Patty’s Web 2.0 Blog

First let me say that I did severely limit the time I spent perusing YouTube and TeacherTube.  However, it was not that difficult to find several items of interest to me.  Prominent in my thoughts was the fact that the squirrels are beating me to my best Cherokee Purple tomatoes, so I searched squirrels and tomatoes and found several videos.  I believe there are those who devote their life to outwitting squirrels.  I am here to tell you that it can’t be done.  I did learn from one gardening site that, allegedly, the squirrels are thirsty and not hungry, so a water source can go a long way to eliminate damage.  We shall see. . .

(August 4th: The water source does not work.)

A video of personal and nostalgic interest to me is one of restored NASA footage of the first moonwalk.  Those who are of my generation will remember watching every single space shot on television at school.  Back then (almost before electricity even), it was unusual to have televisions at school, so someone had to go to a lot of trouble for this to happen.  I was 19 at the time of the moonwalk and vividly remember expecting a space monster to reach out of the dark and snatch up our brave astronauts.  I am not kidding about the space monster.

There are a number of videos pertaining to elementary library skills.  Ones the children might find attractive are the Arthur videos.  In terms of showing videos, I would probably be more likely to use booktalks or author interviews.  There are several of Neil Gaiman discussing his Newbery-winner, The Graveyard Book.  On the surface, I believe the book is a bit scary, but if you preview it with readings from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and Gaiman’s interviews, the book becomes just a bit edgy rather than frightening.  See Gaiman’s website, The Mouse Circus, to hear him read the entire book.