With Newbery season upon us, it’s also time for the 3rd annual 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. It’s a video contest in which kid filmmakers create movies that tell the stories of Newbery award-winning books in 90 seconds or less. These movies are funny, ingenious, and impressive! (Curious? We’ve gathered 25 of some of the best entries here, from a shadow-puppet version of Grace…
Category: Literacy
Getting kids to love reading including reluctant readers as well as competent readers who just don’t like to read.
Get Kids Reading Strategies: 12 Surefire Ways
I searched five years of digital photographs looking for photos of my kids reading and I only came up with the handful here. Why? It’s not easy getting kids reading, especially to love reading enough that they choose it over more exciting things like screens, playdates or sports! I started my blog after my oldest…
3rd Grade Book Club for Boys and 6th Grade Book Club for Girls
We held our first book club meetings for my 3rd grade son and my 6th grade daughter now that fall soccer is over and the kids all have a little more free time. PickyKidPix‘s 6th grade book club met at her friend Caroline’s house and my son hosted his 3rd grade book club at our…
Rebecca Stead on Grokking and Other Matters
I’m thrilled to welcome Newbery winning author Rebecca Stead today as my guest blogger courtesy of Walden Pond Press since Guys Read: Other Worlds, edited by Jon Scieszka, is out today and includes a wonderful short story by Rebecca Stead. I met Rebecca though the Random House Read and Play Community along with Newbery winner…
I’m Judging the Cybils!
I’m really excited to be judging Graphics (as in graphic novels) for the 2013 Cybils! What am I excited to read? Graphic novels that tell a great story, get kids excited to read, and have beautiful illustrations doing some of the heavy lifting of storytelling. I’d also love to discover more graphic stories for younger…
Writing Revision Tips for Kids: Why Writing is All About Revising
Please welcome my guest blogger today, middle grade author Karen Day. She happens to live in my town and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her at the dog park as well as on the soccer field when Grasshopper and Sensei was in 3rd grade — her youngest daughter was on the same team. She’s…
Stick Toys: A Stick is an Excellent Thing
I lured my son out to the dog park which is a wooded path around a reservoir with the promise of finding sticks for making bows and arrows. Left to his own devices, he will stay in front of screens for hours upon hours. We made several trips in search of sticks, which are excellent,…