The New Lesemann Learning Blog!

This will be a place where learners and their families can find out what is going on with other students, what I'm learning about online, and in books I'm reading about teaching, web groups I've joined to learn more about tutoring, and so on.

I will also be posting great sites for learning games and lists of book students will love.

What else should I post? Tell me what you'd like to know about! How about I post YOUR favorite books, and your reviews? Send me your poems, your stories, and I'll post them on the blog. You'll become... blogfamous!

First... Books for Christmas presents! Newbery (yes, just one r) award winners are good bets for fourth or fifth grade and up. They can be a, um, strong cup of coffee, though, so parents should look at what they are about. A good "kids" book is a good book, period. And so they deal with death, sadness, loss, as well as sometimes being really, really funny. A great book is not specific to a particular age - which is why a parent doesn't mind re-reading a well-written kid's book eight bzillion times over, nearly as much as she minds re-reading a horrible Disney ripoff eight bzillion times.

Here's a good Newbery List.   Only the top winners are linked, for the years 2000 and up. The Honor books are just listed. You'll have to search them out on Google if you want to know what they're about.

Here is a website that's all about getting guys to read! It's put together by Jon Sciezska, the guy who wrote The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and former 3rd grade teacher. It's the GUYS READ website.

The Caldecott Honor is given to the year's best picture books. Great picture books are fun for everyone, not just kids who aren't reading yet. They're fun for older kids to read to younger kids. They're great bedtime books. And they're good for reading after dinner, parent to middle schoolers who roll their eyes but really enjoy it (though they will NOT admit it).

Stay tuned... check back daily! I'll be posting games, such as the Dickens Victorian London Game, and the video that goes with it. Do you enjoy A Christmas Carol? Learn about Charles Dickens, and why he wrote the book, and how it changed his life.