Week of April 18

We kicked the week off by celebrating my 30th birthday on Monday! It was such a great day! There were so many treats and gifts that we had to set up an extra table!

On Monday the kindergarteners & 1st graders got to watch a puppet presentation from Mr. Darin Crow. He is so amazing! I asked the students throughout the week what they thought, and they all seemed to really like it. He focused on fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

Kindergarteners this week started an author study about Mo Willems. He is truly one of my favorites and the kids all love his books. Many of them had seen some of the Pigeon, Elephant & Piggie, and Knuffle Bunny books, but didn't know that they all had the same author. We read a few pages from our biography about Mo, then read Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late. I also taught all of them how to draw the pigeon, and I think they were surprised with how easy it was!

First graders are learning how to compare and contrast stories. Mr. Crow told the story of the 3 Little Pigs, and then we read a version from the book called The Wolf at the Door. Then we used a Venn diagram to compare/contrast the stories on our Promethean board. 

Second graders read an article about Earth Day from Time for Kids then answered questions and talked about how important it is to recycle!

Third graders talked about haiku, diamante, and acrostic poems. We looked at the pattern for each, read some examples, and then wrote some together as a class.

The 4th graders began studying Greek mythology. Some kids have some prior knowledge from reading the Myth-o-Mania series, but there were some kids who had no idea. I think it's safe to say that they're all excited now! Each class is split into 3 teams and they are dividing up the work to take notes about all of the gods and some of the other minor characters. Then we'll play Jeopardy in a few weeks! 

Makerspace Redesign Reflection

I am super excited to be starting our Prairie Hill Makerspace next year. We've already ordered everything & received many items. I am eager to start playing around & letting teachers and students explore our new stuff.

Last week during the course at Grant Wood we played with Makey Makey, LittleBits, and MakeDo. I had used all of these before, at the Grant Wood Makerspace, and when they were so kind to bring their tools to our school for students to test out.

The LittleBits are my new favorite tool. I just received the 3 Student Steam Kits we ordered and me and one of my 3rd grade students put a little car together in under 5 minutes. It was really fun and so easy! 

In a couple of weeks the 4th graders are playing Jeopardy and I am hoping to use the LittleBits to make a buzzer to ring to answer the question. I am hoping to have them use sound & different colored LED lights to buzz in. I also just ordered the LittleBits Synth kit (from the Scholastic store with Scholastic dollars!!), which we could also use to make different pitches with the buzzers.

These little MakeDo tools work quite well in putting together pieces of cardboard. We could have used them the last few months while constructing cardboard Sphero mazes. I purchased a similar product, called Mr. McGroovy's box rivets, but they were a bit more complicated and harder for kids to use. My students didn't have rave reviews about the saw, but the screws work very well! 

Makey Makey is a fun tool that makes anything that conducts electricity into a computer key, which makes for some fun when playing online games. We experimented with playing Tetris, and I pulled up a drum kit I had made in Scratch and used with our MakeyMakey at school. I want to use these more during our coding club next year, since only a few kids used them this year.

Week of April 11

It felt like we had been kind of flying aimlessly the last month or so, with lots of events taking up our learning time, so it was great to get back to some serious & fun learning last week.

The kindergarten students learned all about what poetry is and looks like. We did a simple introduction using two books: I've Lost My Hippopotamus by Jack Prelutsky and Everything on It by Shel Silverstein. The kids were shocked when they saw the books, because they thought they were chapter books due to the amount of pages. We talked about how each page has a very short story called a poem on it. We also talked about how poems for kids are usually funny and that they can sometimes have a rhyme.

After we read the books, we looked at a poem called See the Bug. We highlighted words we knew in pink, then rhyming words each in a different color. We noticed that usually the rhymes come at the end of each line. I love having a Promethean board that students can come up and highlight & learn, especially in the lower grades.

First graders listened to one of our new books called Nerdy Birdy. We had a really funny conversation about what "nerd" means before reading, and had a pretty deep conversation after reading about including people even if they are different than us. It was a great book to use to talk about themes and our kids had some really great ideas to share.

Second graders learned about onomatopoeia words and we brainstormed our own while listening to some nature sound clips. We came up with some fun words for different sounds.

Third graders read some poems from a book called Rainbow Shoes. These poems are all about different colors. 

After reading, we wrote some color poems of our own. Mrs. Deiters' & Mrs. Collett's class wrote their poems on paint samples--I will post those examples once I take pictures! We have them hanging in the windows, currently. 

When we ran out paint samples for Mrs. Mehmen's and Mrs. Nove's classes, so we made our own using Google Drawings. 

Fourth graders spent a class watching the book trailers that they made. Each class has it's own Padlet with the videos which you can view on last week's post. Each student also filled out a reflection/feedback form regarding the project because I wanted some ideas of what students liked and what they didn't. It also gave them a chance to reflect on their work.

Overall, it was a great week!

Week of April 4

Well, it's been a month since I last wrote an update on what's going on in the library. It has been a busy, hectic month with lots of disruptions on the schedule, so it feels like we've been out of rhythm! Time to find it again for the last 35 days of school. I can't believe that that is all that's left! This week was also a bit hectic, with spring pictures, an assembly, and me being gone two days at a conference and district meetings. Hopefully next week we'll really get some learning accomplished!

Here's a few things we've done in the last couple of weeks:

Kindergarteners learned all about the US symbols in class. During library time, we read some books about the symbols, then used ChatterPix to record about our favorite symbol. Here are a few of them from each class (some of them didn't save correctly, unfortunately, and Mrs. Hoeger's class' don't have names--we were learning as we went!).












This past week the kindergarteners listened to some poems, and tried to find rhyming words in the poems. We'll work on that again next week!

First graders have been working on problem and solution. We've read Mr. Tiger Goes Wild and Weasels. We talk about how sometimes there can be more than one problem in a book, like in Mr. Tiger but sometimes books have one problem, like in Weasels. Both of these books were hits!

Second graders also look at some poetry, but instead of looking for rhymes, we looked for alliterations--repeated sounds. We read a poem called Sea Snakes and then tried to write some alliterations using our own names. The next week, we edited the alliterations and took a selfie with our tongues out (because alliterations make great tongue twisters), then wrote the alliteration on our picture. Here are a few examples. Click here to see them all!

The 3rd graders got to spend some time looking through stacks of new books this week! There's always time for that! It was a great way to wind down each day, since they are the last class of the day. 

The 4th graders have been working so hard on their book trailer videos. Finally, we are (mostly) done. A few people still need to share them to me or fix some technical difficulties, but here are links to see the ones who are finished. I am so proud of how these turned out! They are awesome!

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

We've got a lot of fun & learning left to pack into out 35 remaining days. I can't wait!

Seuss Celebration

Our first week in March was a little busy, so we decided to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday a bit early on February 29. We did the same activities as last year, since each grade level had a certain book & snack. Celebrating is so much fun!

4th grade made marshmallow truffula trees after listening to The Lorax. They dipped the marshmallows in gel frosting then in sprinkles!

Preschoolers enjoyed blue yogurt & gummy fish after listening to One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. 

First graders enjoyed trying green eggs and ham after reading that book! I think more tried them out this year than last.

We always make time for photo booth fun!

Kindergarteners made hats out of cookies & red gummy rings after reading The Cat in the Hat.

2nd graders also enjoyed giant marshmallows. We read Yertle the Turtle (my favorite Seuss book) and used edible markers to draw turtles on the marshmallows. Then each table tried to stack their "turtles" which is always entertaining.

The AK students read Hop on Pop and ate popcorn with candy goodies. And the 3rd graders read Bartholomew & the Oobleck and ate green yogurt, but somehow out of 300 pictures I can't find a picture! 

I absolutely love taking a day to just have fun and celebrate books! Check out the full photo album here.

Author Jill Esbaum

On February 24th we were lucky to welcome author Jill Esbaum to our school! We spent most of February preparing for her visit by reading lots of her books and decorating the library. It was so fun to finally meet her! Jill is an Iowan author, which makes it even more exciting. She has around 25 books published and has more on the way. It was fun to hear how she gets to work writing National Geographic books, which is a dream job of mine! It's always fun to learn about someone else's profession.

Here are some snapshots from the day:

A group of 4th graders were selected by their peers to have lunch with Ms. Esbaum. 

Jill showed some pictures of her life to our 3rd & 4th grade students.

Mrs. Mehmen and one of her friends are enjoying listening to Jill read one of her new books.

Here are the Kindergarteners after Jill read her new book that isn't even out yet!

We really loved having Ms. Esbaum come speak and are looking forward to hearing from more authors in the future! A special thanks to our amazing PTO for all of their support!