This January, Paige Harp, the Coordinator for the Children’s and Young Adult Book Review Board of Missouri (BRB), presented four review writing workshops with the 5th grade classes at Phelps Center for Gifted Education. This continues the years of partnership that the BRB has had with Phelps. During January and February, the students wrote their reviews and then sent them to Paige for final edits.

Last week, Paige Harp, Nathan Neuschwander, and Eric Taylor with the help of library student worker, Juanita Fiddmont and the 5th grade teachers at Phelps worked with the students to create review iMovies. Eric presented a short lesson on how to use iMovie to take and arrange pictures from their books. Eric and Nathan then worked with the students to record their reviews, while Paige and the others assisted the students with putting everything together in iMovie. 

In the end, the students at Phelps contributed 113 reviews for the BRB and made 108 iMovies that will be posted to the BRB website and uploaded to the BRB YouTube channel. Most of the students were very excited about this project and were an absolute blast to work with! 

“Writing reviews for the BRB is a wonderful way to actively engage our fifth grade WINGS students in literacy by reading brand new children’s books, participating in writers workshops, writing reviews, learning about editing and making movies featuring these reviews,” says Phelps teacher, Gina Wyckoff, “We have loved working with BRB for many years and hope to continue for many more.”