Searingcott Winners!!

On Thursday, April 18th, Searingtown second-graders participated in our annual "Searingcott" vote! For the past several weeks, the 2nd graders became expert book reviewers, learning to recognize the characteristics of award-worthy book illustrations. Each student received his/her very own JUDGE'S NOTEBOOK, in which they scored each book nominee (our list of books came from a list of books that were most likely on the consideration list for the 2013 Caldecott Award). They learned about perspective, color, art mediums, and use of white space. They thought about how book illustrations can enhance the text or even --as in the case of This Is Not My Hat-- tell a completely different story than the text.

As we read each book together, I recorded the students' observations on the SmartBoard. As each week went by, I was more and more impressed with the depth of observations!

These are the books we evaluated ~

• This Is Not My Hat (Jon Klassen)
• Green (Laura Vaccaro Seeger)
• Another Brother (Matthew Cordell)
• Extra Yarn (Mac Barnett/Jon Klassen)
• Nighttime Ninja (Barbara Da Costa/Ed Young
• Sleep Like a Tiger (Pamela Zagerenski)
• Bear Has a Story to Tell (Philip Stead/Erin Stead) 

Our gold medal went to: ANOTHER BROTHER! Students loved this very funny book. Our honor medals went to: THIS IS NOT MY HAT; GREEN; EXTRA YARN; and NIGHTTIME NINJA. 

Many students submitted designs for our Searingcott Medal. The theme this year was: Be a smart cookie and read! Congratulations to all students who submitted a design and especially to our winners, Ashish Jalwan (gold), Matthew Lora, Nicoletta Karras, Rocco DiGirolomo, and Halle Sacharoff!

Medal designed by Ashish Jalwan-Grade 2