YA Book Review with Supplemental Printable!

Hello to all of you! I am fortunate enough to have Carolyn Wilhelm, The Wise Owl Factory Book-a-Day Blog & owner of Connect-a-Blog, guest post today to tell you about a young adult novel she recently read! 

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A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions (The Nerd Girls #2 by  by Alan Lawrence Sitomer) is a humorous book that will definitely appeal to middle and secondary school students. While there is much fun and adventure, the life lessons addressed are clear and valuable. The outlandish events are not intended to inspire readers to commit similar crimes, but to learn from the "what if" possibilities of fighting between nerds and popular girls  The ending is not perfect and everyone doesn't become friends, but everything works out well enough to cause YA readers to think about what is really best in life. 

The Nerd Girls come out ahead but not in the way you might expect. The descriptions of the scholastic competition are so very true to life, and I say that as a former teacher of gifted/talented classes and academic coach. Situations like in the book really do happen and there are frustrations in academic competitions just like in sports. The humor will catch the attention of students and the story is far from preachy.

There are two groups of three girls in this sequel to Nerd Girls Book I: The Rise of the Dorkasaurus. The ThreePeas are lovely to look at but not very nice people!  The Nerd Girls have some physical or personality flaws, so most readers can relate to them.  In the end, one of the ThreePeas joins the Nerds for all the right reasons, and the two remaining Peas still have miserable personalities.  Usually three friends do not work well together, but in the two cases in the book they do for most of the story.  One Nerd girl is struggling for independence from her overly concerned mother, one has a father reappear after years of being divorced from her mother and absent from the family, and one has Mrs. Department Store mom who overdoes the homemaker role.  These six girls are put together on an academic team to be forced to work together and get along, which makes the story captivating.  

That is all I can write without giving too much of a spoiler!  I will just say your students will want to read the book, and you might find it interesting yourself.  I will say there is a tiny bit of romance (enough to keep the attention of readers) but no kissing and all.  I always liked books like that as a teacher, and I avoided "mature" books in the classroom.

The author is an amazing teacher who has won many awards and is a speaker at many well known conferences.  He was California teacher of the year.  On his web site, he has many FREE lessons called SAT Essay Prep.  It isn't easy to see at first, so go to this link  http://www.alanlawrencesitomer.com/resources/freesatessayprep/, and look on the right and lower side bar and you will see a list of free materials provided by the author.  He created the free materials to offer more equity in education. What a guy!  And, he can write from the viewpoint of a teen girl!
Check out his novel here on Goodreads!

Here is my free PDFwork page for A Catastrophe of Nerdish Proportions (The Nerd Girls #2 by  by Alan Lawrence Sitomer). Students will have to read the book to answer the questions!

Carolyn Wilhelm

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Thanks so much to Carolyn for providing your free PDF work page and for sharing her thoughts on the novel. 

As a contributing author to Carolyn's Connect-a-Blog (A collaborative teacher blog K-12), I encourage you to visit and see all it has to offer!
If you are interested in purchasing this book, you can find it here:

I hope you take a second to let us know if you have read this book or the first book; please feel free to tell us your thoughts about either one or both! 
Be well,
A. Smith

The Magic of Silent Movies in Creative Writing!

I want to give a  SPECIAL "THANK YOU" to Adrianne Meldrum of The Tutor House for being a guest blogger today! She does, without a doubt, always have clever and spectacular ideas/activities to share. So, without further delay...
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There's something magical about silent movies.  Even without dialog, a story is conveyed.  How would the story be different if you could add dialog?  Using silent movies for a creative writing project or exercise could liven up your students creative juices.


I found three fun (short) silent movies that lend themselves well to adding dialog.  Two of them are old silent movies and the other is a modern day silent movie.  All of these videos are under a creative commons license. 


Divide your students into teams and assign a video.  Students will then work together to come up with dialog that goes along with the video.  They will need to come up with a title and then perform the voices for the videos.  Of course, you'll need to set some ground rules with no profane or inappropriate content allowed. 


You could also have students do their own voice over of the videos.  If you would prefer this method, please email me to receive an editable version of the video.

What kinds of stories do you think your students will come up with?


Video Sources: Video One, Video Two, Video Three


Adrianne Meldrum is a private tutor and author of The Tutor House, a blog dedicated to helping tutors find curriculum and business tips.

Little People... Big Expectations!

Hello, ALL! I have the pleasure of welcoming Stephanie VanMeter of Primary Possibilities as a guest blogger on Innovative Connections today! She and two others, Kathi Berry and Stephany Dillon have graciously included three great feebies for you at the end! 

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Primary Possibilities is a combination of three primary teachers who want to share their everyday lives with you! Each of us teach in the same building; however, we all teach different grades and use different styles of teaching. Kathi Berry is a Title One teacher who teaches Reading Recovery to first graders and literacy groups and RTI groups with all grades. She really enjoys first and second grade students. Kathi usually works in small groups and creates hands-on lessons that challenge higher level thinking skills.
Stephany Dillon is a previous Reading Recovery teacher who teaches first grade students. She has an amazing approach to learning and implements literacy stations in her classroom. Stephany uses reading strategies with her students and creates an excellent atmosphere for learning. She utilizes the Accelerated Reaidng program to its fullest in her first grade classroom.
My name is Stephanie VanMeter. It was very easy to write about my colleagues, but I am having a hard time writing about myself. :) I began teaching first grade and was moved to kindergarten about 4 years ago. I was apprehensive at first, but soon discovered I loved kindergarten as I became more familiar with the curriculum. Kindergarten is almost the new first grade! It seems I am teaching the curriculum I taught in first grade when I began teaching.
I truly believe, children should know teachers have big expectations and they can achieve anything. Expectations are can be set in any subject, in behavior, rules, and in everyday life skills. 
Dreaming big has never hurt anyone! 
Our goal and mission at Primary Possibilities: Little people... Big expectations!
Three Freebies for you to Download from Primary Possibilities:

Kindergarten Common Core Language Arts Resource

From Stephanie VanMeter

Cute Classroom Supply Labels

Cute Classroom Supply Labels from Stephany Dillon

Gumball Real and Nonsense Word Sort

From Kathi Berry

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Thanks to Primary Possibilities and Stephanie VanMeter for being a guest blogger today!

Please take a moment to leave Stephanie a note telling her you stopped by, as I'm sure she'd love to know! And, by the way, Primary Possibilities is have 200 Followers Giveaway---you may like to swing by to enter the fun!! 

Be well and have a great weekend!