Volume 2: February 2024
Photo of a beach in Canada taken in Fall 2023.
For a short month, this February is jam packed! Between celebrating African-American history, Lunar New Year and the bonus of Leap Day, there’s no shortage of interesting and important events. February is also the month when I most poignantly miss beaches, blue skies and hot Summer days. But what better way to feel a little heat than with dancing and dragons?! Read on for more details…
February Events & Resources
African American Heritage Month
Yolanda Renee King, the 15 year old granddaughter of Coretta Scott King and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. recently released We Dream a World: Carrying the Light from My Grandparents. The book was inspired by the poem I Dream a World by Langston Hughes (also an influence on Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech). You can hear the author talk about her book on PBS books here and watch her CBS morning interview here.
The Electric Slide and Kai is an absolutely delightful book by local Michigan author Kelly J. Baptist. At the suggestion of a colleague, I read this book to my students and then taught them how to do the Electric Slide, which resulted in lots of smiles and a little laughter, too. They clapped when I finished reading the book, because they loved it (as will you when you read it).
The Youth Media Awards were just announced and Big by Vashti Harrison was not only the Caldecott Winner, but also a Coretta Scott King Winner and National Book Award Finalist. Harrison is the first African American woman to ever win the Caldecott. This one is a must read!
Isn’t this a delightful cover? Black Boy Joy is a collection of 17 stories spanning a range of genres by heavy hitters including Jerry Craft and Jason Reynolds. This middle grade book was a New York Times bestseller and received a plethora of starred reviews. Don’t pass this one up.
One of my goals with my writing is to encourage underrepresented groups (girls, BIPOC folks) to feel comfortable, welcome and empowered with computer science and tech. This organization – Black Girls Code – is doing really great work in that regard. Check them out!
Lunar New Year
Photo by Thomas Despeyroux on Unsplash
Amy Wu and the Patchwork Dragon is the perfect read for Lunar New Year! This title is part of a series. Zhang provides discussion sheets and activity guides for free on her site, too. Follow that up with this short from PBS Kids (Time: 2:05 ): Curious George | Gung Hay Fat Choy! Happy Chinese New Year! If you’re working with littles, this is a really great video to share with them to celebrate Lunar New Year. Note: it cuts off a bit abruptly at the end.
Leap Year/Day
Photo by Leo_Visions on Unsplash
Looking for a brief history on the origin and reason for Leap Day/Year? Look no further: National Geographic Kids: What is Leap Year?
This is a good tutorial about how to create a Python program that tells you whether or not this year is a leap year. I would recommend trying it out at Replit.com or a comparable IDE (integrated development environment), so that students who are just learning Python can utilize the built-in debugging help: Python program to check leap year
Social Media Shout-Out!
Mychal Threets has been making the news lately for his lovely, inclusive librarianship. He’s also one of the 2024 recipients of the I Love My Librarian awards. If you haven’t heard of him yet, you should check out this interview on ABC News. He’s a breath of fresh air.
Interested in More From Me?
A cumulative list of books mentioned in the Read. Write. Tech. newsletters can be found here. Never want to miss a book release? Follow me on my Amazon author page for updates. Want an autographed copy of my book Social-Emotional Learning Using Makerspaces and Passion Project? You can order one here through Booksweet!
