On the Road with Jason Reynolds

On the Road with Jason Reynolds

https://www.facebook.com/events/492322142164966

National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jason Reynolds will discuss his ambassadorship, including his recent “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story” virtual tour, with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. Through his platform, “GRAB THE MIC: Tell Your Story,” Reynolds has directed his focus as ambassador by empowering students to embrace and share their own personal stories.
The National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature is an initiative of the Library of Congress, in partnership with Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council, with generous support from Dollar General Literacy Foundation.
Please join us to watch this presentation as it premieres with closed captions on both the Library's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/libraryofcongress and the Library's YouTube site at https://www.youtube.com/loc/. 

The presentation will be available for viewing afterwards at those sites and on the Library of Congress website at https://www.loc.gov/collections/event-videos/.

Black History in Two Minutes (or so)

As we continue with Black History Month, the Black History in Two Minutes (or so) podcast & video series is a wonderful resource to learn the full scope of U.S. history, with episodes that can tie into many different subjects, not just history/social studies!

The award-winning show explores important people and events from the past and present. These episodes create more accurate depictions or fill in gaps in our student's knowledge with well-studied events such as the Civil War and school integration (including the central role that Boston played in the 1970s), while also highlighting prominent figures often left out of most history books.

The resource is well suited for educators, too; episodes are short and accessible to a general audience. The series is narrated by Professor Henry Louis Gates and is executive produced by an equally impressive team.

Look for the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Android, and Stitcher.

You can also find it on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Recycling plastic waste to make bricks that are stronger than concrete

This video is really cool/inspirational:

Recycling plastic waste to make bricks that are stronger than concrete
Materials engineer and Gjenge Makers founder Nzambi Matee is transforming plastic waste into bricks that are lighter and five to seven times stronger than concrete.

She is one of 7 UN Environmental Program's 2020 Young Champions of the Earth winners

Sparklab - Design a Spacecraft

Sparklab - Design a Spacecraft

Design a spacecraft with these virtual materials — or create your own parts and pieces. Uses Tinkercad.

Storytelling Through Art from MoMA

Storytelling through Art

Discover how Jacob Lawrence shared the history of an important event by combining words and images in a series of paintings called the Migration Series. Tell your own story through multiple panels in this online workshop that you can access anytime.

For kids nine to 14; allow for around 12 minutes of video, plus time to complete your project. Materials needed: 3-4 sheets of paper; a pencil; colored pencils, crayons, markers, or paint.

Black Violin

You have may have heard about Black Violin, although I only heard of them when they got a grammy nomination recently.

Anyway, Black Violin has thelatest entry in the Morning Edition Song Project


Here's a page with other songs from the Morning Edition Song Project series, where NPR specifically commissions songs from a range of different musical artists to write songs that reflect our times in some way - it's pretty interesting/great!

Black Violin & NPR Morning Ed. Song Project

You may have heard about Black Violin, although I only heard of them when they got a Grammy nomination recently.  

They have the latest entry in the NPR Morning Edition Song Project

Here's a page with other songs from the project series, where NPR specifically commissions songs from a range of different musical artists to write songs that reflect our times in some way - it's pretty interesting/great!

National Engineers Week

From the Boston Children's Museum - many video resources for National Engineers Week.

Peabody Essex Wellness Initiative educator open house

From the Peabody Essex in Salem: 

Calling all teachers! We’re thrilled to bring you our first Virtual Educators' Open House! Participate in the launch of our new Wellness Initiative beginning with a mindfulness moment with Jean Skaane from Stillwaters. Find out how to access our ongoing library of virtual content and teacher resources and discover more PEM’s new Bilingual Initiative.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021 from 4-5 pm

NY Times Webinar: Talking about Race & Racism in the Classroom

Live Webinar: Talking About Race and Racism in the Classroom Using The New York TimesMarch 4 at 4pm - educators share strategies and resources for engaging in these critical discussions.

If you sign up for this, even if you can't make it live you will get a link to watch it later on demand.

NY Times Vocabulary Video Contest Winners

Wise Words: The Winners of Our 8th Annual Vocabulary Video Contest
15,000 middle and high school students entered this contest - here are the 15 winners. They have to be 15 seconds or less and be taken from the Word of the Day

Equity Unbound

From the Scout Report:

EQUITY UNBOUND: COMMUNITY BUILDING ACTIVITIES
onehe.org/equity-unbound

Recognizing that online learning creates unique obstacles and opportunities for building community, a team of educators crafted this resource kit to assist their fellow instructors in creating inclusive and engaging virtual classrooms. Though many activities are geared toward educational settings, event organizers may also appreciate this tool. The activities were curated with "intentionally equitable hospitality," in mind, a framework that emphasizes the importance of meeting people where they are at, in order to make them feel welcome, and recognizes the different needs and perspectives of those within any given classroom or group.

Activities range from short exercises that give students a break during class to icebreakers that will help create respectful and relational classrooms. Clicking on an activity will reveal additional details that may include a purpose statement, preparation guide, instructions, and other resources.

This activity kit is a collaboration between OneHE (an educator support organization) and Equity Unbound (a collaborative curriculum focused on principles of equity, open access, connection, and intercultural learning experiences). [EMB]

Summer Activities 2021

Round up of summer camps & activities for 2021

Note on BevRec

• Must enter lottery by 2/22 for chance at spot(s)
• They are now taking applications at BevRec for CIT and Jr CIT - must be 13 by July 1.

National Constitution Center’s Summer Workshops and Institutes

This summer, educators can join other teachers from across the country and constitutional scholars from across the philosophical spectrum for virtual summer educator programs with the National Constitution Center.

During these programs, educators work with content experts to deepen their knowledge of the history and modern understandings of constitutional topics. Through working with master teachers and the education teams from the Center, participants discover and develop innovative, nonpartisan ways to make the content relevant to their students. Educators gain new content knowledge, teaching tools, classroom-ready resources, and new skills for improving constitutional literacy.

These summer programs are open to educators working with grades 5–12 at public, charter, independent, parochial, and other schools. They are free to attend, but successful applications are required.

Information on the 2021 virtual summer programs can be found below.

This summer, the Center is offering the following programs:

• July 7—9, Constitutional Conversations and Civil Dialogue Virtual Workshop
• July 11—16, Building the U.S. Constitution Virtual Summer Teacher Institute
• July 18—23, Battles for Freedom and Equality Virtual Summer Teacher Institute
• July 26—28, Bill of Rights Virtual Summer Teacher Workshop

All programs are free with a successful application. Applications will be accepted through February 26, 2021.

Learn more, and apply now!

5 Music Podcasts for Kids

 I saw this NY Times article today: 5 Music Podcasts for Kids

The article has details about all of the podcasts listed below - but the links in the article are to a range of websites and spotify, etc. I looked up each of the podcasts and gave you the link that will work with the Apple podcast app if you wanted to share them with students in your class or for the BBB. I have no idea which of these are best suited to middle school age kids.

David Walliams’ Marvellous Musical Podcast

Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child

The Music Podcast for Kids!

Kids Q the Music

Noodle Loaf

Writing Contest Reminders

This is currently going on - deadline is March 3

25th Beverly Public Library Teen Poetry Contest - deadline is Wed., March 3 at 4pm. Open to all Beverly students and/or residents in grades 6-12.

This one is coming up - will be open Feb. 23 - April 13
Eighth Annual NY Times Student Editorial Contest

We invite middle school and high school students to write opinion pieces on the issues that matter to them. Contest dates: Feb. 23 to April 13. For middle or high school students anywhere in the world ages 11-19.

Stax Museum and Rock & Soul Museum

The Stax Museum in Memphis and the Memphis Rock & Soul Museums have some online tours and events happening.

Stax Museum Virtual Tour in celebration of Black History Month brings the Stax story to students of all ages worldwide

The Memphis Rock & Soul Museum (run by the Smithsonian!) has an educator page and a virtual tour, but it's just a long youtube video

More ebook access

Public Library Connect is now working. This means that using the Sora app, students have access to a statewide library of ebooks and audiobooks we pay to access, they can also now get access to the books in the Beverly library's Overdrive ebook/eaudio collection without needing a public library card! 

This is a big win so I'm really excited to tell you about this.

The setup is pretty easy but there are a few steps. I'm going to work on creating some help documents, videos and presentations that can be used asynchronously, but I'm also happy to meet with you or your students to show you/them how to do it. It's a one-time setup.

With Sora we can also purchase (at a cost) books for short term class set use or longer term use. There are a lot of different models, which depend on the book and the publisher, so ask me if you're interested.

There are lots of other things that are accessible to those with public library cards too, so I'd still like as many of our students as possible to have their own cards. I'm working with 6th grade teachers on this process but can do a library card drive with any team.

Sea Shanty Database

From Research Buzz:

"Mainsail Café, a database of sea shanties and traditional nautical songs. The site contains information on almost 400 songs and over 120 albums. There's also a collection of 47 printed items here. I get the impression this site is still filling out, but there's already a lot to explore here, and there's a great feature to pull random entries from the categories you're exploring. One thing I noticed: no ads at all. Not even affiliate links in the album/book lists. Recommended."