Author: Lisa Jenn Bigelow
Published: 2018 The day before Melly goes to Camp Rockaway, a summer music camp, Melly's parents announce to her that they are getting a divorce. This news comes completely out of nowhere, and Melly is absolutely devastated. At least she has her best friend Olivia with her at camp to help make her feel better. When Melly and Olivia get to camp, they are put in separate bands. Olivia has a crush on one of the boys in her bands, so she spends all her time talking and thinking about him. She abandons Melly all the time so she can spend time with this boy. Meanwhile, Melly is also dealing with some personal feelings that are new to her. Adeline is a girl in Melly's band, and Melly thinks she may have feelings for her. Drum Roll, Please is a good read about a young girl who is dealing with a lot and is just trying to figure out who she is.
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Author: Sandhya Menon
Published: 2018 Twinkle has had a crush on Neil forever. The problem? Neil is super popular, and Twinkle is what she calls a "groundling," which basically means she goes unnoticed. Neil's identical twin brother Sahil has had a crush on Twinkle forever, but Twinkle has always been too hung up on Neil to notice. When Twinkle starts getting anonymous emails from someone who goes by "N," who says he has a crush on her, Twinkle is positive that it's Neil. Ever since she was little, Twinkle has wanted to be a movie director. When she gets a chance to direct a movie with Sahil for a festival, Twinkle thinks that it's her chance to leave her groundling status for good, especially if Neil is writing those emails. But as Sahil and Twinkle start working on the movie, she discovers that maybe she has feelings for him too. From Twinkle, With Love is told through letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers. It is a fantastic romance perfect for fans of Menon's When Dimple Met Rishi. Sixth graders in Media classes did a big research project this year. They got to pick any topic they were interested in, as long as they were able to find reliable sources on the topic online. There were eight major steps in this research project
Because students are always working at their own pace, students had access to this document on Google Classroom, so they always know exactly what they are supposed to be doing at each step if they needed to move on ahead of other students. I did mini lessons on citations and note-taking as needed, but the first time they were exposed to these topics in class was through videos. I used https://www.playposit.com/ to create a blended learning opportunity. Students would watch a video mini lesson of me teaching them note-taking skills, and then I inserted different questions they had to answer on playposit before they could move on to the next part of the video. It was an awesome tool that worked perfectly. Students then created a digital poster on Google Slides. Citations were posted on their second slide. Here are examples of some of the posters! After the digital poster was turned in, students had to use our makerspace to create something related to their topic. We had recently purchased a button maker at the start of the project, so many sixth graders chose to create a button; however, there were kids who used legos, created collages, and made blackout poetry, all relating to their research topic. Students loved being able to choose what they researched. They also loved being able to create at the end in the makerspace. I will absolutely do this unit again!
The Marrow Thieves takes place in the future after the world has been irreparably damaged due to global warming. People have soon discovered that they have also lost the ability to dream. This strange phenomenon affects everyone except Indigenous people. As soon as this fact was discovered, life for the Indigenous became really dangerous. They are being hunted for their bone marrow, which carries the cure for the lost dreams.
Frenchie lost his parents and his brother to the Recruiters, the name given to the people who track down and take the people with dreams. No one knows what happens to them once they are taken. Eventually Frenchie finds a group of Indigenous people who are living together, trying to make it to the North, a place that is supposedly safe. The Marrow Thieves is a dark, haunting book that revisits the brutal history Indigenous people have faced in North America in the past. There is a lot of talk of the schools that were built and how they are now back in this dystopian future. Tessa's family has to move because of her dad's job. Tessa is not very happy about this, but she is happy her dad is following his dreams. Then strange things start happening in their house. Someone is leaving odd drawings around, and sometimes doors won't open when you want them to. Tessa starts to think that maybe their house is haunted. When she discovers a very old mystery involving a little girl named Inez, Tessa is convinced that someone wants her to figure out what happened to that girl all those years ago. With the help of some of her new friends, Tessa sets out to solve the mystery.
Fans of scary stories will love this creepy book! Author: Dan Gemeinhart
Published: 2019 Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, are on their own ever since Coyote's mom and two sisters died in a terrible accident. Now Coyote and Rodeo live in a bus. They are always on the move, travelling and staying wherever they want, whenever they want. In a phone call from her grandma, Coyote hears about how a park in her old neighborhood is going to be taken out and turned into a new intersection the next week. Coyote needs to get back to that park before they demolish it so that she can rescue an old memory box that she and her mom and sisters buried five years ago, right before the accident. There are two problems: 1) They are 3,600 miles away from their old home, and 2) Rodeo would never agree to go back there--the memories are too painful. Coyote decides she needs to come up with a plan to get Rodeo back there without realizing it. The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise is one of those books that just tears your heart apart. Their story is unimaginable, and I just wished I could rewrite it for them. I loved every second of this book. Author: Sonya Sones
Published: 2016 Molly is dealing with a ton of guilt that she can't escape, something that she doesn't like to talk about. Her family is dealing with some issues related to her brother, Noah. When Molly meets a homeless girl named Red one night, she decides that her job will be to reunite Red with her family. Red is a little bit older than Molly, and her family has to be missing her, so it can't be that hard to find her family. The problem is that Red is very unpredictable and sometimes does crazy things, like talk to people who aren't there. Saving Red is a story about family and guilt and how there are things out of our control. I really enjoyed this novel, written in verse. Lily is a girl, but she was born as a boy named Timothy. She likes to dress like a girl in her home, but her dad has always told her that she needs to dress like a boy when she leaves the house. This year, though, she has decided that she wants to start being herself. She wants to leave the house in dresses and go by Lily. Not everyone would support that. She already is bullied by boys at school, even though she is known as Timothy there. What would happen to her if she showed up as Lily?
Dunkin is new to town. He and his mom are on their own for now. Dunkin mentions his dad but doesn't reveal much information about him. We know that Dunkin is taking medicine for his mental health, something he and his dad have in common. Then Lily and Dunkin meet, and they become fast friends. Until the school year starts and Dunkin finds friends in the boys who bully Lily. Will he stand by Lily? Lily and Dunkin has made it to the top of my favorite books list. This is a sweet story about two people who are dealing with very big problems in their lives. Amazing book with LGBTQ and mental health representation. I ran across these free instructions on how to make a heart by folding pages inside an old book. I quickly followed the instructions and created my own folded book art heart. ![]() I knew right away that students would love doing this activity in our makerspace. We had just weeded three book carts FILLED with books. I went through and saved the hard cover books in good condition, printed out the instructions, and I simply set my book heart on the library counter. Every time students walked in, they asked who made it and if they could make one. I decided to let students come in before school to get started on this project. With Mother's Day around the corner, I brought in wrapping paper for students to wrap their finished creation up if they wanted to give it away as a gift. It warmed my heart to see just about every single student who has started a book talk about who they want to give it to and why. For their first heart, it probably takes kids about 45 minutes to one hour for them to complete from start to finish. Once they know how it works, they are allowed to come in the library any time they have permission. to work on it. Kids are seriously spending their recess time in the library to work on this project. I had a really hard time locating other free instructions online for other shapes to create. I decided to make my own patterns to give more options for students who wanted to try this project. Here are the instructions I created for the star and the butterfly:My goal is to get students to create their own instructions for different shapes. I'm guessing I'll have some takers!
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