Tag Archives: storytelling

Monday Read Aloud: The Incredible Book Eating Boy By Oliver Jeffers

Weekly Plan May 11th – May 15th

We are looking at a lot of rain in the forecast, so I thought why not celebrate the love of stories this week?  If the weather turns out to be sunny, there’s nothing like reading and crafting outside!

Today I’ll be sharing with you a story from one of my most favourite author and illustrators, Oliver Jeffers.  Every children’s book Oliver Jeffers has published I have read and loved.  His creativity is outstanding – have you seen this inspiring video he created?  Before reading today’s story, I highly recommend you watch it.  And if you don’t already, I’m sure you’ll love Jeffers as much as I do after watching it.

The Incredible Book Eating Boy” is the story about a boy who loves books differently than you or I.  From the publisher:

“Like many children, Henry loves books. Though Henry doesn’t like to read books, he likes to eat them! But one day he feels sick to his stomach.  Can Henry find a way to enjoy books without using his teeth?”
Find today’s story here:

What did you think?  I do not recommend eating books but reading them will definitely make you smarter!  There’s a reason Dr. Seuss said,

“The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” 

Here’s to reading and reading and eating… whoops!

😉 Mme Zibin

 

 

Robo-Sauce

From the duo who brought you, “Dragon’s Love Tacos“, today’s story, “Robo-Sauce” is, well, awesome-sauce and the perfect ingredient to kick off Robot Week!

Check out the funny book trailer from the author Adam Rubin and illustrator Daniel Salmieri:

Hilarious, right?

Tomorrow we design our robots for our robot builds on Thursday.  When reading “Robo-Sauce” today, look at all of the interesting robots included in the story.  See what type of robots give you ideas for your own robot design.

I sure enjoyed making the video and I’m happy to say I made our principal laugh when I showed him.  Success!  He thought the sound effects were funny too – robots make noises after all!

Find today’s reading of “Robo-Sauce” here:

Want to make your own Robo-Sauce?  Check out the recipe here at Forks & Folly to make your own:

From Forks & Folly

ACTIVATE ROBO-DAY BLAST – 

🙂 Mme Zibin

 

 

Lifelong Learning and Stop Motion

Today I made a thing:

One of the reasons I became a teacher is because I truly love learning.  As a teacher, my goal is to instill a love of lifelong learning in my students.

Today I taught myself basic stop motion animation.  I’m sure a ton of my students are able to create more sophisticated videos than what I made today, but I’m still super proud of my work!

Why?

I wanted to create a little introduction to start off my videos for when I read stories aloud online.  Over the years I’ve amassed a large collection of vintage school supplies, saving them for who knows what — a pandemic, I guess?  I chose to use my 100 year old anagram letters and a vintage chalkboard as manipulatives for my introduction video.  Since I’m working from home, I have more time to explore techniques and tech and so I decided to create a stop motion video with my vintage supplies.

I didn’t have a Q so I had to paint in a little yellow tail on an O.
Platform

I chose to use the Stop Motion Studio app our school district recommends:

I found the app incredibly straightforward and easy to use.  I made the video entirely on my iPad, taking only 30 minutes to complete.

In Stop Motion Studio, pictures are taken one by one to make the video.
Music

When you create a stop motion video in the Stop Motion Studio app, it is soundless.  You can add an audio voiceover, but I chose to save the app to my camera roll.  Next, I downloaded the song, “Library” by The Little Bandits from iTunes (there may be a TikToc video coming soon using that song…) and added a sound clip to my stop motion video in the Splice app. I could have used iMovie but I find it’s glitchy and doesn’t work well for me.  I prefer to use Splice and find it easy to use.

Editing the stop motion video in the Splice app.
Final product and Reflection

Reflection is hard for students to do after a project is complete.  Reflection is one of the most important tools one can practice to improve future work.  From looking at my video, I’m very happy with my first effort but it’s by no means perfect.  Where could I improve?

BC Core Competencies: Critical and Reflective Thinking.
  1.  The video is not level.  I could not get my iPad to straighten parallel to my work surface.  As a result, the off-kilter angle bothers me.   I will need to come up with a better solution for my next attempt.
  2. My lighting is a bit dark.   I like the look of natural light;  the dark shadows of artificial light bother me.   When I chose to start filming, it was overcast outside, darkening my video.
  3. The picture quality is a bit grainy.  The video is slightly out of focus.  My iPad is school district issued, three years old and well used; all quality issues I cannot change at the moment.  So for now, I will have to deal.
  4. I don’t like the start or end of my video.  I should have added in clips of a blank chalkboard, allowing the music to play out a bit at either end.
Next Steps and New Learnings

I will reshoot the video tomorrow, using my reflections to improve the overall quality.

I’m also really interested in TikTok.  I haven’t been able to get into SnapChat but I definitely see the draw of TikTok.  I love a good lip sync and I have been practicing a library-related song to share with students soon.

What new learnings have come your way lately?  I’d love to hear.  Please comment below.

🙂 Mme Zibin