September!

Somehow September gets away from me every year and I fail to update! We've had a great start to the school year and we're mostly finished up with introductory learning and ready to get into some content!

Kindergarteners have enjoyed checking out books and listening to stories. In September we read: It Starts with a Seed and Kite Day. These kids are learning about trees and weather in science so these books went along with that. Kids also drew some trees in different seasons using the Promethean board. They love the "magic board"!

 

 

We also read an ABC book called A Busy Creature's Day Eating by Mo Willems. Mo Willems is just priceless, in my opinion. His books are so different and funny and this one is no exception. We will read a handful more ABC books and then the kids will write our own ABC book as a class.

First graders celebrated Dot Day earlier this month. We read The Dot and used markers and coffee filters to design their own dots. The dots have been displayed in the hallway, giving us some color!

We also practiced making text-world connections using the book The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. This is my favorite book to use to practice this skill. We watch it on Bookflix and the kids love it. Then I show them photographs of Philippe Petit walking on his wire and it amazes them that its a true story.

Second graders worked on summarizing a story. One week we focused on beginning, middle, and end. Students listened to Nate and Kate Wake Up Late and built story towers. 

The following week we practiced SWBST after reading one of my favorite books-- Huck Runs Amuck.  Kids worked in teams to write out a somebody/wanted/but/so/then for one of the characters. It was a lesson in teamwork and summarizing both! They put their sticky notes up on the board for their character.

Third and fourth graders have been working on tracking their reading in Biblionasium. Biblionasium is like Goodreads for kids where kids can create virtual bookshelves of books they've read, are reading, and want to read. Our 4th grade teachers are having kids use this to track their independent reading and third grade will follow after seeing what is successful for fourth grade. I also showed our 4th graders how to access our ebook and audio book collection in MackinVIA. 

Third graders started having a conversation about what community looks like both online and offline. What we learned is that a good online community has similar traits as a good offline community. These kids are going to start the Global Read Aloud next week. We'll be reading A Boy Called Bat and connecting with students in Illinois using Edmodo, an online educational platform. 

  

Week of September 3

Week two was a short week, since we had Labor Day off and then kids had Tuesday off for teacher professional learning. Our library team is lucky enough to be able to attend a series of workshops at Grant Wood AEA led by my friend Lynn Kleinmeyer related to Future Ready Librarianship. We had our first meeting on Tuesday and got to learn from Lynn and her teammates, as well as guest speaker Tamiko Brown. Tamiko had a lot of great ideas regarding makerspaces and take home maker kits. I'm excited to start thinking about ways to make more makerspace magic happen at Prairie Hill!

Our AK students listened to the book A Perfectly Messed Up Story this week. One of our AK teachers, Mrs. Younger, is who first introduced me to the book, so I always like to read it with these students. They also checked out one more book this week. Almost all of them brought their books back, so we will likely move up to checking out 2 books either next week or the following week. I love watching the kids wander around finding books that they're interested in for the first time!

Kindergartners listened to a story called Do Not Bring Your Dragon to the Library by Julia Gassman. It is about some kids who want to bring their dragons in, but dragons obviously cause quite a few problems in the library. They end up making a compromise with the librarian so that they can take home a stack of books for the dragons so that they don't have to miss out. 

First graders listened to The Magician's Hat and I showed them lots of books of different careers, since that's what the book is about. 

Second graders listened to Dewey, There's a Cat in the Library which is a true story from Spencer, Iowa. This book is about all my favorite things -- orange cats, libraries, and Iowa! I told kids a story from a public librarian I know about having pickles put in her book drop! Ha! We had a great time laughing about this story.

Third and fourth graders competed in a GooseChase scavenger hunt, just like last week. This week the focus was on finding books in our library. The extra practice really helped out and they all felt more confident about searching for and finding books at Prairie Hill. I love seeing our kids work together as a team and having fun in the library!

Next week I've got meetings on Monday to collaborate with each grade level, and we'll get started on some new projects! I can't wait to really dig in to the learning this school year!

Welcome Back!

We're 7 days into the 2018-2019 school year here at Prairie Hill! Students started coming into the library to check out books last week and we had our first full week of classes this week! Now, we're (already) on a long weekend...and extra long weekend, even, since teachers have professional learning on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Which is super exciting for me, because I get to go a school librarian training at Grant Wood AEA hosted by my amazing friend (and awesome librarian!) Lynn Kleinmeyer.

This week was the AK kids first visit to the library! A couple of them were in preschool with us, but almost all of them were new to the library. We read a book about visiting the library called A Library Field Trip by Isabel Martin. It is actually about going to a public library, but almost everything applies to our school library!

Our kindergarteners came for the first time, as well, though several of them had been to the library before in preschool or AK. We read The Perfectly Messed Up Story by Patrick McDonnell. It is about a boy, Louie, who is trying to tell his story but the reader keeps making a mess of it--peanut butter, fingerprints, orange juice, etc. It's great for the first time they check books out! These kids checked out two books this week!

First graders also read A Perfectly Messed Up Story and then used the Promethean board to sort out some images of ways to treat a book with kindness and respect. 

Second graders read a book called Franklin's Flying Book Shop by Jen Campbell. I love this story and the illustrations by Katie Harnett are beautiful! I also showed them some picture from the book My Librarian is a Camel by Margriet Ruurs. It shows how kids get books all around the world--from bookmobiles, boat bookmobiles, or camels delivering books! 

                          

Third and fourth graders did a library expectations and procedures scavenger hunt using an app called GooseChase. There were 8 missions for them to complete and each mission had a certain amount of points. Each class split into teams and tried to complete as many missions as possible. The missions included taking a video of a library procedure, finding a stack of books, taking a picture of the new painting, or making origami from an origami book. The kids all had a lot of fun doing this! I think we'll do it again next week, but really focus on finding certain books using their call numbers. We practice this in both 2nd and 3rd grade, but it seemed like kids needed a bit more practice to really master this skill.