Home away from home

Living in Italy has been wonderful this past month. It actually feels like home away from home. Genoa is very easy to get around by foot, bus, or train, and I have visited many parks, museums, libraries (duh), shops, and towns. I took my first boat ride the weekend before last, just around the marina, and have taken two more since! I love feeling the sea breeze blow through my hair (even though the end result is not pretty to look at!). I haven't strayed too far from Genoa because I'm not all that interested in being a tourist. I'll save that for another vacation spent with family or friends. This is just me, on my own, living in a new place for a short amount of time and learning to adapt to the culture.

Some of my favorite things so far:

THE FOOD - Oh, the food! Where can I find myself some focaccia in Urbana? And not the American kind that's so dry and dense and filled with unnecessary herbs. No no, I mean, the light and almost fluffy Italian kind with just enough oil and salt to make your mouth water. Yum. I haven't taken a picture of any yet because I'm too busy stuffing my face with it!

Then, of course, there's the gelato. No one should go through summer without some ice cream, and the Italians are no exception. I go out for some gelato just about every day. My favorite flavors are fondente (dark chocolate), pistacchio (pistachio), nocciola (hazelnut), and fragola (strawberry - with actual seeds!).

Finally, can I just say that the pasta here is infinitely better than any other pasta I have ever had in my life? Today, I had spaghetti with homemade ragu (meat sauce), which is about as basic as you can get, right? Doesn't matter - still beats any spaghetti I've ever had back home. There are just so many styles of pasta and sauces to accompany them. There's a place that makes fresh pasta and sauces a couple towns from here, and they sell them to the local grocery stores, so that is what we usually eat. I have some spinach ravioli stuffed with cheese and artichoke waiting for me in the fridge...


THE WALKS - One of the best parts about not being a tourist is that I don't ever feel hurried. I can take leisurely walks to nowhere, to just discover the neighborhood slowly. And I did that quite a bit my first few weeks here. I got horribly lost many times, but eventually I'd find a street I recognized and be able to find my way home. Nervi has some beautiful places to walk - through the large park and along the sea - and so many little alleyways and pedestrian-only streets to get lost in. When I first took the bus to Genoa, I aimed to find "the shopping street" (Via XX de Settembre), but ended up walking up and down four other major streets before I found it. The city is not on a grid nor does it have any sensible layout! All the more fun, I suppose.


THE LEISURE - This is in fact a foreign concept to me. Why am I not working?! Adjusting to my life here has been a huge change from my busy, busy work schedule, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it. I have so many ideas for next year and so much I want to do! But while I'm in Italy, I'm trying really hard to focus on enjoying my summer vacation. That doesn't mean I'm not reading blogs or keeping up with tweets, but it does mean that I'm not lesson planning! I am definitely reading, though! My new Kindle has been a lifesaver. :)

Well, this blog entry wouldn't feel complete without some more library vs. bookstore photos:

Italian translations of the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer 

at the Biblioteca De Amicis (children's library) in Porto Antico, Genoa

Junie B. Jones gets a name change in Italy to Giulia B.

Also at the Biblioteca De Amicis in Porto Antico

 The Guinness Book of World Records is popular EVERYWHERE! As evidenced by this book store display in Porto Antico. Pop culture abounds too - there's Thor and Captain Jack Sparrow. 

Italian libraries and bookstores

I know that summer vacation is supposed to be about relaxing, spending time in the sun, and enjoying time off from school... but I can't help myself. I had to visit the local library the very first week I got to Nervi, Italy. And I've been to a few bookstores too. Hey, this is fun for me - I'm curious about what Italian children read!

This is a book display in the children's section of Nervi's public library. I spy a Wimpy Kid, do you?

Photo also taken at the Nervi public library - Geronimo Stilton is VERY popular! 

This is a bookstore display - Hannah Montana is an international superstar!

Do you recognize this one? Third - fifth grade girls couldn't get enough of Dork Diaries last year. 

I wish I could take home a box of books from here! There are some fantastic Italian authors that are popular as well as other European authors that we just don't get in the U.S. But the prices! Oy, I thought American books were expensive, but oh no, Italian books are far, far more costly. Everything is, really. Oh well, I like to visit the bookstores and libraries anyway. :) 

But I have to say, I sure do miss the Champaign Public and Urbana Free Libraries back home!

Ciao da Italia!

I do enjoy my summers off as a school librarian and decided to take this opportunity to travel somewhere new. I landed in Genoa, Italy last week and am currently living in a suburb called Nervi. During my walk around the town yesterday, I stumbled upon this...

Would you look at that? This is a classic and scientific state high school in Nervi, Italy sharing our name. :) 

You can browse some of my other photos around Nervi and Genoa in my Flickr album. I took some of the local library too! 

Student-created Book Trailers

For the last two months of school, 4th/5th and 5th grade students worked on creating book trailers during library class. They formed groups of 2-4, chose a picture book that would appeal to kindergarten students, wrote scripts for the audio portion of their trailers, found pictures using Flickr CC, and put it all together in iMovie.

The project was inspired by Michelle Harclerode, a fantastic teacher-librarian who posts her own students' book trailers on this website. As an introduction to the project, I showed some of the student examples from Michelle's website so that my students could see what their end result might look like.

I'm rather proud of what our 4th/5th and 5th graders came up with considering it was my first time with this project, so I put them all together in one movie, featured below. Enjoy!

Hot City by Barbara Joose

Hot City written by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (2004)

What a perfect library readaloud for the last days of school!

Mimi and Joe, brother and sister, are looking for something to do on a sizzlin' hot summer day. They help out their Mama, buy some snow cones, then escape to the cool confines of the public library. There, the two siblings get lost in stories - Mimi is a princess riding a unicorn while Joe imagines himself riding a dinosaur. They each leave the library with a book in hand, happy to have had a cool (in more ways than one!) place to go on such a hot, hot day.

Adventures in Cartooning

Adventures in Cartooning by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost
published March 2009 by First Second

I only have three words for this book: I LOVE IT! Okay, maybe I have a little more to say than that, but you get the main idea.

This is the story of a lost princess, a knight, a horse, and an elf who try to rescue the princess, and a dragon they meet along the way. The knight is sure that the dragon has kidnapped the princess, so he goes in search of it on a fantastic adventure!

Throughout the story, the magic elf teaches the reader all about comics and how to read them, so this was a perfect lesson for my third grade students. We read the book together using our document camera and discussed the different features that the elf would point out (motion lines, panels, word balloons, etc.).

Lucky for us, this book is on the Bluestem List for next year, so it will get a LOT of circulation at our library. And I can't wait! This is a book that I think EVERYONE will enjoy! :)

This Week @ the Library (5/2 -5/6)

KINDERGARTEN

We are ending the school year with a Mo Willems author study in kindergarten. This week we read some beloved Elephant & Piggie stories - We Are in a Book! and Can I Play Too?

We love Elephant & Piggie stories in kindergarten! They're easy to read, funny, and show us how to be good friends.



1ST GRADE

Keena Ford is just starting second grade, and she is going through a lot of emotions. She's sad that she won't be in the same class as her best friend Eric, and she's afraid that she'll be spending most of the school year with Mr. Lemon, the time-out teacher. But when she meets her new teacher Ms. Campbell, she decides that she LOVES second grade. Until she makes a mistake that she has trouble fixing...

I'm reading Keena Ford and the Second Grade Mix-Up by Melissa Thomson aloud to our first grade classes, and they are loving it. They can definitely relate to Keena's truth-telling problem!


SECOND GRADE

For our end of the year readaloud in second grade, I am reading The Dream Stealer by Sid Fleischman. This is a whimsical story about a little girl named Susana and the bandit who steals her good dream one night. She is a fiesty gal who wants her dream back! She convinces Senor Dream Stealer to return her dream, but they must first fly to his castle far, far away.

It's a magical story that students are enjoying, with a little bit of mystery and a lot of spice.


THIRD GRADE

Third grade students got a primer in the Dewey Decimal System this week. We've been practicing using the online library catalog all year and especially using call numbers to find picture books and fiction books. This week I unveiled the mysteries of the "nonfiction" collection!




FOURTH GRADE

We are focusing on folktales from around the world to finish off the school year in fourth grade. This week we read Koi and the Kola Nuts, a Liberian Folktale retold by Verna Aardema. Koi, the youngest of the chief's sons, does not share in his brothers' inheritance when his father passes away, and instead is gifted nothing but a kola tree. Using his wits and his kind heart, Koi meets several animals on his travels who are in need of kola nuts for some purpose or another. Koi's generosity to these animals comes back to him when he needs help to win the hand of a chief's daughter in another town.



4TH/5TH GRADE

Students are just about finished writing their scripts for their book trailer projects. They teamed up into groups of 2-4, chose a picture book, and will be creating a book trailer using iMovie, intended for a kindergarten viewing audience. For the past two weeks, students have been working on writing scripts for their book trailers, the audio track which will accompany their images.

We can't wait to share these when we finish at the end of the year!


5TH GRADE
I missed fifth grade students this week, as they were on a field trip in Springfield. They too are creating book trailers and will need to work very hard to finish before school lets out!


P.S. This was our LAST week for library checkout. All books are due next week on students' regular checkout days.