December Book of the Month 2007

Yesterday, the Principal presented this month's Book of the Month. Each month the Principal selects a book and then teaches the faculty something new. Why is this important? Because it sets the Principal up as the Instructional Leader of the school. Of course, it also means that she has to have something new to present to this high-performing and diverse faculty, but as the Instructional Leader, she embraces that challenge each month! This month she introduced the very touching book, Great Joy, a new holiday picture book by Kate DiCamillo. The gorgeous pictures are drawn by Bagram Ibatoulline. The strategy that she taught the faculty was the use of digital storytelling by sharing a voice thread.

Not only will each teacher have this voice thread to present to her class in the Principal's voice, but so will families, as the voice thread goes on the web site. It becomes a communication tool for all of our stake holders so that they begin to understand some of our instructional emphasis. The other thing that it does is present something new and interesting to the faculty to lift the level of our work. Before the day was over, at least one teacher had two of her students prepare voice threads to stories they had written and had sent it on to the principal. The school is a-buzz with ideas of how this new piece of technology can be used in instruction. I have thought of a number of ways it can be used with kindergartners... so just stay tuned...