Jill Esbaum Prep

It was another fun week preparing for our upcoming author visit! Jill Esbaum will joining us on Wednesday to meet with our K-4 students. We're all getting VERY excited!

Kindergarteners read I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo and voted on which Jill Esbaum book has been their favorite so far. Here are the results:

First graders listened to Elwood Bigfoot, which inspired many debates and arguments about whether or not Bigfoot is real...that's a complicated conversation for some 6-7 year olds! I'm interested to see if it comes up in our conversations with Ms. Esbaum!

Second graders listened to I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo, and a couple of the classes had time left to read Tom's Tweet.

Third and fourth graders rotated through 8 Jill Esbaum stations. Five of them had her Angry Birds books there that had a QR code on the inside, linked to a Padlet question about the book. Here's what the Padlet looked like for the Angry Birds Playground: Q & A Book:

Created with Padlet

There were other stations that had her picture books, non-fiction books, and her biography from her website. The kids really enjoyed getting to read some of these books and take some time to look at them. Here's a few pictures of the fun:

Week of February 8

We had a lot of fun this week preparing for our visiting author, Jill Esbaum!

Kindergarteners listened to the story of Stanza, a dog who loves to write poetry. Then we used the Promethean board to vote on which of Jill's books has been our favorite so far. Students moved their name to show their vote. We'll do the same thing next week, then print out the results & hang it up for Jill to see.

First graders read I Am Cow, Hear Me Moo!. It is a funny story about a brave, fearless cow...fearless, so she says, anyway. After reading, students wrote about what it means to be brave. I love talking about bravery and hearing what kids have to say about what it means to be brave.

I just love reading these and seeing what kids define as bravery. One of them, not pictured, said that bravery is hugging a zombie. Hopefully none of us ever run into that type of bravery! 

Second graders read Elwood Bigfoot: Wanted Birdie Friends. Our amazing art teacher, Mr. Plagman, created us an Elwood to put on the wall, and some student helpers made a tree. Then the 2nd graders made little birdies to sit on the branches. Hopefully Ms. Esbaum loves the display!

Third graders kept taking notes on their famous African American. Hopefully now they are ready to start creating a slideshow during computer lab. This week we will be talking about Jill Esbaum and reading one of her books and exploring her website.

Fourth graders also kept working on their current book trailer project. We installed WeVideo and started inserting images in the correct order. Next week we'll talk about Ms. Esbaum, and after that we'll be ready to record their voiceover on the trailers & be ready to finish them up!

Week of 2/1

This week we enjoyed our first snow day of the year on Tuesday! That was a welcome surprise in the middle of winter.

This week our preschool & AK students listened to Prince Fly Guy by Ted Arnold. I love Fly Guy books, and the kids really enjoyed it, too! Fly Guy is definitely going to be the next character added to our character wall.

Kindergarten and first grade starting preparing for our upcoming author visit. Author Jill Esbaum will be visiting Prairie Hill on February 24th. We read her book Tom's Tweet this week and we will read a couple more of them before she comes to visit.

Second graders spent a final week working on their fairy tale robot projects. We had several robots that were able to drive the whole track through their story map!

Third graders continued researching their famous African American, and 4th graders finished up downloading pictures for their book trailer! A few more weeks and these projects will be finished up!