Monday kicked off with our 2nd graders have two Skype sessions! The first was with author/illustrator Lisa Brown. Lisa wrote & illustrated The Airport Book, which was one of our selections for Mock Caldecott. She showed us her studio and drew us a picture of a cat!
Our 2nd call was with Dan Santat....that's right, Caldecott WINNING illustrator Dan Santat. Dan won the Caldecott for The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend back in 2015. He has also illustrated the Ricky Ricotta robot series which is a favorite at Prairie Hill. His current book Are We There Yet? is one of our Mock Caldecott books this year!
Our kindergarten, first, and third grade students got to have their first experiences with Dash this year. Dash is my favorite robot, and I think is the kids' favorite too! He is so versatile! I love that Dash is equally interesting to kindergarteners and third graders. The selection of apps that Wonder Workshop has put out makes coding accessible to our kindergarteners, and challenges our third graders.
Kindergarten and first graders used the app called Path. Path has students draw a path for Dash to drive, and has them insert simple code buttons. It starts with having Dash makes sounds, and students level up to more complex buttons. Our kids loved it!
3rd graders used some of Dash's attachments: his launcher and the xylophone. It was fun to see how creative they got! 3rd graders used an app called Blockly, which uses block code. The codes are text based, but drag and drop, so it is scaffolded up from the K/1 students using pictures. They had so much fun--apparently so much fun that I don't have any pictures!
4th graders wrapped up their states projects--our states wax museum is tomorrow afternoon! I can't wait to see all of the hard work that they've done in class, library, computer lab, and art all come together! They have worked really hard!
Next week is our last week before break, so we'll hand out BRAG books to each student & have some fun! For those that don't know, BRAG books stands for Books and Reading Are Great. It is a program that gives each & every student a free book right before winter break and again before summer break. It is our gift to students and is one of my favorite times of year! Libraries exist to provide access to books, which we know that all students don't have at home. This program means that students receive 8 free books from kindergarten through 4th grade. Preschoolers & AK students also get a book. A huge thanks to our PTO for sponsoring this every year!
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