Westwood March 21st

School: Westwood Elementary

Mentor: Sara Martini

Date: Monday, March 21, 2016

Hours: 32

   Today I worked on researching some books for Sara. Her book orders are due, so she wanted me to find books that are considered the best of 2015, engineering books for STEM concepts, and popular elementary level graphic novels. I used the Goodreads, B&N and Kirkus Review websites to find books for these areas. It was a good project for me to work on because I also became more familiar with the reading interests and trends for the elementary grades. I shared these lists with Sara via google docs and she ordered most of what I found. I then worked with Sara as she entered in book orders to see how that process works for Follett and Capstone.
   Another big project that has popped up, not originally on this week's schedule, is assisting 5th grade with creating these memory books that will then be sent in and published. Through this company, each child can have a book published for free, and then if they want to order another copy, it costs $15.00. The issue is that this program is a nightmare to use! The text box editing options are awful and become quite frustrating for these students. Since the students had created everything in google docs, and are copying and pasting into this program, I suggested to Sara that they use the Windows Snipping Tool to take a picture of their work in google, and then just insert the picture into the book creator program. I showed her how it would work. She loved the idea and checked to make sure that the Snipping Tool was on all of the computers. It was installed, so she and I went and talked with the 5th grade teachers about this option. They thought it was worth trying because this project has become so time consuming and frustrating that they are willing to try using the Snipping Tool. We'll see how it goes tomorrow!
   I also worked with the 2nd grade book group. Again they are starting a new book, and they chose to read Chocolate Fever, which I think they will really get a kick out of reading. They are a pleasant group to work with and I enjoyed listening to them read and helping them with their pronunciation as they read.
   This week we are finishing the Star of the North books. I was able to read to the library groups at the end of the day. This week we are reading Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table to grades K-2. Sara also found a Youtube clip of the real Will Allen, and that really engaged the students.