so much more than just books!. Literacious. https://www.literacious.com/2015/08/27/storytime-planning-so-much-more-than-just-books/
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteThis is an awesome blog! It has some many great posts that give ideas for reading choices, activities, and more! Thank you for sharing that the sections are sortable also, this is a great help! I wonder if she is related to Tedd Arnold? I brought this up because my kids love this author also and love the Fly Guy Books! I personally love the illustrations of the characters in all of the books as they all have a similar feel. Thanks for the video as I have never read Giant Children, it was super fun! Introducing it with the thing is her mouth was hilarious! Thanks for sharing!
-Aaron
Hello Lauren,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this awesome blog with us! Your approachable formatting immediately jumped out at me. Have you written a blog before? I was excited to explore Laura Arnhold's blog, Literacious after your recommendation. You did a great job outlining what types of things the blog specifically has to support library professionals. I especially enjoyed that you mentioned the age bands that she uses on her site; it is so helpful when planning to know what the targeted age is for an activity. We all want the children to be engaged! I was curious what one thing you viewed you might use in your future library? She had so many great ideas, I wondered which one really spoke to you and perhaps why it might be important for the library. In conclusion, I fully agree that selecting one blog to highlight is such a challenge, there are so many great ones available!
Best,
Robin Lawson