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Speed Dating with PYRCA Titles

Presented by Members of the Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Committee

Presentation:http://bit.ly/PYRCA2019

Program website: https://pyrcapsla.wixsite.com/pyrca

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About this Presentation

This presentation was given at the Pennsylvania School Librarian Association Conference in 2019. This session started with a quick overview of the program and then we broke into grade strands. Members of the PYRCA committee shared the ideas below to their small groups. Then participants shared out to their small groups how they have used the PYRCA program in their school.

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Summary of the PYRCA Program

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Breakout to work with different levels

As you work, feel free to record ideas on the paper on the tables.

If you want, we will add your ideas to the document to help others share ideas

Booktalks, State Maps, and other lesson ideas can be found on our Website: https://pyrcapsla.wixsite.com/pyrca

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King & Kayla and the Case of the Lost Tooth

Make a lost tooth envelope using a template like this: https://www.clementinecreative.co.za/free-printable-mini-envelopes-and/

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Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible Alvin

Watch videos from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution: https://vimeo.com/album/4261384/

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Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing

http://www.haring.com (Click on the Foundations tab to access lesson plans.)

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A Place to Start a Family: Poems About Creatures That Build

Check out these activities

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We Don't Eat Our Classmates!

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The Haunted House Next Door

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If Picasso Painted a Snowman

Have students create their own snowman inspired by one of the artists below, after visiting the site of the 10 authors listed in Powerkids-->InfoBits-->Artists

As an extension, students can write a paragraph about their artist using the following 3 questions as guidelines. What movement is this artist a part of? Which piece of artwork is their most famous, based on the article you read? What did you find most fascinating about this artist?

Pablo Picasso
Georgia O’Keefe
Claude Monet
Jackson Pollock
Salvador Dali
Marc Chagall
Vincent Van Gogh

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Someone New

Lessons

More lessons

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Iver & Ellsworth

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Baby Monkey, Private Eye

Both the Scholastic and the Baby Monkey sites have many activities.
Copy the Baby Monkey office illustration page at the beginning of each chapter along with the Key to Baby Monkey’s Office at the end of the book and have students identify the unique themed art in each illustration.

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Counting Birds: The Idea That Helped Save Our Feathered Friends

*Cornell’s Ornithology Lab - Citizen Scientist

Great Backyard Bird Count - Print a local tally sheet for your area.

Bird Coloring Pages - consider making a gallery walk of birds in your area. Download bird coloring pages. Place bird identification books nearby. Have students color and display bird gallery.

PBS 57-minute video on the importance of counting birds and the Christmas Bird Count. Choose an interesting segment for your students: https://www.pbs.org/video/counting-birds-counting-birds/

Activity idea: Borrow a few pairs of binoculars and take the students outside. Project Feeder Watch is an easy and important way for students to be involved in counting bird species.

https://feederwatch.org/.

The back matter in the book also provides a few other links for librarian and teacher use.

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Joan Procter, Dragon Doctor: The Woman Who Loved Reptiles

Many imaginative activities are provided on this site. The Leaping Lizard activity (complete with pattern) is especially fun.

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The Water Princess

Check out the inspiration for this story discussing why she created a charity to try and get clean water to Burkina Faso

Website and printable: https://www.susanverde.com/free-downloads

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The Boo-Boos That Changed the World

Blue Slip Media Curriculum Guide:

Author website (lesson plans too): https://onedogwoof.com/

Official band-aid site and look at some of the band-aid designs : https://www.band-aid.com/

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My Life in Pictures

The State Library of Louisiana has an excellent discussion guide and complete lesson plan!

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Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art of Confusion

https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/dazzle-ships/

Students will study the pictures of real Dazzle Ships printed from this website. Then using the battleship templates they will create their own camouflage patterns inspired by animal patterns and the tips below.

TIPS

Abbott Handerson Thayer: Sharply contrasting colors side by side are harder to recognize
John Graham Kerr: use contrasting colors to make edges harder to see
Dazzle: patterns and colors meant to confuse the enemy about a ship’s speed and direction

Sample Slideshow of Dazzle Ship photos:

Sample Battleship Templates:

Frigate, Navy Ship, PT, Battleship

Chris Barton’s “Bartology” website shares how he researched for Dazzle Ships:

https://chrisbarton.info/blog/labels/dazzle-ships/

Illustrator’s website, including a video of the breathtaking illustrations:

https://victo-ngai.com/dazzle-ship

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Lions & Liars

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Life According to Og the Frog

Visit Og and all of the friends in Humphrey the Hamster’s world at Humphreyville:

https://www.bettybirney.com/humphreyville.html

National Geographic Frogs in Focus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK7oki5fVJA

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Saving Winslow

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Louisiana’s Way Home

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Strongheart: Wonder Dog of the Silver Screen

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The Creature of the Pines

Using facts from what you have learned about the Jersey Devil, create a short graphic novel about this creature:

http://www.unicornrescuesociety.com/static/UnicornRescueSociety_EducatorsGuide.pdf

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Can I Touch Your Hair

Lesson Idea: Have your students pair up like the characters in the story and write up a list of general facts about themselves from favorite foods to activities. See if they can write up a poem together about their differences or similarities.

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Saving Fiona: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Baby Hippo

- Compare and contrast Nile and pygmy hippos. (See worksheet below.)

-Hooray for Hippos

Visit The Fiona Show at the Cincinnati Zoo: http://cincinnatizoo.org/the-fiona-show/

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Wonderland

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Knights vs Dinosaurs

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Remembering Vera

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Beauty and the Beak: How Science, Technology, and a 3D printed Beak rescued a Bald Eagle

This may be a good way to brainstorm different ways 3D printing can be used to solve problems and introduce a design challenge in TinkerCAD

Video of Beauty during prosthetic fitting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy_-VjOR_Jo

Educational Guide and Activities from Reading is Fundamental:

https://www.rif.org/sites/default/files/Support_Materials/BEAUTY%20AND%20THE%20BEAK%20Educational%20Guide.pdf

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Grandma Gatewood Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Students take notes while you are reading the story. After the story, they use their notes to write a postcard from Grandma Gatewood. See form below.

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The Day You Begin

From Jacqueline Woodson’s Educator’s Guide:

After reading The Day You Begin, lead the class in a discussion about what information is important to know when you meet someone new. What things do you learn about each of the characters in the book as they reveal themselves to one another? What would you ask someone when you meet them for the first time? Generate a list of questions that the class feels will help them get to know their classmates. Encourage them to think of a few questions that will help them dig a little deeper when they interview their peers during the activity.

Have students create a display to celebrate their awesomeness. Perhaps each student could make an index card highlighting their unique contribution to the class/school.

Lesson Idea: Together as a class come up with a list of questions you would like to ask your classmates to get to know them. Then have students pair up and interview each other using these questions. Students could then share this information with the class or else illustrate a picture of the information they found out about their classmate. See: http://images.randomhouse.com/teachers_guides/9780147515827.pdf

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Sweep

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Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Discussion Guide

Check out activities from when this book was used for One Book, One Denver

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Greetings from Witness Protection

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Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish

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The Only Road

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Suspect Red

Discussion Guide

Resources from the author

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The Parker Inheritance

http://varianjohnson.com/books/the-parker-inheritance/story-behind-parker-inheritance/

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Hello Universe

-Teacher guide

-More Resources

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Unsinkable

This will time out well with the summer 2020 Olympics. Would be cool to get our kids excited and interested about the paralympic games.

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Float

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Resistance

Check out this Memorial for evacuation of Warsaw Ghetto at the Polin Museum in Warsaw

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Tales of the Peculiar

-If this gets put in MackinVIA, it may be cool to have several kids access it, read a story and write their own version or look at the cultural influences.

Official author website: http://ransomriggs.com/

Official book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzpCTOJRjO4