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Hi everyone I know I haven't been posting a lot but I'm going to start again. Hi I'm Betsy Lou and this is my blog Betsy Lou Adventures today I'm going to tell about my summer. So in the first week of summer I went to this summer school called PQA where you make up a play from a blank piece of paper and in just one week we came up with a play full of comedy and fun. I had lots of fun taking part in this play and I made lots new friends I would definitely recommend it to people aged 5 -12. Anyways this week I went to Pakefield caravan park in Lowestoft because my grandad has a caravan there. Whilst I was there I went to a nice place called Gorleston and they do the best Ice -Cream I
have ever tasted. this time I had a chocolate and bubblegum whippy and I would give it a 10/10 yay!

this week I have been in the house a lot because my mum works at home and she needs to finish things but yesterday my friends came round and we played a spy game where we were Zootropolis animals and we found someone who had been attacked (just pretend) and we had to solve the mystery of who did it. we never finished that game because they had to go home. waaaaaa!!!! so sad so that's about it for my summer except lounging about.

Later in the summer I am going on a cruise to Norway so I will ask my mum to bring her laptop so I will keep you guys updated throughout the summer that's enough from me now goodbye!

PS comment down below what you've been doing this summer

Betsy Lou
login' out

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Hi everyone I know I haven't been posting a lot but I'm going to start again. Hi I'm Betsy Lou and this is my blog Betsy Lou Adventures today I'm going to tell about my summer.

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I'm a kid who loves to cook! My dad is a good chef and he's helping me with these recipes, but the ideas are all mine. I hope you like the recipes!

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Kid President presents THE SCARIEST THING IN THE WORLD

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The Liv BIts Blog

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I've been bugging my mum for awhile now with questions about the meaning of irony. I've asked her so much, she sometimes anticipates a question from me, and says, "No, Liv that's just a coincidence." But, I think I have a perfect example of irony: all the times people ask me about missing school for my LivBit work. When someone pesters my nana with the same question over and over again, she always says, "If I had a nickel for everytime someone says that to me, I'd be a rich person!" And, that's how I feel about the questions around me and school and LivBits.

It's ironic people ask me about school since my LivBit work is soooo RICH with learning opportunities. I've actually worked and reworked this blog post for several days, trying to find the best way to explain my learning. I've edited out HUGE examples of all the things I learned on my last adventure because the list of things I learned was too long. I thought maybe I should list the content areas underneath each example to "prove" my learning is legitimate. Maybe it would satisfy some of the people asking me questions about missing school, but instead, I hope my words will be proof enough. I've also tried to figure out just the right words to explain how grateful I feel for the opportunity I had because I'm fearful people's constant questioning means I don't show enough gratitude.

Last week, I had an incredible opportunity to travel to Anchorage, AK with the Follett Learning team. If you don't know who Follett is, let me tell you! Follett Learning is an incredible book company, working all over the world to get books in the hands of kids! Lucky me, I got to announce the winners of the annual Follett Challenge!

Tudor Elementary in Anchorage, AK is this year's Grand Prize Winner for their inspiring project, "Young Globa Citizens." The coolest thing about Tudor's project is how similar it is to the work I do on LivBits. It's such an outstanding example of how #KidsCanTeachUs!

Tudor's efforts won them $60,000 in products and services from Follett Learning! I have sooooooo many #heartbeeps thinking about how their work will touch the world even more widely now that they have Follett's support. It was very humbling to be a small part of Tudor's story, and I learned soooo much while I was in Alaska, and I made soooooo my new friends!

In case you're curious or are worried about what I learn when I miss school, I hope this mashup of facts from my Seattle/Alaska/Portland adventures proves how much learning happens from my LivBit work.

There are no direct flights from Boston (my home airport) to Alaska. But, if there were, it would be about a 12-hour flight to Anchorage. Oh! In case you're wondering why we went to Seattle and Portland (since I got several messages asking how many cities I planned to hit on this trip), it's because my mum has a very serious eye condition, and we had to take a short break in flying to relieve the pressure in her eyes. We decided to make a sad situation, HAPPY!

I finally got to meet the very first person in my #DigitalTribe, Susan, also the voice for Helen the Shark. If you've followed me for awhile, you know how important Susan-Helen is to me. Susan and I recreated a picture (you can see it in the slide show above), that's so special, I'll never forget it! I hope when you think of my work, you'll think about this picture and how real digital connections are in the life of a learner.

I was able to add to my #tutuproject throughout this trip, and the Seattle pictures were so special and in so many iconic places! I even got to meet up with my Disney friend, Amanda, who just happened to be home visiting her mom! In 24 hours, I saw two people I SUPER love in Seattle! How awesome is that?

Did you know Seattle is one of the most literate cities in the United States? It has the most bookstores and libraries per capita, and the most library card-holders to check them out! BEST LIVBIT FUN FACT EVER!

The Alaska state motto is "North to the Future" and although I don't think any state motto beats NH's "Live Free or Die," I do think Alaska's is pretty cool! It made me think about my connected learning journey taking me all the way to Alaska; first digitally, and then, in person. I'm positive I'll never forget their motto because of its meaning to me as a learner.

One of my best #KidsCanTeachUs fun facts about Alaska is about their state flag! 13-year old Bennie Benson designed it in 1926. It became the official Alaskan flag when Alaska became part of the Union in 1959. Isn't that AMAZING?!

Alaska's schools are the MOST diverse in the ENTIRE United States. This is a pretty awesome claim to fame because I think most people would imagine the most diverse schools would be in a big city somewhere, but not true! Alaska has more cultures/ethnicities/races in its schools than anywhere else in America.

The Anchorage School System has over 100 schools in it. Some of the schools have specialized programs like STEM, Montessori, and even immersion programs in German, Japanese, and Spanish. Tudor Elementary School, where I visited, has a school within a school program. Some of the kids are in a K-2 Montessori program, and next year they are expanding their Montessori program into the upper grades too! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!

There are A LOT of moose roaming around Alaska. They aren't shy, and will even come into people's yards to eat and visit. Schools often have moose (or bear) evacuations if one shows up on the playground!

More than half of the world's glaciers are in Alaska. When I was there I saw the Matanuska Glacier from the air! It had sooooo many turquoise blue pockets from compressed ice crystals. It's one of the most beautiful things in nature I have ever seen.

I was in Alaska at an incredibly cool time of year! The sun barely set at night! It was twilight all the way until almost 2:00 in the morning, then the sun would set for a little while, and then come right back up. As it gets closer to the summer solstice, the sun in Anchorage will be up for almost 19.5 hours! Some Alaskans say all the light is their gift for so much darkness in the winter! I think it also means all that light fills people's souls with joy to carry them through the year.

Alaskans have very generous hearts. When I was there, I met so many incredible people. They wanted to share their cultures with me, and why they call Alaska home. I loved learning about what the different native groups ate, and what some of their traditional clothing looked like. Also, no one I met lived in an igloo, but they told me plenty of Canadians do!

Portland, OR could have actually ended up Boston, OR since the name was decided when the founders, one from Portland, ME and one from Boston, MA flipped a coin to decide the name! THIS NEW ENGLAND KID LOVES THIS FUN FACT SO MUCH!

I saw my first nude bicycle rider in Portland. It was interesting. 😬

Portland's slogan is, "Keep Portland Weird." Maybe that explains the nude bicycle rider???? 🤔

Powell's City of Books is apparently the world's largest independently owned bookstore. I spent hours there and wrote lots of recommendations for books! I was so excited to see they encourage kids to write recommendations! It's the only bookstore I've ever been to (and I've been to LOADS of bookstores) that has kid-written book recommendations. WAY TO GO POWELL'S!

Maybe someday we can have small tech devices for book recommendations. That way, kids of ALL ages can recommend their favorite books. I chose to write recommendations for picture books since all the ones written for those were by grown ups. If we used tech, we could have kids make voice threads or their own BITS for their recommendations! So age wouldn't matter! All kids could participate! SOMEONE TEAM UP WITH ME TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN! 🙏🏻

Portland's nickname is "City of Roses" and the International Rose Test Garden has over 10,000 rose bushes with over 600 different types of roses! It's one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever visited, and I loved looking at all of the different names of the roses. My favorite was the Charlotte Rose because it reminded me of my little sister, and it made my heartbeep for home.

I hope my long list shows how learning is everywhere. My mum says being curious about the world means you're ALWAYS learning. And, I think that's very true. I'm so grateful how much learning LivBits brings me. I learn from every experience I have. Sometimes my learning is so personal, it takes me awhile to process it. This happened in Alaska when one student shared about living with her brother because both her parents died. She was just a little older than me, but her comments made me think about how much kids have tucked up inside them every single day; how school is really only a small part of life; and learning comes from living everyday with your heart wide open to the world.

Here are the wishes lingering in me after this adventure: more opportunities for kids to learn WITH the world; more grown ups who genuinely encourage ALL kids to be part of a learning story; more ways for kids to use technology to CONNECT to places they've only ever dreamed about; and more encouragement for kids to become GLOBAL CITIZENS, like the kids I met at Tudor Elementary School. Finally, I wish for you, loads of adventures you'll experience with your HEART WIDE OPEN because I think that's the best kind of learning ever.

Thank you Follett Learning for helping me have a learning opportunity that will not only stay with me forever, but has changed me forever. You are defintely a copmany with your heart wide open. I am so happy I am connected to all of you!

And congratulations again to my friends in Alaska at Tudor Elementary! If I could have stayed with you forever, I would have in a heartbeep.💓
​Keep reading! Keep thinking! And, thank you for following LivBits!

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I've been bugging my mum for awhile now with questions about the meaning of irony. I've asked her so much, she sometimes anticipates a question from me, and says, "No, Liv that's just a coincidence." But, I think I have a perfect example of irony: all the times people ask me about missing school for my LivBit work.

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Today, we are thrilled to welcome Olivia Van Ledtje to A Year of Reading as a guest blogger. Liv is a lover of books, sharks, ballet, and all things Disney. You can visit Olivia at her Livbits Vimeo Channel or you can follow her on twitter (@thelivbits). We have learned so much from Olivia in the short time we've known her. She is fabulously brilliant (and fun!) and we think you'll probably want to share this blog post with colleagues and students.

#KeepReading! #KeepThinking!

Have you ever thought about how powerful it feels to share your story with the world?

I'm Olivia, and I am a 4th grader in Durham, NH. I use Instagram and Twitter and have my own Vimeo channel to share my thinking about books and life with the world. I was inspired to start this from work my mom was doing with teachers called the Selfie Center.

Most people know what a selfie is. Lots of people probably don't think about what a selfie tells. When you take a selfie and post it on social media, you are asking for feedback. You want people to like it, share it, or comment on it. It's like the selfie is a chance to start a story and you hope that the story is one that people will like. Usually, no one wants to post a bad selfie.

The Selfie Center is about kids sharing their thinking by making short videos. It makes a single selfie into a video version just like a Harry Potter moving portrait. When I saw all the selfie videos my mom had from other kids, I begged her to let me try it. I saw a first grader's selfie example and I was inspired. His name was Charlie and he made his selfies into the Charlie show. He would talk about his thinking, his teacher's lessons, and his questions about his work. I wanted to try doing something like the Charlie show, so I started LivBits.

I use my LivBit videos to share my thinking with the world. They are a little bit of me, Liv and a little bit of my thinking, Bits. The fancy word for what I do is called metacognition. When you can talk about your thinking, you are thinking at a very deep level, and especially when you share your thinking to teach or inspire other people. I want kids to be inspired to read and think more. I love stories, I love thinking, I love talking, and I love sharing! Put that altogether and you have LivBits!

I think kids should be able to share their thinking with bigger audiences than just their classroom. It gives kids more ideas, more feedback, and more inspiration. Social media has helped me create my LivBit digital identity. Everything I post tells a little bit more about who I am and what I believe. Social media helps me tell my story. You can learn a lot about a person by what they post. I hope that my followers see how fun reading, thinking, and sharing can be! One of the best compliments I can get is when I meet a follower face to face and they say, "You are JUST like you are on your LivBits!" It's really important that who you are online is who you really are in person. Your posts define who you are and are a mirror to the world.

I get my ideas for posting by thinking about my audience. I ask myself questions like: What will people want to learn from this book? What did the author hope to teach me? How can I share this message in an interesting way? Some of the best advice about life can come from characters in stories. And, when I read informational books, I think about what I might be able to teach my audience.

I think it's really important to share my story, and I get a lot of really awesome feedback when I do. When you post on social media, you can hear from lots of people who can teach you things you didn't think about. You can also be encouraged to keep going with your message and you can learn from their stories too. I've been lucky that my followers believe in the LivBit message.

A big part of my message is that kids can teach us. I use this hashtag a lot because it defines what my LivBit work is all about. Lots of times people think that only grown ups can be the teacher, but I think that you don't really have to be a grown up to teach others. I can use my social media accounts to share important ideas I have. My followers can teach me, and I can teach them. It's like a really awesome shared story when you post on social media. Lots of people don't even think about how you tell a story through your posts.

If you look at people's social media posts, you can usually see what they value, wish, and dream. If you look close enough you can probably see other information too. If you read their hashtags they tell a story. I always say my hashtags are like "my people." What I mean is that my hashtags group me with other people on social media. When people comment or share my posts, they become part of my story. It's really incredible when you see how one post can travel to so many places so quickly all over the world! One of my posts on Twitter was retweeted over 80 times by people in 22 different countries! Some of the countries were not places I had ever even thought about, but after we became part of each other's story, I wanted to know more about those places.

Hashtags are also like the big ideas in your story. They let people see what your story is all about. They are like the shortened version of what is most important in your post. They give people lots of clues about what to pay attention to in your story. My mom always says that hashtags are the synthesis of your story so that means you have to choose them wisely if you want to share a message.

LivBits is a home project, but I would love it if my school would start to use the Selfie Center so more kids could have the chance to read, think, and share their ideas in a bigger way. Sometimes teachers are too scared to use technology or to have kids on social media, but I think we have to learn how to be safe from doing meaningful work.

LivBits has been the best project I have ever done in my whole entire life! I have teachers all over the world who follow me, give me feedback, and encourage me to do more thinking. My LivBit work started as a chance to grow my thinking, sharing, and reading, but it also grew my heart. I've learned how to be a good digital citizen from this work. One of my favorite authors, Peter Reynolds calls it connecting the dots. And, that's exactly what being a digital citizen is - a connector of dots! You meet so many amazing people and you have the chance to learn and grow together. You connect to their ideas, you retweet, and comment, you share your thinking, and you grow.

Your posts are your story to the world. Make your story one that matters, not just to you, but to others. Connect your dots to places you never dreamed possible. Become a digital beam of light that connects in positive ways to others. Your story matters and deserves to be shared.

Keep reading! Keep thinking! And, keep watching LivBits for more ideas about your books and your world because #kidscanteachus!

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Guest Post: Olivia Van Ledtje (@thelivbits)

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Today, we are thrilled to welcome Olivia Van Ledtje to A Year of Reading as a guest blogger. Liv is a lover of books, sharks, ballet, and all things Disney. You can visit Olivia at her Livbits Vimeo Channel or you can follow her on twitter (@thelivbits).