Fangirl Friday: Pernille Ripp

Ever heard of the Global Read Aloud?

You gotta check it out if you haven't already.  It is exactly what it sounds like - a read aloud with participants from across the globe.  Seriously.  Go learn about it.  Go sign up and join the more than 4,000,000 participants from across the globe!

And the mastermind behind this incredible event is none other than Pernille Ripp.

I have been wracking my brain for the past few weeks trying to remember how it is that I learned of Pernille Ripp.  I *think* I heard her speak at a conference somewhere, but don't remember when.  It really doesn't matter, though, because when I was in the classroom, she was such an inspiration to me.  And I could literally listen to her speak for hours.

When it comes to fostering a love of reading, she is a guru.  One of her books, Passionate Readers, is chock full of ways to empower students to embrace a love of reading.  It's not just the books that  matter - it's the classroom environment, the mindset, the teacher's connection...  Add to that the intentional integration of technology, and the learning environment set up in Pernille's classroom is one worth exploring.

One of my favorite posts is actually an old one.  To me, this post says a lot about who Pernille is as a teacher, and even more as a person.  The relationships a teacher builds with their students are, I think, the key, to what makes a good teacher a great one.

P.S.  The books for this year's Global Read Aloud were actually announced yesterday!

P.P.S.  Check out Pernille's old blog - Blogging through the Fourth Dimension - for more nuggets and stories!

GetEpic!

WHAT?!  You're NOT familiar with Epic?!  If you are a teacher, and you have access to one or more internet ready devices, then there is NO time to waste!

Epic is an incredible online bookstore for teachers (and home use!)

Unlike other bookstores, though... it's all FREE.  That's right, 100% FREE for teachers to use with their students during the school day.

As of this post, there are 35,000 books available.  Unlike ReadingA-Z (another great resource, but that's another post!) they are actual books that you would see in the library, on Amazon.... 

For the younger kids, they have read-to-me books where the book is read to the kids, pages turn, words highlighted.... it's pretty spectacular as a listening center!  For the older kids, they have audio books of novels - great for those that need the audio version of books.  

For everyone in between?  There are e-books!  Lots and lots and LOTS of ebooks!  From National Geographic to Eric Carle books, from Judy Moody to Big Nate.  The fact that this FREE resource is at your fingertips is pretty darn spectacular.

Now, you're probably wondering, what's so special about an ebook library?  With Epic, you can assign books to kids, you can create collections of books to support different topics.  You can create your own comprehension checks, or use ones already made.  You can see how long a student actually took to finish a book (30 page picture book in 6 minutes, anyone?)  

Set-up is fairly simple, too.  You create a FREE account.  You get a class code.  You add your students.  The first time they log-in on any device, you give them the class code.  From there, they can access their account at any time during the school day on any device that has the class code! Oh, and it works on iPads, Android tablets, and any web browser, so no excuses!

What?  What's that?  Home use?  I'm glad you asked!  Home use is available for parents for $8/month.  They often run a summer special, where the whole summer is like $10!

Now, the research is still coming in regarding kids and ebooks, so I wouldn't necessarily use this a lot with the younger grades.  In fact, I like to think of Epic as an incredible resource at my fingertips - researching famous people?  Check out the biographies.  Analyzing non-fiction text?  Check out National Geographic.  

At any rate, delay no longer - go sign up for your free Epic account!

Osmo Words

I love Osmo.  And while I love all the Osmo apps, I find Osmo Words to be the most versatile, the most flexible, and well.... I guess it's probably my favorite!  From letter recognition to geometry vocabulary, Osmo Words can do just about anything.  Whether you're looking for short vowels or site words, the hundreds of albums are a great way to integrate technology into whatever it is you're doing.

Once you've explored the albums created and shared by other people, the next step would be to create your own.  For me, I create using Google Slides.  I'll put a clue of sorts - be it a definition or a sentence, along with a royalty free image on each slide.  Then I download the deck and upload it on myOsmo.  From there, you add a word or words to each image (you can choose to level the images as well, adding multiple words to each), set your cover, and then download to your iPad or Kindle!

However.  My new favorite thing to do with Osmo Words is to have kids create the word decks!  I created a printable template that I used with sixth graders to have them create images to create a deck for learning Hebrew.  On the dashed line near the top of the page, kids wrote the word.  They then illustrated it, keeping their illustration in the black box.

At that point, you have two options - scan or snap.  I scanned each deck into my drive, then cropped each along the large grey box.  (If you don't have a scanner, snap a picture of each card.)  By using the boxes, it keeps everything lined up so that nothing is cut off when you're playing.  The kids loved making the decks and we're really excited to use them with the rest of the school!

Feel free to download the templates - one word per page or two words per page - and have fun creating your own decks!