Wrapping up Peter Reynolds Author Study

This week, the first graders wrapped up our author study on Peter H Reynolds by reading a book that he illustrated, called The Museum. The book is by author Susan Verde and was a great ending to our study, because it is about a trip to an art museum. Art is one of the major themes throughout Peter's books, so it was a perfect book to finish with!

After reading the story, the students participated in our own little art gallery. I printed off some famous paintings and hung them on large poster paper throughout the room. Students walked around, like it was a museum, and wrote how each painting made them feel. The kids were awesome at expressing how the paintings made them feel and what they thought about as they were looking at them. Some of the words they wrote were very descriptive!

Here are some pictures of them in action:

Sky Color

The first graders have been studying author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds. Last week, we read his book called Sky Color. In Sky Color, Marisol's class is painting a mural and it is her job to color the sky. But, the blue paint is missing! Marisol notices the sky around her as she goes home from school and day turns into night, and that inspires her idea--Sky Color!

After reading the story, we talked about different colors in the sky. Then, we created our own Sky Color in the windows outside the library using crystal effects window markers. It was such a fun time, and we had lots of questions from other classes about what we were doing! They were very concerned about whether or not we had asked for permission from Miss Sherry and Mr. Schipper.

This was the final product!

I stayed late to get some work done one night and the sun just happened to be setting. Our Sky Color looked very cool with the sunset in the background! 

I love these markers! 

This was one of my favorite moments--The windows were getting full and the students wanted to stand in the windowsills. I had told other classes that I thought our feet should stay on the floor, but this class I decided we could "break the rules" and stand up on the sill. That inspired some singing, dancing, and drawing. The song went something like, "We're breaking the rules on Friday, on Friday." They were singing it over and over again and it made me laugh!

5 Finger Retell--There's an App for That!

The 2nd graders have been working on the 5 Finger Retell strategy, where they describe the setting, characters, problem, events, and solution after reading a story. Last week, we read Oh No (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World) by Mac Barnett. Then, I introduced the kids to an app called Educreations, and we began using that to retell the story. It was our first time on the app, so these aren't perfect, but we are doing the same thing with a different story this week, and the retellings are looking better already! Can't wait to post about them next week!

Students worked with a partner, and did 1-2 parts of the retelling. The next day, a different section of 2nd grade picked up where the other group left off. I think this week we have a better handle on how to best use this app using the 10 iPads that we have in the library. Each class is responsible for one of the aspects of the retelling, so it's like a mashup from all four of our 2nd grade sections!

Wordless Book Reading

We began our wordless book unit in Kindergarten this past week. I absolutely love wordless books & I love seeing kids reactions to them. Students worked very hard reading the pictures in the book and telling the story with our own words. This is a skill we will continue working on for the next few weeks.

Here are our students hard at work reading the pictures in books after we read Chalk by Bill Thomson together as a class:

2nd Grade Destiny Practice

Our second graders have been practicing using the computer to find out about the books we have in the library. Students learned to use the title, author, or keyword searches to find a book and look for the call number. Next week, we'll practice using the call number to go retrieve the books from the shelf!

The kids worked with partners to answer the questions I had linked to a QR code on the iPad. They used the computer to answer the questions. It was very good practice using two different tools to complete the task! Since I put the questions into a Google Form, it was very easy to see which questions we need to practice more.

Here are some pictures of us hard at work!

Dot Day (Week) Part Two

We've continued our Dot Day celebration throughout the week!

Tuesday, Ms. Thompson's first graders connected with my friends Sarah Staudt & Ben Feight in Mason City, Iowa. Together we read the book The Day the Crayons Quit with our new friends. It was fun to get to meet other students across the state and share a story together!

Photo credit: Ben Feight

This is a picture from Mrs. Staudt's room as she's reading aloud to us. We are there in her computer screen! Check out Mr. Feight's blog to see what he had to say about the event!

Later, Mrs. Velvick's 4th graders met with Mrs. Staudt's class to create collaborative dots using Google Draw. We created 7 dots ahead of time, and students worked in groups of 5-6 to create dots between Cedar Rapids and Mason City! It was really cool to watch the students try to work collaboratively and see them start writing messages back and forth to each other finding out each other's names, what sports teams they liked, and other fun facts. The dots ended up a little messy, because we didn't give a lot of guidelines--we just wanted to see what the students could do!

Hopefully we will have the chance to do this again later in the year to learn collaboratively with friends in other places! 

Wednesday, Mrs. Collett's class Skyped with Ms. Nels' 3rd graders in southern Florida! We had a great time asking and answering questions about our cities. The weather in Florida is much different than Iowa, we found out! These students have been working on making Dot Day trading cards in Art class with Mr. Plagman. We will be sending these to our new friends in Florida, and they will be sending theirs to us! We shared a few of those during our Skype.

Ms. Schulte's kindergartener's got to Skype with an AK class in Green Bay, Wisconsin. We found out that most of them like the Green Bay Packers, and that several of us do too! Ms. Schulte's class shared the bookmarks that they'd been working on during art class. We will be sending those to our friends and we'll have a bookmark exchange!

Maxwell sharing his bookmark & getting thumbs up from our Wisconsin friends!

Mrs. Roelfs' second graders got to have fun with Mrs. Staudt, too! We made one big dot all together using Google Draw. Students in Cedar Rapids and Mason City took turns coming up and making their mark inside of our dot. 

Here's how our dot ended up!

We've had a fun week of connections, meeting new friends, and learning about life in different parts of the country! I can't wait until Dot Day 2015!

Dot Day (Day One!)

Today we started our Dot Day celebration! Actually, we started last week by reading the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. The Dot is a book about creativity, trying new things, and making your mark!

Last week, we colored dots and played with the ColAR app on the iPads to make our dots turn into fun spheres and other things.

I loved this dot made by a 3rd grader. Her class read the story on 9/11 and she made her dot to help everyone remember. So sweet, and such a showing of empathy. 

Today we had our first Skype session with Mrs. Kauten's group of kindergarteners and Mrs. Powell's group of first graders. We talked with Jennie Ford's kindergarteners in Pocahontas, Iowa. It was a little crazy with so many kids, but we managed! We showed off some dots that the kids made during art class this week.

Photo credit Kendra Hanzlik (@khanzlik)

Next, we met with Cristol Kapp's 4th graders from Chatanooga, TN. It was fun to talk about our time zone differences and to hear their Southern accents. We talked a little bit about our cities, but our time got cut short. We will have to try to connect again. Our students had a lot of questions about their lives in Tennessee.

Next, Mrs. Ward's 2nd grade classes met with Esther Uribe's class from Austin, Texas. We took turns reading from Ish by Peter H. Reynolds and talked about it inbetween. This was such a great learning experience for our students, and they really loved it! How fun to share books across states!

Photo credit Kendra Hanzlik (@khanzlik)

Next, Mrs. Bird's 4th grade class met with Ms. Bery's class in Massachusetts. Again, we talked a bit about our towns and schools. We found out their town is so small they don't have stop lights! The kids loved hearing about the differences and similarities between our two schools. We also shared some bookmarks that we made that we are going to send to them, and they'll send us some back. how fun!

Next Mrs. Hilgenkamp's kindergarten students met with Carol Scrimgeour's class in Vermont. The kindergarteners loved sharing a little about where we live. We compared maps with the students out in Vermont and talked about how long it would take to get there. We also shared some of our dot clothing we were wearing and listened to the Dot Song. 

And lastly, Mrs. Mehman's 3rd graders Skyped with Mr. Traxson's class in Inman, Kansas. We made a collaborative dot, where our students would make a mark on our dot, then one of their students would copy it onto their own dot. Then they would make a mark, and we'd copy it. It was so fun to see the creativity and fun we had!

What a busy, whirlwind of a day! We still have 5 Skype meetings with students around the country later this week--stay tuned!