Hey everyone!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I sure did! Well i am back to work on my blog for class.  I had to search a little harder for this next source, but i think i found a good one, however, it is not my favorite.  This website is called ByGosh and can be found at bygosh.com.  This is a good website to find classic stories and print them out for your class.  There are stories here like "Wizard of Oz" and "A Christmas Carol".  Some of the stories may be hard to find in print so using this website would help bring the print to your class without having to track down the books.

I would say this is a great source for teachers, but its visual appeal is defiantly lacking and therefore would 

not appeal to students directly.  This would be a great resource to turn to when doing a unit on fairy tales or folk tales.  As we know, these types of stories don't normally have an author, this website provides the stories in print to read and then the students can compare to similar stories they have already read.

One thing I really liked about this site was that they provided different genres, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, novels, short stories, and "classics".  This is the first site i have found that has included poetry and i really like how that is included.  There are some well known poets like Edgar Allen Poe and Dylan Thomas and there are other poets as well.  I think poetry is a lost art, especially with our upper grades and being able to provide poetry in a different context, that being online, might spark their interest a little bit more.

As i mentioned earlier, this site does not have the best graphics or interactive tools, but there are a lot of resources for teachers and being able to print the stories is a great tool to get kids reading different kinds of texts.  Overall, this is a great resource for teachers and upper level students to use at their disposal!

is a great resource for teachers and upper level students to use at their disposal!

Thanks for reading!!

Books had instant replay long before televised sports.

~ Bert Williams ~ 

Hey People.

It is Thanksgiving Eve and I have found yet another source to read children's books online. This one even goes a step further...once you are done reading the book you have the choice to buy it.  This is perfect for those teachers and parents who want to preview a book before we buy it.  And it is great for the kids because they get to read an entire book online and if they like it they can beg their parent(s) to buy it for them.  This gives the option of curling up with your computer to read or curling up with your book at a later time.  This site is called Big Universe (biguniverse.com).  So again, I have some things that I like and some things that I would like to change of the site if I had all the power. 

First, a little about this site, first it incorporates the two most important aspects of children's literature, reading and writing.  Not only do parents, teachers, and students get to read entire books online, but they also get to write, illustrate and PUBLISH their books online!  And even better, with a parent's permission the kids can join the online community and share their books with classmates, pen pals from other countries, or family members.  Once the books are published anyone can go on the site and read the members books, as well as the Publisher books.  What a great way to get kids excited to write! They can create their own books right at the computer and print them as well. You can create an entire classroom library of student's personal books!

Second, obviously I have talked a little bit about what I liked already, the publishing personal books aspect.  But there are some more things I really enjoy about this site.  Most of the titles of the books are not as well known as those we might expect, but what a great opportunity to learn about new titles and authors.  Once you pick a book to read, it gives the author information, a short summary of the story and any awards or nominations it might have received. Reading the books is pretty similar to going through a PowerPoint slide show; you have to click a next button to turn the pages.  If you are a member of the online community you can choose to put the books you enjoy on your online bookshelf, you can also e-mail or recommend books to your Big Universe Friends list.

One particular feature I found very interesting was the book selections for the older readers, I selected a illustrated version of “Hamlet” and to my delight it was in a graphic novel version.  It is good to see that this sight is keeping up with the demands of young readers and their interests in types of books to read.

Honestly, there is only one thing that I personally would change about this site.  It is very quiet, as in; there is no sound on the site anywhere.  The books do not have a narrator or reader to listen to; there are no fun sounds or music, which takes away some appeal of the site.  Other then that I really like this site and found it very fun to browse all the different titles of children’s book, and if I made more money I probably would be buying almost all of them!

Well I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving and be safe.  Keep Reading!

Hey Everyone,

Well I have been browsing my favorite search engine, Google, and found another resource to read books online! Yay!  Today I found a website that is put on by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation (SAG).  It is called Storyline Online, http://www.storylineonline.net/index2.html where actors read books to you! It is really enjoyable and pretty fun to be a part of.  I do have some comments about it. 

First I will explain a little bit about the site.  There are about twenty children’s books that various SAG actors read aloud.  When you click on a book it will take you to a screen where the actor is sitting down ready to read.  You can pick the right speed and connection for your computer and then press play.  There is also an option to make it full screen.  As the actor reads the story there are optional captions that can be turned on or off.  The reading is automatic and you don’t have to worry about ‘turning pages’ or clicking next on your mouse.  You can rewind if needed.  After reading the book there are online activities or questions that you or your students/children can use to enhance and expand their reading experience.  For a teacher, you can also download the activity sheet, it is highly organized and creative.

Second, what I liked about this site.  I really liked the idea of actors reading these books aloud.  Some actors the kids will know and some the parents or teachers will know.  Since they are actors they can do different voices of the characters and that enhances the reading just a little bit more.  There are also small sound effects on different books and pages.  For example, in “The Polar Express”, read by Lou Diamond Phillips, there are certain parts where you can hear the train engine and the elves cheering.  I also liked the idea of turning the captions on or off, this is good for when you have the actual story sitting in front of you, a child can read along in their book and just listen from the computer.  The activities are wonderful and this would make a great ‘center’ for your classroom.  There is also a free online newsletter that you can sign up for.

Third, what I didn’t really like so much.  Since the actor is reading and it is obviously edited, the listener doesn’t get a chance to see all the pictures of the story.  And when they do focus in on the pictures they may focus on certain parts, like a character, and therefore the listener/reader doesn’t get a chance to really experience the pictures of a picture book.  I recommend having the hard copy of the book for the child to read either before, during or after so they can experience the entire story.  There is a limited selection of books, I tried to find a part on the site that talked about when more books would be available but couldn’t find anything.  I hope that it will be mentioned in the free newsletter.

Overall, I think this is a great resource to use in a classroom or at home.  Even if the kids do not have access to a computer at home, there is a high chance that teachers have at least a personal laptop or a school computer in their classrooms.  Use this as a center, as an individual activity, or even as a whole group experience.  The experience of reading these picture books is greater when the kids get a chance to see someone famous they might know enjoy reading these books as well. 

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
~ Marcus T. Cicero ~

This next post is about resources to use once our kids do get access to a computer and the internet.  We have all heard of books on tape or even CD, but now entire books are online and can be read right at your computer.  Some people really enjoy this and others may not.  For example, I personally like to do a lot of reading online.  It is mostly for my classes, but when I have to do article reviews or anything similar, I find all my articles online.  I do not go to the library, even though all the articles are in a hard copy format there.  It is easier for me to do the research on the computer, I read the article online, and if it is worth printing or I must print for class then I usually have that privilege. 

My experience with reading books online is nearly not as extensive; however, I do most of my book previews or reviews online.  Either before or after I read a book I go online to see what the general population thought about it.  It is for my own information and knowledge but it works.  I sometimes may research a topic from a book I read to find out more information.  For example, after reading "Freedom Writers" I went online to their official homepage, checked out their website, and signed up for their newsletter.  The internet offers so much for extension opportunities after reading a book.  So with all these extensions it is obvious that entire books would be available online for us to read at any time.

The first books online resource I found through Google is "The Rosetta Project" http://www.childrensbooksonline.org.  This is a website with a very large collection of illustrated antique books to read online.  This is a volunteer based group that works off of donations.  They upload antique books, folk tales, and fairy tales and make them accessible for everyone to read.  There are very familiar folk tale title, like "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Night Before Christmas" and there are other stories that you may not know of like "The Marquis of Carabas".  The books are sorted by levels: pre-reader/very early, early reader, intermediate reader, advanced reader and adult reader. There is also a section for multilingual books and a search engine to find a title. 

This online library also offers books that have audio attached with the online story.  The sound is great and the reader can listen to the same page again or go back.  The site is set up similar to a powerpoint, the reader can 'turn the pages' at their will and the text and pictures come out quite clear.  Another benefit they offer is books that have been translated.  The books are scanned in English and then the translations are on a link and then are 'pop-ups' online.  I see this as a little tedious, however, beneficial at the same time.  Having the books in English and the second language will encourage kids to look at both languages.  Some of the languages translated are: Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Polish and German (plus many more).  

There are some originally published books that you may not be able to find otherwise.  I really like what this project is doing with antique books and how they are making them available to all children.  The site is not overly decorated and does not have any games or puzzles to go along with the book, which may cause distractions from reading.  Overall, I think this is a great resource to turn to when doing a unit on Folk Tales or Fairy Tales.   

Books are not made for furniture,
but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~