Connect 2.0

ISB subscribes to a number of fantastic reading resources, and one of our favorites is Tumble Books!

Tumble Books is an online collection of electronic books (e-books), animated, talking picture books from a well-rounded selection of authors. We used Tumble Books in the Tech Zone during our first Starbooks evening and are proud to announce that it is now available from home through our ISB subscription.

Check the ES Learning Hub bulletin board for the username and password!

The last week and a half has seen an amazing increase in excitement and enthusiasm about reading – especially in the Learning Hub. We have students eagerly reading during every break and recess and the Hub has been packed with students taking advantage of the special collections highlighted for this celebration of reading.

Along with reading books, our ES students have been spending some of their free time exploring the interactive projects that some classes have completed online. All of the links to these enticing projects are posted on the Read On Readers wiki.  Check it out to see some of the new tools our ES students have been using to enhance and support our reading curriculum!

Over the course of the week a number of teachers participated in the “virtual readers” campaign where by they picked their favorite book and were filmed reading it. These clips where then put onto ISB’s very own IPTV network and were streamed into classrooms across the ES. This was a new and interesting way to broadcast the love for reading and books across the school.

As our readers enjoyed the casual Starbooks Café’s around campus, many were “caught reading” on tape by Mr. O’Neil. These fun, short clips have also been posted to the IPTV network to continue to promote a love of reading in the ES.

The week was a great success thanks to all the hard work from the staff and students.  It was great to hear from the kids how much fun it was to get “caught reading.”

Happy New Year! Welcome back to another fabulous semester here at the Learning Hub!

In my travels online today, I came across a wonderful resource for our elementary students, parents and teachers: Just One More Book!

Acoording to their website:

Just One More Book is a thrice-weekly podcast which promotes and celebrates literacy and great children’s books.

Each weekday morning, we take a few minutes out of our morning coffee ritual to discuss one of our many favourite children’s books. We also feature weekly interviews with authors, literacy related discussions and audio reviews submitted by our listeners.

Through this podcast and its website, we are building a lively, interactive community linking children’s book authors, illustrators, readers (parents and children) and publishers.

Episodes range in length from 5 to 30 minutes and can be played directly from our web page or downloaded to an ipod for listening on the go.

This podcast is powered by passion. We have no advertisers or sponsors. Our goal is to link children with great books and help create happy memories for children and the adults that read to them…and to have fun!

If you would like to share these conversations with others who are interested in connecting families and children with great children’s books, please feel free to link to this site and to pass it along to parents and teachers.

We hope you discover some new favourites!

Andrea and Mark

I listed to a few this morning and they were fantastic! When you’re ready to look for a new read, take a look – and a listen!

Semester break is almost here! Please drop by the Learning Hub over the next week and a half to stock up on books for the long holiday!

Trying to decide which books to check out? Take a look at the the “recommendation wall” for excellent books recommended by Hub staff, other students and teachers.

An excellent adventure awaits in every book!