Granny Ranny's Coming Attractions

After 11 years, the wait is finally over for fans of Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story franchise with the release of Toy Story 3. 

A panel of America’s foremost children’s authors, illustrators and content experts will serve as final judges in the PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest, a national-local contest designed to promote the advancement of children’s reading skills through hands-on, active learning.  The Contest, sponsored by PBS KIDS GO! and WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto, encourages children in grades K-3 in communities across the country to celebrate the power of creating stories and illustrations by submitting their original work.
 
Eighty-seven (87) public television stations participated in this year’s contest, which generated over 25,000 submissions.  The national Contest winners are expected to be named in July 2010. The winning stories will be posted on the Contest Web site at ReadyToLearnReading.org , alongside a message from singer-songwriter and American Idol winner Jordin Sparks about the influence of writing in her life. Other new site features allow kids to create “Story Mashups,” put together “Story Stuff Pages,” vote for their favorite stories, and use a customized search tool to explore over 1,100 kid-created stories.
 
The PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest is a part of PBS KIDS Raising Readers, a national initiative which uses the power of public media to build the reading skills of children ages two to eight, with an emphasis on children from low-income families. The effort is funded by a Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of Education, part of a cooperative agreement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), PBS and The Ready To Learn Partnership. 

Presented by AFI Silverscreen Education, as a special feature of the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs International Documentary Conference, SchoolDocs is an innovative strand of workshops, panel discussions and films investigating cutting edge practices in visual education directed to the needs of 21st century educators and students.

Activities:

• 3 days of engaging discussions
  Exposure to new technologies
  New pedagogical techniques with more than a dozen panels and hands on workshops
  one on one networking with documentary filmmakers
  An examination of race and representation in film
  Critical literacy: making connections with film
  Using filmmaking to help students understand subtext
  Turning curriculum into dynamic student movies
  Best practices and fair use for education
  Web resources for educators
  Stay ahead of the new technology for education

For more info go to www.silverdocs.com

Traveling just got easier with this travel kit from Scholastic – The Wheels on the Bus…and More Musical Stories Sing Along Travel Kit. In addition to two high-quality DVDs, the kit also comes with a CD of favorite songs and a 34-page activity booklet with crayons. Sing along to The Wheels on the Bus and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly and learn about the importance of music in our world. Images in classic stories such as This Land is your Land, Frog Went A-Courtin’ and Giraffe’s Can’t Dance come to life through exquisite animation with gentle narration. Perfect for the preschool audience, these DVDs will get everyone singing along in the house or on the road. KIDS FIRST! Child Juror Comments: “This is good because it includes songs I was familiar with and new songs that I liked. The pictures look like a book. I like that. I think my friends would like it because they like to sing. My favorite part was in Bugs! Bugs! Bugs! when the roly poly curled up into a ball, and the spider tried to get in, but he couldn’t.” The DVDs encouraged children to ask questions such as the one child asked about what daddy long legs eat. They wanted to watch the DVDs again when they were over. DVDs and CD. 132 min.; Ages 2-5.