Week of October 8

This week our preschoolers listened to Opposnakes by Salina Yoon. Salina is one of my favorite authors. She Skyped with our 2nd graders a couple of years ago, and I've been obsessed with her after that! She writes a lot of books that are perfect for young readers and listeners. Opposnakes is so cute, and it has flaps that lift, which automatically makes kids love it!

AK students listened to Unplugged by Steve Antony. He is another author who has written some great books for the littlest ones! This one is about a robot who trips in the dark and gets unplugged. She ends up outside and makes some friends in the real world.

Kindergarteners listened to an ABC book called Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming. 

We also started writing our own ABC book. Each student took a letter from the alphabet and turned it into a page for our book. We started with a template that looked like this:

Next week we'll finish up all the letters in the alphabet and start putting the books together!

First graders continued working on their Wonder posters. I can't wait to see what the final products look like! This week, we glued the posters together, taped on a picture of each student, and finished coloring. Next week, we'll start adding compliments to everyone's poster. How cute are these firsties reading together!?

Second grade read The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. This wordless book won the Caldecott medal in 2010. I love reading wordless books with kids, and this is one of my favorites! We talked about the elements of fables and talked about the moral of the story. 

Third graders continued reading A Boy Called Bat as part of the Global Read Aloud project. They also logged into Edmodo this week and started connecting with kids at Fairmount Elementary in Illinois. In Edmodo, kids watched a video that explains autism. There were two video options -- Marvelous Max or What's Up With Nick? Kids explained how the author describes Bat's austism without ever saying that he is autistic. Here are a couple of screenshots that show their thinking:

Fourth graders are learning about their digital footprint. Teaching digital citizenship and responsibility is hard because the tech tools are always changing. We had the kids fill out a survey about what types of devices they use and what they use the devices for. 

We had 30 kids say that they use Snapchat, which was the highest social media platform. 

This chart is interesting to me. It shows that kids are using their devices for a multitude of things, very similarly to adults, I would guess. 

They also watched a video about digital footprint and reflected about what a digital footprint is. Then, they started writing out what their current digital footprint looks like and what they want it to look like when they go to college and get their first jobs. We are going to make digital footprint posters to display during conferences. Parents might just learn something about their kids' digital lives that they didn't know yet! This is what kids said about their parents checking their devices. Granted, kids might not know the extent to which their parents check their phones, but it is what they think. 

Week of October 1

This week started out with the kids getting Monday off and teachers having a day of learning. I spent my morning learning and discussing social emotional learning. It was a great meeting to learn more about addressing the needs of our students to help them learn best. We know that kids don't really succeed academically if their social and emotional needs aren't met, as well.

Tuesday afternoon, the librarian team went to Grant Wood AEA for a Future Ready Librarian training. We talked about what it looks like to be a leader in school as a school librarian.

Back at school, the preschoolers came to the library for the first time this year! They listened to a book about colors called Little Green Peas by Keith Baker. They also got to pick out a book to check out! I love seeing how much these littlest learners grow throughout the course of a year.

Kindergartners listened to two more ABC books this week: Oops, Pounce, Quick, Run by Mike Twohy and B is for Bear by Hannah Viano. Next week we will start brainstorming ideas for writing our own ABC book and start the writing and publishing process.

First graders listened to the story called We're All Wonders by RJ Palacio. This picture book is based on the book and movie Wonder. Many of the kids were familiar with the story already and knew that the big idea of the story is to choose kind. My goal was for the students to give each other compliments, and I found this wonderful (no pun intended) resource that has papers designed for kids to write compliments to one another. We started out by writing our names and starting to color it this week. Next week, we'll start writing the compliments. 

Second graders started learning about fables and folktales. In library, we focused on the fable "The Mouse at the Seashore" from Arnold Lobel's book of fables. It's a fable about a mouse who desperately wants to see the ocean, and despite his parents telling him that it's unsafe, he goes anyway. He faces many troubles but finally arrives at the ocean and realizes that the miles of trouble were worth it to achieve his goal. We summarized the story, talked about the feelings of the mouse throughout, and tried to determine the moral.

Third graders started Global Read Aloud by reading the first 4 chapters of A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold. They will start connecting with Mrs. Stroud's students in Illinois next week during computer lab. 

Fourth graders practiced using their Lexile measures to find good fit books. We talked about how finding good fit books can help us be better readers by giving enough of a challenge without being too difficult. We also have started watching book trailers to promote new books. This week we watched several book trailers for Mary Downing Hahn books, as she's a great mystery and ghost story author.