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Showing posts from November, 2012

Sci Friday Picture Book Naturalist Biographies

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Welcome back to Sci Friday at the Melange! Science is awesome, but sometimes kids forget that there are real people helping our world discover, invent, and explore. From their earliest days, children need to be exposed to the lives of scientists so that they can see themselves taking on those roles as well. This week I’m highlighting two picture books that give kids a peek into the lives of fascinating naturalists - Charles Darwin and Jane Goodall. One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky , Matthew Trueman (Illustrator) Hardcover, 48 pages Published January 13th 2009 by Candlewick Press (first published May 13th 2006) ISBN 076361436X (ISBN13: 9780763614362) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3999038-one-beetle-too-many Goodreads Summary: From the time Charles Darwin was a boy, he was happiest when he was out alone collecting specimens (especially beetles). And despite his father's efforts to turn young Darwin — a poor stu

Wordless Wednesday - First Snowfall

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Slice of Thankfulness - Twitter Style

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Visit Two Writing Teachers to check out other Slices!  For today's Slice, I'm giving you a peek into my digital, short form writing life. As Thanksgiving approached, I neared the milestone of 20,000 tweets . I decided to save the last few tweets and have a little "Twitter Sprint" of thankfulness that morning. Enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving to my US friends (though I’m also thankful for my friends in other places like @ geekifiedgirl and @ renzelen ) — Maria Selke (@mselke01) November 22, 2012 Every one of you makes my life better - through laughter, inspiration, and support. #thankful — Maria Selke (@mselke01) November 22, 2012 I’m thankful for my bloggy buddies who spark my thinking - like @ thebrainlair with #battyaboutbooks & @ mentortexts and @ kelleemoye — Maria Selke (@mselke01) November 22, 2012 I’m thankful for the chance to share my thoughts with the #slice2012 crew, #connectthepop and @ tlt16 — Maria Selke (@mselke01) November

It's Monday November 26

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It's time for my weekly roundup of reading. Big thanks, as always, to Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts for hosting this each week. Head over to their blog to check out the other posts.   Even with Thanksgiving chaos (I had people I love in my house from Monday through Saturday), I had the time to get a few books read. I'm also working today on choosing my nominees for the Nerdies 2012 awards. Go take a peek and give your favorites of 2012 a plug. I'll put together a post later this week sharing my nominees. Nerdy Book Club Award Nominations Post.  Another fun thing this week - check out the hashtag #MustacheYouToRead. It is explained in loving detail by @TLT16 on her blog . I got my house guests and my sons to do pictures of our own recommendations. Those will also get posted this week. Picture Books:  A Rock is Lively was a contest prize from @loveofxena. It is just as beautiful as everyone has been raving. That and One Beetle Too Many will def

We Mustache You To Read

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I'm a sucker for silly (I'm sure some of you remember #Chompsticks from this summer). So when my friend Karen at Teen Librarian Toolbox asked for people to join in the #MustacheYouToRead campaign, I jumped in wholeheartedly. Check out Karen's post about the campaign , started by  Kearsten, the teen services librarian at Glendale Public Library in Arizona. Anyway, I had a tribe of friends and family at my house this weekend. Naturally, I got the kids to participate by holding up a picture of a favorite book for a photo shoot. One of my friends had even brought us candy mustaches, since she remembered my sons and I wearing fake mustaches to our local bookstore to celebrate the arrival of Tom Angleberger's Fake Mustache this spring.  Without further ado - here are the results of our masterpiece photo shoot! I #MustacheYouToRead Insignia by SJ Kincaid (YA Science Fiction) He #MustacheYouToRead The Unwanteds by Lisa McCann

Batty About Insignia Part 3

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Welcome back to Batty About Books - as we continue our discussion about Insignia. This book seems to be one of those books that appeal to one but not both of us... come find out why I am still enjoying it. Then check out The Brain Lair's thoughts to find out why it's not her favorite book we've read this year. As always, my thoughts here are in purple with her responses in blue. Insignia - S.J. Kincaid SECTION 3 First, Kathy and I decided we’d like to talk a little bit about the “cover appeal” of the novel. In the future, we’ll hit this section prior to actually reading the book. For now, though... here are my thoughts on the cover of Insignia. The cover hits a lot of “science fiction” buttons. The background looks like a computer processing chip, and there is an overlay of 0s and 1s. Even if I hadn’t read the book yet, it would definitely lead me to believe that programming and computers were an integral part of the story. The tag line “Impossible is just the begin

Sci Friday - reviewing Invincible Microbe

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Welcome back to Sci Friday! Today I'm featuring an excellent nonfiction book about a truly terrifying topic - Tuberculosis.  Some stories suggest the apocalypse will descend with artificial intelligence taking over humanity. Some blame climate change, or governmental collapse, or a freak incident that knocks out all man made power sources. I’m pretty sure the end will come with an incessant cough that slowly sucks the life out of each human being.  At least, that’s what I think after reading Invincible Microbe ! Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the never-ending search for a cure by   Jim Murphy ,  Alison Blank Hardcover ,  160 pages Published July 10th 2012 by Clarion Books Goodreads Summary: This is the story of a killer that has been striking people down for thousands of years:tuberculosis. After centuries of ineffective treatments, the microorganism that causesTB was identified, and the cure was thought to be within reach—but drug-resistantvarieties cont

Wordless Wednesday - Mirka

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It's Monday - November 19th

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Head on over to Teach Mentor Texts where Jen and Kellee host a whole nerdy horde of bloggers. I had a pretty slow reading week. Between the exhaustion that comes from preparing for parent conferences (we have them this week - Monday-Wednesday) and spending the whole weekend cleaning, I didn't get a lot of reading time. Cleaning time - oh, plenty of that. Perhaps if we took the time to reorganize the house more than once a year.... but I digress. So I got another Nerdbery collected... Ginger Pye wasn't horrible, it was just boring. Almost nothing really happened, and we kept being treated to useless asides. SCIENCE!  The two science books were the feature of this week's Sci Friday . I plan to pick up several of this series for my classroom library. Check out my post for a complete review to see if they are right for you. That was it... the whole ball of wax. I had such noble plans, too!

Sci Friday NF The Fun Way

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Academy of Natural Science celebrates bicentennial While visiting the Academy of Natural Sciences this past weekend, several brightly colored science books caught my eye. I've had reading the Basher science books on my " to do" list for a long time now, ever since several students started carrying them around in my classroom, so I decided to bump them right up the list. One of my fifth graders (and his mom) graciously sent in his four books for me to borrow. As of this moment, I have finished the Biology and Physics books, and I'm halfway through Chemistry. My son snagged that one before I could get to it and declared it "amazing". Overview of the "Basher" style -      Each book is chunked into chapters, which have color coded squares on the right side of the page. These squares are visible on the side of the book, making it easy to navigate directly to any particular section of the book. This friend is from "Physics&q

Wordless Wednesday - Veteran

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(Ok, just a few words. This is in honor of a cool Marine named Charlie who came to a live music show I also attended.)

Failure is always an option

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"Failure is always an option" - the Mythbusters The Mythbusters are a huge favorite here at the Selke household, and we experienced the beauty and truth of this quote last night. My boys are both Cub Scouts, and they have to make space derby planes for Wednesday's pack meeting. Our lives have been somewhat chaotic lately ("somewhat" being a bit of an understatement), so they were only able to begin the task on Monday evening. While I am a den leader, I'm hopeless when it comes to tools or handicrafts. Fortunately, my husband is a whiz at such things. Unfortunately, he's also completely swamped at work right now. That's part of the reason we had to wait so long to get started. Anyway, the blocks were glued and ready to go. The boys sat down with their vegetable peelers to shape their masterpieces. They peeled... and peeled... and peeled. They were warned not to peel too little, or the ship would be heavier than needed. They were warned not to

It's Monday Nov 12th

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Once again, I share my weekly reading. Not as many books read this week, because I feel like I'm in bit of a slump. Still - enough that it is worth sharing! Thanks again go to Jen and Kellee for hosting this each week. Check them out at Teach Mentor Texts each Monday for What Are You Reading. Go back every other day for some wonderful mentor text discussion. (Brief blurbs below) SCIENCE!  Boy + Bot was adorable. This would be a perfect addition to a science fiction genre study book list. Invincible Microbe - can I admit that I'm now a little bit freaked out? The coming infectious apocalypse could just as easily sneak into our lungs through microbes. I had no Sci Friday post this week because I was busily working on a science fiction post for Teen Librarian Toolbox. I'll let you know when it goes live! Urban Fantasy: I listened to Neverwhere , and it was awesome. Wonderful details, wonderful narrator, and a satisfying ending. Newbery / Nerdbery Ch

Wordless Wednesday - Participation

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Writing with the kids

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  I'm writing as part of the Slice of Life community - hosted by Two Writing Teachers . Check it out!  Everything I've ever read or heard insists writing along with your students is the way to go. As an enrichment/ gifted teacher, I don't often get the chance to have my students write unless they are responding to literature. Yet I love writing, so I do try to snatch opportunities whenever I can. So when I was working with my second graders on Halloween on being creative, fluent thinkers, I knew I had the perfect chance to build in some writing. They had generated words to make spooky stories, so we dove in and began to write. I selected my own set of words, grabbed a sharpened pencil, and got down to business. "What are you doing?" "I'm writing a story, too. I told you I was going to write with you." Ten or fifteen minutes went by, and their writing had started to slow. Gleefully, two wrote enormous THE ENDs at the bottom of their journa

It's Monday November 5th

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Jen and Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts host this each week. Head on over to read about other booklists! With Hurricane Sandy passing through, I had extra time to read. It seems, however, that I squandered much of that time in writing about my reading. Yeah - and I still didn't get all the reviews done that I needed to do. I'm so far behind on my comic reading and reviewing! If you loved Buffy The Vampire Slayer, be sure to check out my post over at Teen Librarian Toolbox . I have a giveaway for the first two Spike comics that recently arrived (and I'm not sure when that giveaway will end). I also spent some time reading a friend's story. Michelle is a fabulous Twitter buddy who lives in Australia. She's a writer hoping to get published in the near future, and I adore reading her stories! This is the one I read this week - Emotional State  http://morselsbymishla.wordpress.com/emotional-state/  (She just posted the last two chapters, and I need to finish r