What it’s like to be a parent at Scholastic

This is a guest post from Julia Graeper from the Scholastic Classroom and Community Group. Thanks, Julia!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

An exhausted-looking woman in a grocery store passes a rack of fresh eggplant with her kindergarten-age child, who asks, “Mom, what are those?”

The woman says, “Shut up!  I should have left you at home.”

A second mother passes the eggplant with her child, who also asks about them.

The mother replies, “Eggplant.  It’s a vegetable.”

A third mother passes.  When her child asks about the eggplant, she says, “That’s eggplant.  It’s one of the only purple vegetables.  That one probably weighs 1 or 2 pounds.  We could slice it open at home and see what it looks like inside…” and so on.

Well, if you’ve ever heard the incredible Phyllis C. Hunter speak (author of It’s Not Complicated), you know the eggplant story.  She told it on Monday here at Scholastic during Teacher Appreciation Week.

Let me tell you, the eggplant story is with me all the time.

Class is back in session…with The Magic School Bus!

As Ms. Frizzle would say, “Seatbelts, everyone!”

You know when you hear those words you’re in for an adventure! The Magic School Bus is all about experiential learning. It’s a classroom without any limits, which makes learning even more fun.  And using the unique Magic School Bus teaching approach, it’s now possible to travel back in time…sort of!

Introducing our newest educational game, The Magic School Bus: Dinosaurs for LeapPad learning tablets and Leapster Explorer systems!

In Our Feeds: Literary postage stamps, back-to-school brain foods, and book-inspired decor

Every Friday, we share a handful of links that we found funny, provocative or just plain cool. We call it In Our Feeds. Have a great weekend!

Time to give your home a makeover? Here are 35 book-inspired decor ideas to get you started! Perhaps you’d even like to include one of these pieces of art made from books.

According to this reading infographic, 38% of readers will finish a book no matter what. See what else readers had to say about their book habits!

We all know that kids have such an amazing outlook on life, so here are 7 life lessons pulled from kids’ to-do lists.

The point of mistakes

Lots of amazing quotes and ideas have been shared this week here at Scholastic as we host teachers from across the area for our Teacher Appreciation Week; we’re sharing them all at #TeacherWeek, so be sure to follow the hashtag and @ScholasticTeach for them! Plus, head over to frizzle for more great posts.

Meanwhile, though, here’s one of my favorites. It reminds me: the point of school isn’t to walk into a classroom and know the answers. The learning happens in the mistakes, in the false assumptions. The magic is in the not-knowing.

A salute to books, our unwavering travel companions

We all know that summer is the perfect time of year to catch up on our reading.  We even plan for it.  Books travel by car, train, plane, foot, bike, etc. to make exotic destinations or just the tree nearest to your home.  And today, we salute books as our unwavering travel companions because as you’ll see from our stories, it can be a perilous journey!

Have you ever had a book catastrophe? A moment when, to your horror, your book is no longer in one piece (maybe not even just two pieces) or simply gone forever?  If you have, you aren’t alone. One of my greatest accidental destruction of books was poolside in the blistering heat.  I was about midway through a paperback novel – you know, one of those really thick ones that you need a little muscle to keep open – and when I turned to the next chapter I noticed that a page was loose.  Not realizing I had discovered a serious problem with my book, I read on.  A few minutes later, a next page just came out in my hand.  Then a few more.  My book binding had MELTED! To make matters worse, I had borrowed this book and even when I brought it back to safety in air-conditioning, I needed to purchase a new one to return. So my wounded warrior of a book remains on my shelf.  But at least the book is among friends because I am also sad to say, I’ve sinned and left a library book on a plane.  It is my only library crime to date and I paid my dues, literally, but I confess this to you today and I hope that my book made a different traveler’s day.

Book pet peeves

When it comes to reading, I am a pretty easy going person.  As long as it is reading, I don’t really have many issues.  I don’t have pre-judgments about genre or format.  I’ve read series and stand-alone books.  I’ve helped people find books on vampires, werewolves, politics, physics, cooking, baseball, make up, and bugs.  I’ve seen it all, read a lot of it, and not much bothers me.

That easy breezy attitude does not extend to books.  It may sound silly but I was really surprised to find out certain things bothered me.  I was standing on the platform waiting for my train when I saw a man who had a paperback book.  He had broken the spine so that the front and back covers of the book touched; making it so he could read it with one hand.  Have you ever wanted to pet a book and apologize to it?  I hadn’t until that moment. 

Teacher Appreciation Week is here!

Overheard at Teacher Appreciation Week

This week, teachers will want to visit The Scholastic Store in SoHo, where we’re hosting our annual Teacher Appreciation Week.

We know, of course, that many of you are not in the New York area — but you can still follow along! We’re live-tweeting from @ScholasticTeach, and folks are using #TeacherWeek to share stories and insights. Join us!

 

In Our Feeds: Literature and leadership, beautiful book displays, and an atlas of the Internet

Every Friday, we share a handful of links that we found funny, provocative or just plain cool. We call it In Our Feeds. Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday! It’s been another busy stretch here at Scholastic HQ: in addition to announcing David Baldacci’s new book and the availability of all episodes of Goosebumps and The Magic School Bus on Netflix, we’re also gearing up for Teacher Appreciation Week. In the midst of all that, here are some of the links that made their way around our office this week.

Kristen came across 20 beautiful children’s book displays, compiled by Apartment Therapy. And speaking of children’s books, our friends at School Library Journal compiled a complete listing of all public children’s book statues in the United States. Road trip, anyone? Every good road trip, of course, calls for an atlas. This week we came across one that’s one-of-a-kind: an atlas of the World Wide Web. What could be cooler than a mapping of the digital landscape?

Also in tech news, 13-year-old Ruby Karp wrote a great piece on Mashable called, “I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook”– a fascinating look at teens and their social media habits.

Meanwhile, Megan shared an interesting NPR story on libraries and video games—apparently more books are checked out of the libraries that offer kids video game access. Another favorite from NPR this week: a piece on the role libraries play on screen and in song.

Last but not least, Megan shared an article about all that literature can teach us about leadership, and Brittany suggested that we take a look at this piece on the daily routines of famous writers.

Have a great weekend! Happy reading!

Empowering children to share the reading love: Milk + Bookies

As part of Scholastic’s global literacy campaign, Read Every Day. Lead a Better Life., we’ve identified organizations that work every day to see that children learn to read, love to read, and have access to books. We call them “Literacy Champions” and we want to acknowledge their hard work here on the blog in our Literacy Champions series. In this next installment, we’re focusing on one of our more recent Literacy Champions, Milk + Bookies. 

Like many others, Lily’s family wanted to teach their children the importance of giving and instill in them self-confidence, pride, and a sense of goodwill – but didn’t know how to go about introducing these concepts. Thankfully, a way for young children to own the experience of giving, and making a lasting impact on those in need, comes together at Milk + Bookies.

‘Things worth doing’ in your classroom this year

For all the elementary and language arts teachers out there, here’s a great list of “things worth doing” in your classroom this year, based on a talk ELA Common Core State Standards architect David Coleman gave in New York earlier this week.

One of my favorites is #5: “Collaborate with your students. When you pose a question about a text you love, you may not know the answer. Nurture curiosity in your classroom. Part of the joy will be coming away with a little more knowledge yourself.”

I also love this one: “Slow down. Read a text that’s worth reading with your students and enjoy it. Look at it carefully, step by step, to see how it unfolds. Live within it. In a well-wrought work, each word is worth pondering.”

Just some interesting ideas to think about as you head back into the classroom this fall. What are your goals for the new school year and for your #FirstDay?