Book Talk

Tell Me:  Children, Reading and Talk by Aidan Chambers

The author has provided a website that corresponds to the text with additional resources such a lists of novels, iPad texts, and short stories.  He also lists more professional articles.   

click for Presentation

 A brief synopsis of  The Crane by Reiner Zimnik 

In an ever-expanding city, one young man claims the job of his dreams, operator of the tallest crane around. Since others envy his position, he never leaves his crane, always eager for the day—and work—to begin.

As the seasons pass, man and machine almost become one. "The crane was a giant with iron sinews, and the craneman was its heart." Then people begin to hoard their goods, grinning ravens multiply throughout the land, and war is at hand. But the craneman never falters, remaining at his post even when the land is flooded, ready for reconstruction to begin.  

-taken directly from http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Crane.html?id=ALJ1VhEtITUC

To get a glimpse of the text and illustrations click here!

It appears as though the text deals with dark themes of war, devastation, and isolation but in a charming way.

The following animations were created based on excerpts the author provided to bring book talks to life:  the following dialogues are nine year olds conversing with each other and their teacher.  The teacher is still relatively new to the process.  

Tell Me part 1 by faerieprincess5672 on GoAnimate

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Tell Me part 2 by faerieprincess5672 on GoAnimate

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Tell Me part 3 by faerieprincess5672 on GoAnimate

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Resources
Chambers, A. (1999). Tell me: children reading and talking. Great Britain: Short Run Press.

Using Video for Vocabulary Development

To assist with vocabulary development with kindergarten ELL students, I created this video.  It supports an IB unit that O'Connell school is currently working on (Unit 5-An inquiry into characteristics of living things. After giving a pre-assessment, I determined which animal names were unknown to students.  The unit only has four weeks left so I plan to cover 10 animals a week.  Students are having some difficulty remembering the names so I am hoping that seeing the animals in action in combination with my narration will help them to remember.

*These video clips were all taken from Youtube posts for educational purposes, I do not claim any ownership.