Book of the Week: Winning Balance

This post brought to you by student blogger Maggie. 

Do you love gymnastics? Then Winning Balance by Shawn Johnson is the book for you! This book takes you through the childhood of a 2008 Olympic gymnast who won a gold medal. America's sweetheart, who won four medals in Beijing and the coveted mirror ball trophy on Dancing with the Stars! Read the story about a Midwestern girl at heart, her journey, and the hard work it took to win three silver Olympic medals, one Olympic gold medal, and become the 2007 world champion.

This book has life lessons at the end of each chapter and it is a great book for girls ages 9-17! Enjoy! 

Chatterpix

Fifth graders used an app called Chatterpix Kids to create a mouth on a drawing to make the drawing "talk." This was a two-part lesson. On the first day, students concentrated on choosing a character and drawing the picture. On the second day, students created a script and did the recording. We spent an additional class period watching each other's Chatterpix videos. It was a lot of fun!

Here are some samples. 

Book of the Week: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

This post brought to you by student blogger John Henry. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Do you like the realistic fiction? Well if you do, you should read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part­-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part­-Time Indian is a book about an Indian kid named Junior. Junior is very smart and intelligent, but he gets in trouble and is suspended. His teacher comes over to his house and tells him that everyone makes mistakes and he is very intelligent, so he tells him that he needs to push himself and go to Reardan High School. Reardan is a better school with advanced classes. But he would lose his best friend Rowdy, who would be back at the other school on the Indian Reservation. Knowing the fact that he would lose his best friend, he decides to go to Reardan anyway. Reardan is a school with mostly white kids, so he gets made fun of a lot. But as the school year continues it only gets better! For example he makes the varsity basketball team and makes a lot of new friends. Find out what happens next in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part­-Time Indian! 

Book of the Week: The Candymakers

This post brought to you by student blogger Avery. 

Do you like candy?

In this book, four lucky children have a once-in- a-lifetime-chance to compete against each other and other kids to see who can make the best candy. These kids will have only two days to make a delicious new candy before the competition. Two days before the competition these four kids, (Logan, Miles, Daisy, and Philip), will report to Life Is Sweet candy factory to dream up their very own candy idea! Each contestant will make their very own candy and enter it into the Annual New Candy Contest. Logan, Miles, Daisy, and Philip will go through ups and downs while making their new candy.

I recommend this book for kids ages 8-13. I loved this book because there was always a surprise around every corner. It made me hungry and happy. Wendy Mass made The Candymakers a downright great story. As all books go, there has to be a plot twist and so there is. Find out what it is by reading The Candymakers by Wendy Mass.