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!