More Related Content
Similar to 39 clues reading club presentation ira - alternate
Similar to 39 clues reading club presentation ira - alternate (20)
More from Rose Hagar
More from Rose Hagar (11)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
39 clues reading club presentation ira - alternate
- 1. IRA Conference Presenter: San Antonio, Texas Rose Hagar
- 2. Our First Club • A Mention • An Author Visit • A Very Generous Grant • And 5 Years Later…
- 3. Community Support • Absecon Education Foundation Grants • 39 Clues books for the Media Center collection • Card packs for the members • Notebooks • Snacks • Stipend
- 5. Our First Meeting • Sign in – Set Rules – Snack – Notebooks • Overview of series and read first chapter of Maze of Bones • Log into the web site and get everyone set to start their missions • Club takes on a life of its own
- 6. Let the Clue Hunt Begin
- 9. Reading Club Web Site
- 11. Virtual Meetings Using Edmodo
- 12. Agent Meeting
- 13. Agent Stories • Maria – Grade 7 – 3 Sessions – I find the books very interesting and the adventures epic. The book club is a way for me to escape and have new adventures. • Lily – Grade 6 – 2 Sessions – It’s cool because it’s not just books. I joined the club to catch things I missed and be with other people who read the books. I found out things I never would have on my own. It was cool! • Joe – Grade 6 – 2 Sessions – I like mystery books and decided to give it a try and after the first paragraph I was hooked. I joined the club to learn the behind the scenes stuff and learn about the authors. I kept coming back because it was so much fun! • Brandon – Grade 6 – 2 Sessions – As soon as I read the first book, I was hooked. From the clubs I learned that you can learn things from other people and it’s a better experience over all if you have someone to communicate with.
- 14. Our Stronghold • Books – The 39 Clues 1 – 11 – Cahills vs. Vespers 1 - 6 – Cahill Files • Maps • Games • Puzzles • Code Crackers • Friends helping friends
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon and thank you for having me at your conference. (A bit of background - I am the Media Specialist for the Absecon School District, right across the bay from Atlantic City, NJ. This is my 10th year in the district and my 18th as a media specialist. We are a small K-8 district and I serve all of the students.)When I tell you that The 39 Clues have literally changed my life, believe me because here I stand today in front of all of you. If you had asked me five years ago when we started our first club what the future looked like - I never could have imagined this!For those of you not familiar with The 39 Clues book series, let me ask you this – What would you do if you found out that you are part of the most influential family in history, the Cahills? And, that you are about to embark on a quest to find the ingredients for a serum that could make you the most powerful person in the world? Sound exciting? Well join me as I tell you about our adventure.
- Our First Club– It all started during our annual middle school author visit in the spring of 2008. Gordon Korman was our guest and happened to mention a project he was working on called The 39 Clues. He briefly explained that the series would have multiple authors and also something very different – a multi-platform format with a web site and trading cards – and we should look for the first book in the fall. Moving on to September, it came time to book our author for spring of 2009. While I was searching through Scholastic’s author site I came across Peter Lerangis, whose new book (39 Clues #3 The Sword Thief) would debut in April. I took a chance and booked him. Next came the tricky parts – I was not familiar with Peter’s books and needed to find a way to prep the kids for his visit. There would be three books out by the time of his visit and all of a sudden a lightbulb went off - an after-school book club for 8 consecutive Fridays!
- Community Support - Now that I had that brilliant idea I needed a way to fund the club – books, cards, notebooks, snacks, and a stipend. I approached our community Education Foundation, wrote a grant to cover all aspects of the club, and they agreed to fund the project. Five years later the Absecon Education Foundation still supports our book clubs.
- Getting the Members – I had the idea and the funds. The next hurdle was getting members. With the support of the administration I covered the school in posters to get the kids interested. Because of scheduling I only had one period a day to see my middle school students so I took advantage of that time and made sure I did my PR talk to anyone who came into the Media Center. All students needed to hand in a signed permission slip because the club would run after school. I set a limit of 20 members and told the kids that the spots were first come first serve, and 21+ would be on a waiting list. I handed the permission slips out on a Monday and Tuesday morning I had 20! Our adventure was about to begin.
- Our First Meeting – At our first meeting I set out the rules for how the club worked and what expectations I had for the members. Each member needed to sign in and if they missed more than one meeting in a row, their spot went to the next person on the waiting list. Each member received their own notebook to keep track of clues, codes, passwords, and any other information they felt necessary to their own adventure. After we took care of business I read the first chapter of Maze of Bones. They were encouraged to read along - which proved interesting when we found that a word had been changed from the first edition to the second. Reading also led to a great teachable moment. One of Dan Cahill’s hobbies is making gravestone rubbings. The kids had no idea what that was, so the next week we gathered up crayons and paper and headed out into our courtyard where the furniture has “dedicated to” plaques. When there weren’t enough plaques outside for everyone we found other plaques in the hallways. They weren’t gravestones but they got the idea.After reading the first chapter we all went into the computer lab to log onto the 39 Clues website. I had asked them to try to get their account set up and activated before our first meeting – some did and some did not. But that was OK as I set up an account that they could use until theirs was activated. All of my personal cards are registered into that account and any member using it can complete the missions and play the games. Once we entered the lab the club took on a life of its own.
- Let the Clue Hunt Begin – This is where I saw the magic of the club come to life. My members consist of students from 5th through 8th grade, girls and boys. Most of these students would never associate with each other outside of this room. Yet, for that hour they are like a family. If someone has difficulty with a mission, a member who has already passed that point will leave their computer and lend a hand. If someone has a duplicate card and there is a member who needs that card, it is shared. If a member gets stuck deciphering a secret code, the other members gather around to help.
- The Code Room - Heads are together figuring out clues from the codes inside the books. Books are lined up on the floor from 1 – 10 and the secret code from each one placed underneath to see if it forms a secret message. Enthusiasm spread to the classrooms when members would bring non-members in to the Media Center to try and solve a clue before the next meeting. I always keep copies of the Morse Code and Cyrillic alphabet on hand for those occasions.
- Making the Connection – The kids were having a great time cracking the codes and completing the missions but I knew that we needed to make connections as they read the books and traveled around the world with Amy and Dan Cahill. After the first two meetings, I knew that each member was reading the books but they were all in different places and in different volumes so we opted not to read together at that point. Once that happened I needed a way for the members to know that the locations they were traveling to in the books were real. That was not too difficult when Amy and Dan went to The Franklin Institute and Independence Hall, as we are near Philadelphia and most of the members had been to those locations on a class trip. But I wanted that same reality for the places they were visiting in other countries. I spent time creating activity sheets that encouraged the members to use their computer to find the locations from the books on a map, write down the address, and find an interesting fact at the web site for the particular location. As they came in for our third meeting the image of the Catacombs of Paris was projected onto my large screen. For those of you who have not read the series, Dan and Amy travel to Paris in book 2 (One False Note) where their adventure continues and one of their destinations is the Catacombs. After the initial shock of seeing skulls looking at them, the kids started to ask why there were skulls on the screen. When I explained the photo and said this is where Amy and Dan were you could see the little light bulbs going off in their heads. “That’s really a real place?” “Wow!” The connections were made and their journey became reality. That journey has turned into the beginnings of a travel guide to the destinations from the first ten books – it is a work in progress.
- Reading Club Web Site - Over the past 5 years the club sessions have truly evolved. New members join each session and there are many repeat members. Several have been with me from 5th – 8th grade, others may skip a year. Membership varies from 20 members per session to 6. It doesn’t matter because whatever the number, the adventure is just as exciting. For this, our 5th session of the club, we have incorporated the new 39 Clues Reading Club site. Scholastic has created a great tool to help kick-start your club and keep it going. The activities give the members a chance to feel like they are part of the actual clue hunt and there are explicit directions for the host. You can start off with Establishing Your Stronghold and then move on to Agent Training. Topics of the activities are on point with the adventures in the series and also timely, such as the Olympic Challenge from last summer. My involvement with the club site took a new turn when Scholastic approached me to write the activities for Cahills vs. Vespers Book 4 Shatterproof. That particular book dealt with ancient inventions so I based my activities on the Ingenious Cahills and how their inventions have changed the world. Using the activities from the club site has added a new dynamic to my members as I see more team building skills developing within the group. As a club host, the web site has all the information you need to start you and your students on your adventure. It is free and very easy to use.
- Virtual Field Trip – The Reading Club site added an exciting new component this past March with Decoding History - a Virtual Field Trip to the Smithsonian as the companion piece to Book 6 Day of Doom. The web cast is hosted by the author of the book, David Baldacci. He takes us behind the scenes to see items from the book as well as places and objects not usually seen by the visiting public. My members were glued to the screen while watching.
- Virtual Meetings –Our club went high tech this year when I added the safe school social networking site Edmodo. By using this site we can meet virtually between meetings. It also gives me a way to communicate with the members when they are not in the Media Center. All AUP rules are in place and each student must sign an Edmodo code of conduct contract stating that they will follow all rules or they will not be allowed to participate in this portion. They love it and so do I.
- Agent Meeting – From the beginning Scholastic has been very supportive of my clubs. They were kind enough to put us as an unofficial stop on the Vespers Rising book tour. Our entire middle school and our 3rd and 4th graders were treated to a guest visit by our friend Peter Lerangis and new friend Jude Watson (aka Judy Blundell). What a day we had! After the large group presentation, all club members past and present were invited to lunch with our guests as well as a Skype visit from the editors and game creator. The kids were really blown away at our club meeting that afternoon when our two guest agents – Peter and Jude stayed to join in the fun. The quotes I heard from the kids that day were - “Awesome” and “This is the best day of my life!” How can it get any better than that?
- Our Stronghold – The 39 Clues books have reached further than just our book clubs. They have become a fixture in our media center and copies of all of the books pass through my circulation desk every day. Any student in grade 3 and up is allowed to check them out. There are only two rules: start with Maze of Bones to get the background (and I make sure I tell the readers the background info in the beginning of the book is not the most exciting but as soon as Amy and Dan arrive in the library get ready to start turning those pages) and enjoy the adventure. I love the anticipation on their faces when they are waiting for the next book to come out and the race to see who can check it out first. It isn’t unusual for a student to run up to me in the hallway or pop into the media center with a scrap of paper in their hand saying “Look! I found this clue hidden in one of the books!” I think the word stronghold takes on another meaning for us besides our clue headquarters. I know that this series of books has taken a strong hold on my students and me. I have seen this series become a passion for many, an incentive to strive for better grades for several, and the spark that made a child see that reading is the greatest adventure we can have. Our clubs are a safe haven for all, where friendships have grown, and the kids have a chance to shine doing something they have become passionate about.Thank you and a special thank you to the ladies of Scholastic books.