A New Year!

Happy 2018! It's been a busy start to the year in the library. We've also had several late starts because of cold weather, which affects our class schedule. Despite the lack of time, we've been trying to get back into the flow of school. Here's what's been happening:

Preschool has read a book called Me Too by Valeri Gorbachev and a book called The Doghouse by Jan Thomas. These littles also started checking out two books instead of one.

AK students listened to Tea Party Rules by Ame Dyckman, one of my favorite authors. Ame had sent us some bookmarks and stickers to go along with this book, so they each got those, too! I'm also quite sure we read something else last week, but, I simply can't remember what it was! This is why I blog every week...I can't remember further back than that!

I've been collaborating with the kindergarten team, as well as our science curriculum lead, to help them with their current materials and motion science unit. The goal is for kids to use their knowledge of different materials and gravity to create a "roller coaster" for a marble. So, we started small. The first week, kids tried using the Marble Works toys. I also created some rubber band ramps using peg board like what you would hang in a garage for tools. The kids also used ramps to try to knock down dominoes. 

This week, half the kids used paper plates and cardboard tubes to try to build a circular ramp. The other half used tubes and cups that we taped to the wall. 

The kids loved this! Next week, we'll switch kids, and then the following week we'll start a final product.

First graders are also doing science in the library. They've started their sound and light science unit and we've been using circuits to make sounds. We have Snap Circuits and Little Bits circuits. I build part of the circuit, then they finish it off to make a sound. Next week, we'll start making lights. 

Second graders are listening to books for our Mock Caldecott project. This month we've read The Book of Mistakes, Claymates, How to Be An Elephant, and Big Cat, Little Cat.

 

 

The kids worked in the computer lab to illustrate one way a cat or an elephant takes care of it's young. Their favorite part was of course that baby elephants sometimes eat adult elephant poop, and that was illustrated in some funny ways!

Third graders are beginning to research a famous person and write a biography for that person. We started by looking at a bunch of biography books in the library and making a list of the things that most biographies tell us. 

Please note that I wrote the word "biography" but kids wrote the rest. Pretty sure their handwriting on the board is better than mine! 

Anyways, the following week, students picked a person that they want to learn about, and picked 5 of the things from our list that they want to learn. They labeled boxes on a template that I created. Next week, we'll start researching! 

Fourth graders are working to create a book trailer using Adobe Spark. The first, and hardest, part was to write a summary about a book, which will act as a script. We spent two weeks in library and computer lab writing and editing the summaries, and they have made so much progress! Next week we'll make the videos!

We also started recess clubs last week, which I loved. Third and fourth graders can sign up to stay in during one of their recesses for a week to do an activity in the library. The first week we did Legos and Light Brights, and this week we did Rainbow Loom. I love this low key activity and seeing kids hang out together and help each other who might not, otherwise. 

We've also had a lot of indoor recess, because of the cold, which also happens in the library. It is overwhelming, sometimes, but it's also cool to see kids work and play together and end up so proud of what they've accomplished. Lots of kids come up and ask me to take their picture because they're so proud!