Denise Fleming’s book Shout! Shout it Out! is a fantastic early learning participation book. Based on a very simple premise-if you know it, shout it out-a small mouse takes young learners through basics like the numbers 1-10, the ABC’s, identifying colors, animals and more. This book makes learning into a game, encouraging preschoolers to participate while featuring uniquely fun and bright artwork. The simple text clearly identifies every object on the pages and the precocious little mouse shows up on every page, so make sure to keep an eye out for him too! If you have an early learner in your household, or a classroom fullRead More →

Study finds e-readers have opposite effect on middle school girls who struggle with reading (blog.smu.edu – Posted on March 21, 2012 by Margaret Allen) Middle school boys rated reading more valuable as an activity after two months of using an e-reader, according to a new study. The findings come from a study of 199 middle school students who struggle with reading and who participated in a reading improvement class that included Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, said one of the study’s authors, Dara Williams-Rossi, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The researchers found that boys consistently had a higher self-concept of their reading skill than girls both before and afterRead More →

The March issue of our newsletter is out now! Bringing book industry news, info on new releases and cool websites, book reviews, opportunities to win free books, tech news and much more straight to your inbox! Not signed up for our email mailing list? It’s easy- just find the Join Our Mailing List link on the right sidebar of this blog. (Or, click here) In the meantime, just in case you didn’t get one, check out the newsletter here. The March Newsletter Giveaway is now closed, the winner was Martha K. Thanks for entering!Read More →

From: kinf.org/elmers Attention Teachers! The Kids In Need Foundation and Elmer’s Products Inc., an industry leader in adhesives, arts and crafts, office and educational products, offer the Teacher Tool Kit Grant Program. You can apply for an Elmer’s Teacher Tool Kit grant that can range from $100 to $500. The grants will be given to teachers who wish to conduct classroom projects selected from a catalog of more than 500 projects. There is also a link to this application on the Elmer’s website, www.elmers.com, and X-ACTO website, www.xacto.com. This year, approximately 250 grants sponsored by Elmer’s will be provided to teachers nationwide for projects to be completed during the upcomingRead More →

School Library Journal (1/4/12) reports: Students can learn a lot about their family, themselves, and even history when they listen to grandparent’s or grand friend’s life stories. And young people can win a Lenovo ThinkCentre computer and $25,000 of EdOptions Orchard software when they enter the Legacy Project‘s 12th annual Listen to a Life Essay Contest. The national contest, which is run in partnership with Generations United, a membership organization based in Washington, D.C., receives thousands of entries every year. To enter the Listen to a Life Contest, kids ages 8 to 18 simply interview a grandparent or a grand friend who’s at least 50Read More →

School Library Journal (1/4/2012) reports: Teen librarian Karen Jensen had a moment of inspiration and decided to create “The 2012 Project.”  Her goal? To gather 2,012 images this year that demonstrate that teens are still using libraries. But Karen can’t do it without the help of you and your teens. Visit this blog post, download posters, and put them up everywhere. Here’s how the project works: using a cell phone or a digital camera, take some photos. They can be creative or just straight-ahead shots. Add text if you’d like. Pictures can be tweeted to @TLT16 or posted directly on the Teen Librarian’s Toolbox FacebookRead More →

From Huffington Post Education: Big new DonorsChoose matching grant efforts By: Craig Newmark Hey, you’ve already seen our support for DonorsChoose.org, where you can help kids in school by supporting their teachers’ projects. The deal is that teachers often have to fund projects or even buy supplies from their way-too-low salaries. You can help out with small contributions. They have a new matching effort, here’s what they say: Join DonorsChoose.org to pick your passion from thousands of classroom projects, and give back this holiday season. Use the match code REALSIMPLE to double your donation. People can donate to any project(s) on DonorsChoose.org and use the code REALSIMPLE atRead More →