…changing the world, one reader at a time.
This morning, reporters from NBC29 stopped by the Learning Leopard Library to find out all about our Hack-a-Thon. They crashed a third grade Choose Your Own Adventure Code Party, where third graders get to choose their mission for the day – code your Minecraft characters to build houses? Program your own Flappy Bird game? Write your […]
Read MoreLast week, I issued a challenge to our third and fourth graders. A big challenge. A big, scary, challenging challenge. I challenged Johnson’s third and fourth grade students to code and program for 100 hours during the month of December. Let’s get some background here. Kids these days are savvy tech users. They can swipe a […]
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Here’s a fact about me that not many people know: my father is British. Yep, with the accent and everything. He grew up in Radcliffe-on-Trent, a large village in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire (my Nan still lives there, in the same house!). He left his family and his home and immigrated to America in […]
Read MoreAt the 2015 Virginia Association of School Librarians conference, I noticed the repetition of certain buzzwords: MAKERSPACE! DIGITAL! 21ST CENTURY! CREATIVE! You’ve probably noticed… I love all of these words. And the excitement! Capitalize those letters! All the exclamation points! Sign me up! I’m in! But there was one buzzword that surprised me. It started […]
Read MoreWHAT A MONTH. October is always a busy month at Johnson, but this month feels like it has been our busiest yet! From special guests and reading events to Creepy Carrots and engineering tools, October has been a blur. Take a look at some of the amazing things we’ve been doing in the Learning Leopard […]
Read MoreEvery year in October, Jumpstart invites students from all over America to Read for the Record! Here is some more information about the national Read for the Record event from the Jumpstart website: Jumpstart’s Read for the Record® is a global campaign which generates public support for high-quality early learning by mobilizing millions of children and […]
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Prepare yourself: I’m about to share something shocking with you. Most librarians don’t like Book Fair. (I’m using very tame language here.) And I get it. The hours are long, the companies aren’t always gracious, and the workload is intense. Emotions are high, you count a thousand pennies a day, and it’s busy every single […]
Read MoreIn my last post, I mentioned that I spent much of my summer pedaling around Cville with an awesome organization called Books on Bikes. Have you heard of it? If not, grab your helmets and get ready to be inspired, because I’m taking you on a spin – BoB style! You might be wondering… who is […]
Read MoreBrush the sand off of your shoes and start packing up those backpacks, because summer is coming to a close. I hope you all had a relaxing, exciting, and refreshing summer, and that you’re as excited as I am to get started with a brand new school year! My summer was filled with Books on Bikes, […]
Read MoreThe votes have been counted and the winners are in! In this multi-week project, students composed nominations for their favorite books of the year via Google docs and shared them with me electronically. Once all of the nominees were shared, we had a good old fashioned debate to defend our favorites and sway our classmates’ […]
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