Author Skype With Author Nikki Loftin (Post By Austin and Caitlyn)

We are Skyping with Nikki Loftin!~Jaden



                        We are about to start the Skype at 9:30 A.M. on Wednsday  March 6, 2013 

We will be skyping with Nikki Loftin author of   The Sinister Sweetness of Splended Academy .

Nikki,  if you are reading this

What has been going on during the skype: Well right now she is telling us about her new book. Now she is reading it aloud. WE WANT HER BOOK! Just about everyone is mesmarized by her book.

This is Nikkis new book!!!-Austin

About author: She would write alot of books and she said that she writes all the time.
She is writeing  another book.She used a bully she knew as a character in the book.She was the messy girl in the world.Her desk was the messyest desk and they (her parents) made a appontment for Sturday with the teacher to clean her desk.


Questions we asked-
1.Do you have a new book coming out soon - Hailey
2.If you could write another book what would it be- Tanner
3.If you didnt write a book what would you do-Chase
4.What grades have you taught? ~Caitlyn

READ HER BOOK!!! IT IS AWESOME!

This is when she was telling us about her
 self and about her book.~Jaden

The class is aking qustions.~Austin



This is McKenzie helping someone
Tweet on our class Twitter.~Jaden



This is Isaac. He is taking notes.~Austin



This is Lexi taking video during the
 Skype.~Jaden

Coleman is at is desk and taking notes.~Austin

Delaney just finished taking notes.~Anna&Madison

This is Nikki saying goodbye!~Jaden

Check out our tweets during our Skype visit

1. Mar 6Nikki Loftin ‏@nikkiloftin

   Wow, @room121, you are all AWESOME! Thanks for letting me read to you today! #WRAD2013

    Retweeted by Room 121

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2. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin If you weren't a writer what would you be? ~ Madison#wrad2013

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3. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin Do you like myths(Greek,Roman,American etc.)?~Tanner#wrad2013

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4. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin This is a picture of Nikki telling us a obliterated her.~Austin#wrad2013 pic.twitter.com/yvaZAj9Z6d

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5. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin Do you think you are going to make a seires to go along with The Sinister Sweetness of Splended Acadamey? ~ Jaden#wrad2013

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6. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin What are all your books? ~ McKenzie @wrad2013

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7. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin This is Nikki Skyping with us :-) . Really fun!!!! ~Makaiah#wrad2013 pic.twitter.com/lshWmMtfe1

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8. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin When did your book get published? ~Austin #wrad2013

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9. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

   @nikkiloftin What is your favorite book in the world? ~Courtney#wrad2013

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10. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

    @nikkiloftin We just now started the skype, and she is reading some of her book.~ Isaac #wrad2013

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11. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

    @nikkiloftin We are having one of the best Skypes ever!#wrad2013~Bailey pic.twitter.com/6usMDjBT5t

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12. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

    @nikkiloftin Right now we are listening to her favorite part in the book. ~ McKenzie #wrad2013

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13. Mar 6Room 121 ‏@room121

    We are looking forward to Skyping with authors @nikkiloftin & @tem2tomorrow in honor of World Read Aloud Day!! #wrad2013

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Credits:

This entire blog post was written by Austin2 and Caitlyn.

Captions were written by Jaden, Austin, Anna, and Madison.

All pictures on this post were taken by Mariah, Kenson, Hailey, Anna, and Logan.

Pictures we tweeted (including the first picture) were taken by Bailey and Makaiah

All video footage was taken by Lexi and Jacob.
 (Stay tuned for the video, which will be uploaded sometime during the next week!)

Book Club Discussions- 4.27.2012

Last Friday, we finished our first goals for our current book clubs. Before meeting to discuss the books, however, we spent about 8 minutes generating some thick and thin questions to fuel our discussion of the books. While we certainly were not limited to these question stems, we used these question cards to help generate thick questions:  http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFLC/qcards.pdf.

So how are our book club discussions structured? Well, book club members take turns leading the discussion by being the discussion director, and they use this guide to help keep the book club on track: http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFLC/director.pdf. (To fit our needs for this discussion, however, we skipped steps 2 and 4.)  

Check out the video below that I (Mrs.Allen) captured as a snapshot of a few of these amazing discussions: 

World Read Aloud Day

For World Read Aloud Day on March 7, 2012, we had the privilege of Skyping with Dee Garretson, author of middle grade and young adult fiction books. During the visit, Dee read aloud the first chapter of one of her books: Wildfire Run. While she read, we followed along, so we could make the most out of the reading. When she was through, we took turns asking her questions about what life as an author is like, what inspired her to become an author, her favorite books, etc. It was an amazing experience for us! For more information about how we connected with an author for World Read Aloud Day, click here. 

Book Clubs- setting first reading goals & sharing predictions

On Wednesday, October 19, we previewed eight different books, so we could begin book clubs on Friday. For each book, we read the back cover, read the first couple pages, checked for comprehension using the 5-finger rule, and ranked the books #1-8 based on which ones seemed the most interesting to each of us--with comments to explain why we ranked the books the way we did.

On Friday, we formed our book clubs based on our top 3 choices and independently recorded predictions about what our book would be about in our reading logs; then we met with others in our book club for the first time to share predictions and make our first reading goals.

In the videos below, you'll find us discussing our predictions and making our first reading goals. The last video features all of us beginning to read our new book club books!

**Note: the videos are in their roughest form and have not been edited. The purpose is to document our learning, share the conversations, and spread the excitement we felt meeting with book clubs in our classroom for the first time of the year!

Kindergarten Buddies

While a portion of our class is in orchestra on Mondays, the rest of us work on class projects; on Wednesdays, those of us not in orchestra visit our kindergarten buddies.

Last Wednesday, September 14, was the first time we met with the kindergarteners to read to them some fun books and get them excited about reading and learning!

Here we are standing in front of Mrs.Johnson's

kindergarten class for the first time as she introduces us.

Here Mrs. Johnson begins matching us to 

our new kindergarten buddies.

 

Check out how engaged we are with our kindergarten buddies

as we read to them exciting books about the alphabet!