Storyline Online and a FREEBIE

Storyline Online is one of the best sites for viewing children's book read alouds. Let me share some details you might not know yet, and I'll throw in a helpful Freebie you'll use again and again.

If you've looked on YouTube for kids books being read aloud you've found thousands of them. Any given children's book title usually has several different uploaded read aloud videos to choose from and there is a wide range in quality. I found Storyline Online this very way, while looking through all the YouTube videos for read alouds.

Storyline Online is made possible by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, SAG-AFTRA. It is absolutely free to use. As I write this they have over fifty children's picture book read aloud videos available. Here's a sample.

Each video starts with the actor, or actors, holding the book and giving a book introduction before beginning to read.

The camera zooms in on the illustrations, where often little parts of the pictures become animated. Throughout the story you go back and forth between seeing the illustrations and the actor reading the book, so kids never forget they are being read to. 

Fully animated video movies of children's books are great, to be sure, but it is easy to forget those cartoons come from books. I think when kids watch books being read by live people there is added value and emphasis on reading.

Because I had always viewed the Storyline Online videos directly on YouTube, I didn't realize that there are activity guides written for each story, which you can only get on the Storyline Online site.

     

The activity guides, written for teachers mostly, but some with activity guides specifically for parents, are chockfull of ideas– some suggest before, during and after the story discussion points, themes, writing ideas, art, movement, even cooking activities... all sorts of things to choose from. You can find them by going directly to StorylineOnline.net under the All Books tab.

You can watch the Storyline Online read aloud videos on YouTube, but when watching on YouTube it is pretty easy to get to other videos and ads, some of which you wouldn't want your kids to view. You can also watch Storyline Online videos directly on StorylineOnline.net, with options of watching via YouTube or SchoolTube, with SchoolTube being the safer option.

Either way you choose to watch on the Storyline Online site, when you get to the end of the video, other Storyline Online videos will pop up. That isn't a bad thing, unless you want kids to only watch one particular story, or you want other kids to use the same device and watch that one particular story.  So to keep kids on the correct story I created QR codes for the stories through Safe YouTube.

Click to download Safe YouTube QR Code cards for Storyline Online videos

Safe YouTube is better than safe mode on YouTube, and it takes away all those many buttons and videos that cause distractions and allow kids to click and end up anywhere on YouTube. No online connection is completely safe and kids seem to find a way to other things no matter what, so always keep an eye on what they are watching.

I created one for each story on Storyline Online, currently fifty three in total. You can print out the QR Code cards in color, or they come out crisp and clean if you choose to print in black and white. Laminate, cut apart, and you'll have a set of cards for kids to use on any device with a QR Code reader. It will take them to that story and no other. These work great in classrooms as centers, Daily 5 and Readers Workshop stations, and independent reading choices. If you're a parent you'll find them useful at home or on the road with devices.

To get this Freebie just click on the picture of QR code cards above. There are six pages in all. I will update as I see new stories appear on Storyline Online. Be sure to Pin this post so you can get to updated pages.

I suggest you cruise by StorylineOnline.net to see the full list of read aloud titles. I found many good books there, books I hadn't heard of before. I like to have actual copies of the books the kids are going to listen to, and I like to read the book to my students first, so I can make the most out of that read aloud– focusing on vocabulary, story problem, characters, etc.  But if I'm low on cash, Storyline Online is a way to let my kidpeople hear quality books at no cost to me. Many of my favorite Flashlight Press books are there, too, and if you are a regular reader you know how I love Flashlight Press. (News Flash– I'll be giving away another Flashlight Book soon!!) Storyline Online has won lots of awards and that is for very good reason. Good book selections, VERY well read!

Hope you found this post about Storyline Online and the activity guides helpful. And I hope you'll download the QR Code cards and find them useful with your kids. I am not being paid or getting any perk for telling you about Storyline Online. I just wanted to share a great resource.

See you next time!

Reading and Writing Love

Five quickies on this almost-to-the-end-of-school Friday. We get out in three weeks. Am I counting the days? Am I counting the minutes?? Thanks Doodle Bugs for the Five for Friday linky. I include a Funny Kid Friday below, too.

1. We wrapped up our Mo Willems unit today. Ya gotta know about Elephant and Piggie, Knuffle Bunny, and Pigeon books, right?? If you don't, go look them up RIGHT NOW. We own several copies of ALL twenty five E&P books (book lingo in my classroom). I save them for the end of the year, not only because they are a happy note to go out on, I mean funny even for adults, but because at this point ALL my kiddos can read them... well, read them after they've heard them, and read them with a partner. And they do love to read them. From the teacher perspective E&P are especially good for teaching dialogue, talk and thought bubbles, reading details in pictures, punctuation... so much. We've made Mo hats to celebrate his unit before, but only with Pigeon. This time all the characters prance across the front with a little directed drawing help.

Mo hats!

To show just how much we connect with Mo and his characters, I share what I found inside one little guy's hat.

Mo love

Cracked me up. I have about seventy Mo books altogether and they were worth every penny of investment. Most are available in paperback now, so they are a bit cheaper than when they first came out. Our school library is well stocked, too, as they fly off the shelves during our unit. Ya GOTTA do Mo if you don't already.

2. When the kiddos have the whole room to choose from at free choice and they choose this, you know something is going right, eh?

They LOVE the window seat!

3. Speaking of books and reading, I am going to be doing a book linky this summer so we can share the book love.

Teachers can share favorite kid books, teacher books, and books they read for pure pleasure. I've started my list already. It's going to run on Tuesdays for twelve weeks from June 6 thru August 22. Please spread the word and remember to stop back here when it starts in less than two weeks now. Keep your eye open for the book button!

4. I found these at Target this week.

Fun, cheap, and LOOK what you can do with them!

They make the CUTEST little first day of school gift for incoming students! I know it is early to be thinking about BACK to school, but you want to do this. I include a letter to students on how to use the wishing star that goes out to incoming families in their school start-up packet. I am especially proud of this idea because although you find great ideas all over the internet, the wishing star came out of my own little head. I happily share it because it brought me big kuddos with my new students and incoming families this past fall.

And people, my resource is FREE! You can read about how I use it by clicking on the family letter below.

Then grab the FREEBIE at my TPT store by clicking on the pack.

5.  We wrapped up a letter writing unit today... not letter, as in alphabet letter, but letter as in written communication. Letter writing for my class is a "bend in the road" mini-unit in writing workshop. In the past I have done this unit earlier in the year, but I found it to be a great end of year unit to do right now, too. The kiddos are getting just a bit nostalgic... if five year olds can get nostalgic... as it slowly sinks in that our year is coming to an end and they are not going to see all their friends over the summer as they do now. We spent the last three weeks writing to all sorts of people, but especially to each other.  The classroom mailbox has taken on new meaning.

For our celebration we played with our food, so to speak. I gave the kids licorice strings and they "wrote" the two most useful words in letter writing– Dear and Fondly. They loved it.

I really relied on my Let's Write to Someone letter writing resource, one of the few products in my TPT store. It helped me remember what I do in this unit, and the anchor charts, stationery and postcard are really helpful. You might check it out if you are looking for a way to refresh writing in your last weeks of school. You can find it by clicking below.

Along with this unit came a little Funny Kid Story I share in closing.

A favorite guest teacher was in our classroom during writing time this last week. Even though she knows our kids well she was rather taken aback when one of the littles asked, "What is the F word?"

She got quite a chuckle when she realized he was after the word Fondly!

Have a great last few weeks, OR congratulations on finishing another successful year of teaching, whatever your case may be.

Click on back to Five for Friday! Thanks, Kacey, for helping us find each other!! And I sure hope that Five for Friday will be back next Fall!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Currently Five for Friday

April fools are we! Lots of QUICK stuff to share. Using as few words as possible today– except for number 3! I am linking to both Oh, Boy, It's Farley Currently and Doodle Bugs Five for Friday because this month the first is also a Friday!!

1.  Currently...

2.  We started Flashlight Twosome Tuesdays.

My kids come in every morning (except for Mondays) to independent book reading time. You can see what our new theme for Tuesdays is. I hunted everywhere for cheap but heavy duty flashlights. I found some at the dollar store but their plastic was very brittle and I thought they wouldn't hold up to kindergarten use. I was happy with these Ray-o-Vac LEDs from Menard's and they were only two bucks, made of tough plastic, and just the right size for kinder purposes. They even have a strap to put around wrists just in case somebody lets go. I decided we'd always do partner reading with them so I could buy half as many. Big Hit. Tuesday is our new favorite day!

3.  Mo News  If you look closely at those photos you'll see that the kids are reading from our Mo Willems bin... er, bins. I'm sure I don't need to tell any primary teacher just how wonderful Mo Willems' books are. Whether it's Knuffle Bunny, Pigeon, Elephant and Piggie, or his wide cast of other book characters, they are all fantastic! He ranks with Seuss, Henkes, and Lobel when it comes to capturing the myriad of human emotions using a cast of characters which include mice, frogs, toads, pigs and elephants. How do they DO that??

Although I love all Mo books, Elephant and Piggie stole my heart in their very first book, which I bought four copies of before I knew the complete E&P title list would include twenty five books in all. My own collection has over 40 with the many duplicates. Not only do the E&P stories hold great humor and interest for kids and adults, they are early readers, too. I wait until this point in the year each year to introduce Mo's work so my kinders have enough beginning reading skills to truly read E&P. Once they've heard the stories, are reading with a partner, and are HIGHLY motivated to read these books for themselves, they all CAN read the books. My two huge bins of Mo books stay out for weeks and the kids pour over them again and again. They become very fluent and add great expression– not that that is difficult with Mr. Willems' books. Reading at it's best!

And now here is some sad news... sniff. The LAST Elephant and Piggie book is coming out May 3. Yep, the. last. one. sob. The Thank You Book will be the twenty fifth and final book in the collection. Do you have them all? Here's a handy graphic from Mo Willem's blog.

I printed it out, and even though it was a little fuzzy my kiddos could put ours in order (yet another literacy activity to do with the books...There are tons!) and we found we were missing one! gasp. I remedied that fast! We are all waiting to get our hands on the very. last. installment of the E&P adventures. This year's class fondly shortened the books to that nickname, by the way... we are very into initials. Get with the lingo, baby. Click on that E&P gallery picture above and you'll go to Mo's blog on his website. If you haven't visited in a while you should because there is new stuff. Oh, and here's a photo of just ONE of the many activities we do based on Mo's books. This year we added a "Don't let the Pigeon...." fill-in-your-own-idea sentence to the hat. I made this hat up, but you can google and search Pinterest for MANY more activities. We *puffy heart* Mo!

4.  One. more. day. to enter the giveaway! Flashlight Press has been kind enough to donate a new hot-off-the-press book for my first ever blog giveaway.  And you could win... no. really you could. Just CLICK on the picture below and scroll down the post and you'll understand why your chances are very good. And hurry!

Click to find Giveaway!

5.  And for those of you who got this far, a funny for you.

My class just wrapped up a How-to writing unit, and my guys were experts on lots of things. For some reason though, taking sequential steps gave some kids trouble. For example, making a PBJ went from spreading the peanut butter to eating the complete sandwich... with no mention of anything in between.  I spent more time this year than most years demonstrating the idea of step-by-step and acting out the actions as they wrote them so they could see the parts they were missing. SMALL steps became the focus of many lessons... when you teach they do learn.

I had to bite back a chuckle as he read to me. For those who are not fluent readers of kindergartenese–

How to Go In My Room
First, open the doors.
Next, take some steps in the room.
Then, you might want to take some more steps.
Last, you're in your room.

Yep, he really got it!

Click on back to the Currently linky by scrolling way UP there to the Currently pic. And click on Five for Friday below to see more Fives. Thanks for hosting Farley and Kacey!