Sinking Springs Family Book Club

UPDATE: We have chosen to postpone the book club at this time and reschedule it for a later date this winter yet to be determined. Look for updated dates/times and additional information coming soon.

After last week's visit from author, Alice Ozma, we hope that families and students at Sinking Springs are eager and ready to begin their own reading promises with someone.

As the next part of Sinking Springs' Reading Promise Project, we are looking for families who want to join us in the effort to make reading a special part of their everyday lives. Making time to fit reading into your schedule each day can be challenging. Finding ways to help your adolescent develop a love for reading can be daunting. To help you achieve these goals, Sinking Springs will be offering a family book club, based on Alice's book, The Reading Promise. 

Families who register to attend the first book club meeting will have the opportunity to:

• Connect with other Sinking Springs families to meet and discuss Alice Ozma's book, The Reading Promise.

• Discover new ways to encourage their children to develop a love of reading.

• Find out strategies for reading and discussing books with their children at home.

• Develop a support system of other families taking on reading promises and share ideas, successes, and challenges.

• Receive a FREE copy of Alice Ozma's book, The Reading Promise.

• Learn more about a variety of free reading resources available. 

• Win prizes to promote reading with their children. 

• Become guest bloggers on this blog.

The first meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 12 and additional meetings may be scheduled, depending on the availability and interest of participants. Throughout families' reading promise experiences, this blog will serve to connect readers and their promises, not only just from Sinking Springs, but all readers who wish to share about the reading promises happening in their lives.  

If you are a Sinking Springs member and want to join us for this excellent opportunity, click here to read additional information and register online.

If you are a guest visiting us from outside of Sinking Springs, but still want to join our conversation, connect with other readers, and share your reading promise experiences, please do! Join our ever-growing community of guest bloggers. Comment on our discussions and contact us to discuss ways that you can share your reading experiences through this blog. We'd love to have you!

An Evening with Alice Ozma

This past week, Sinking Springs' much anticipated day finally arrived-- our visit from author, Alice Ozma!!

With much thanks to our school's principal, Mrs. Miller, and the Sinking Springs' PTO, we were able to have Alice visit our school for the day to speak with students and families about the importance of reading.

In the afternoon, Alice began her visit by speaking with a very enthusiastic crowd of all of our 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students in the gym. She spoke with students about the importance of reading and how it will impact their future successes in life.

Immediately following her whole school assembly, Alice met with a group of aspiring authors, all relaxed in comfortable bean bag chairs in the library, to discuss the writing process. She offered some great advice to the students about her unique perspective on being an author, as well as some discussions of her favorite reads. Here's just a taste of some of the conversations she shared with students:

Some of Alice's favorite books? 
The Giver, Charles Dickens, the Harry Potter series, the Wizard of Oz series

Favorite genres?
Funny and creepy (but not scary); But not books with kissing or lots of violence.

Favorite authors?
Lewis Carroll, Daniel Pinkwater; I love authors that are weird. I love nonsense. Life is nonsense.

A few of her favorite descriptive words?
Festive and jovial. 

Advice for aspiring authors?
Keep writing. Try all different types of writing. What you think you do well, try something completely different. Try a million things and see what sticks. Share your writing with other people and see what they like, then listen to them.

Suggestions for writers to improve their writing?
I think you become a better writer when you read. You learn new words, new situations. Daydreaming the first step in writing. Stare out the window. Let your mind wonder.

Following a quick driving tour of York's historic district and a delicious dinner at Moonlight Cafe, Alice returned to school in the evening for a presentation with families. Her evening discussion, filled with laughs and quirky stories, focused on her reading streak with her father and the reasons why she believes families should start a reading promise together. Her closing words challenged families and children to create a reading promise to someone, anyone in their lives-- a family member or friend, an elderly neighbor, even a pet. Reading bonds individuals together by the shared words and experiences found within a book's pages.

Even though her time at Sinking Springs was short, we hope that the effects of her reading promise message to students and parents are long-lasting. 

One of our favorite Alice answers that she gave during her visit was in response to a question from a sixth grade student who wondered 'How is your life different as an author now than it was before you wrote the book?' I'm braver. I'm more interested in travel. I'm friendlier. I've made friends in one day with people all across the country. I love knowing that if I'm ever in a certain city, I can call up a librarian that I've met before and go out to dinner. [Being an author] has really improved me as a person. 

Alice, we thank you for the time, enthusiasm, and message that you shared during your visit to Sinking Springs Elementary and are honored to join your list of friends. Call us for dinner anytime. :)

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Hartman

The Reading Promise Continues...

During my search for other families taking on their own reading promises, I came across a post on the blog 52 Weeks, 52 Resolutions, 1 Mom by Momma Holmes. This is her second guest blogger post about how The Reading Promise has inspired her. (Catch up with her first post here.) Check out the unique twist that she has given her reading promise to share the love of reading with her sons.

It was a beautiful Friday evening and as the hour of seven arrived, so did sweet, fresh-faced, pajama-clothed friends. They came with cocoa and popcorn, brimming with excitement. They had finished reading Indian in the Cupboard and were eager to discuss this tale. 

Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

Was this story the same or different as the books we read over the summer?

Same… great imagination! Different… no animals/bugs were main characters! 

Did you like the ending?
Yes, this was causing so much trouble for them! No, I wanted them to bring more people to life! 

The great discussion was followed by silence minus the munching of popcorn as they settled in to watch the movie of the book we’d read. They felt the movie was true to the book; in fact perhaps the most accurate of the ones we’ve read.

As the small people watched, the adults conferred on the next tale. “Really, we’re okay with you choosing the next book,” they insisted. All of the kiddos had given suggestions. I reached into the hat and tossed out two of the suggestions. Another mom drew the title from the remaining two ideas.

Next month, we’ll be reading and watching From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I am very excited as this book was a favorite from my childhood and the copy we own is MY copy.

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

Our reading promise of reading to our young readers continues another month.

My dilemma is that the other moms have requested a Christmas tale for December. I am looking for suggestions of Christmas books that have been made into movies that would be appropriate for my crowd of 6-9 year olds.

Thanks!
Momma Holmes

Day 29: We Enter the Catacombs!

Reasons I Love 39 Clues #8,574: All of the real life settings that the adventures of Amy and Dan Cahill allow readers to discover and travel to as they follow the series.

The first cool place that my students had never heard of, but were able to experience through our reading together? The Maze of Bones, aka the underground network of Catacombs in Paris, France.

I gave my students the teaser at the beginning of the book that The Maze of Bones was a real place that Amy and Dan would have the opportunity to explore. Every day since they had been asking when we would get to the Maze of Bones part.

Finally, on Day 28 of our streak, we reached it. The Catacombes de Paris. The Maze of Bones.

But you know what made the experience even cooler for my students? Google Maps. Thanks to the street view images from Google Maps, entering the catacombs of Paris was a much more eerie and exciting experience than it would have been otherwise. Their satellite and street view maps provide a great view of what different locations look like that my students may never otherwise have the opportunity to visit or see.

To set the scene and help my students better visualize where Amy and Dan's clue hunting adventures were leading them, I typed in the address for the Catacombs' entrance. (1 Avenue du Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy, Place Denfert Rochereau, 75014 Paris in case you wanted to sneak a peek yourself).

Screenshot of the entrance to The Catacombes de Paris on Google Maps

Before Amy and Dan ventured down into the underground tunnels lined with human bones, our class got the chance to check out the entrance to the Catacombs, along with other visitors' photographs of the passageways below.

My students got to see the entrance sign to the catacombs that Amy and Dan read before entering...

 walk down the street to see the nearby Metro station that their rival clue hunters arrive from...

and the visit the dimly lit, narrow tunnels, lined with skulls and bones lining the walls in intricate patterns that Amy, Dan, and Nellie must walk down in search of their next clue.

Pairing these images with the detail described in the book helped my students to have a much better understanding of the setting and events happening in the text. Coolest. Thing. Ever.

And, since all of the 39 Clues books have Amy and Dan traveling the world to exotic and unique locations, readers' journeys can continue in each book.

With all of the new technology tools available, reading can become a much more interactive journey than ever before. I love taking a virtual field trip to Paris with my class on a Tuesday afternoon.

What new and exciting settings have you traveled to through your reading? Have you checked it out on Google Maps yet? Do share!

Happy Reading!
Mrs. Hartman

PS-- And just in case you were wondering...it was a dark and rainy day for our entrance to the Catacombs reading so we were able to read in our own personal classroom "Catacomb" space. Just like we'd hoped for!