4th Grade Poetry Kickoff

National Poetry Month doesn't officially start until April, but we are kicking things off a little bit early; partly because I love poetry, and partly because we will just need the extra time to get things accomplished. But mostly, because I love poetry. We are working a little bit backwards, by designing our final product first, but that is so that they have some computer lab time to work on it in the next two weeks.

Our 4th graders will be designing their own poetry project. I have given them 8 different options, or allowed them to create their own project. I tried to incorporate as many different learning styles and interest areas as possible when offering project options. Poetry obviously lends well to writing, music, and art interests. However, I wanted a way to offer technology projects as well. Many of our 4th graders had been part of our coding club earlier this year. They made a lot of progress using Scratch, and I tried to brainstorm ways to use Scratch to have programming and poetry collide.




I talked through these different options, showed the linked examples, and shared this document with them so that they could look at them again if needed.




This is the beginning of the presentation that I showed the students. It will continue growing each week as we add more poetry terms and forms.

Finally, here is the project planning sheet that I asked students to fill out. They then shared that document with myself and with our computer lab instructor, Mrs. Brejcha. They will be working on the project in both places.





These forms will help me to see what resources I need to get for students and help them be successful! I can't wait to brag on student work in a few weeks time!

Random Acts of Kindness

I don’t know how many of you listen to the Bobby Bones Show (syndicated through Nashville on 96.5 every morning) but if you do you know that they celebrate a week they call Joy Week. It started a year or so ago when one of the cohost’s moms was diagnosed with cancer. Through all of the hardship and pain, the mom continued to spread joy wherever she went. They call it “pimpin’ joy” and you can read more about it here.  The week that they’ve chosen to celebrate it just happens to be next week. 

During the week of March 2-6 we would like to take the time to honor the life of our friend Sherry through the giving of random acts of kindness. We believe that even through hurting it is important to spread joy and make a positive impact on our community, family, and friends. Each student will be bringing home a small card to pass along when they do a random act of kindness.

If you would like to participate you can submit a photo or short story of your random act to hillchoosesjoy@gmail.com. These will be turned into a book or a display in the coming weeks. 

If you're looking for an idea for a random act of kindness to do with your family, here is a list you could choose from. You could also use your own idea! Click here to see a larger version.

Enjoy spreading joy this coming week!

Coding Club

We started our coding club a few weeks ago with 3rd and 4th grade students. We have close to 70 kids meeting in the library/computer lab after school one day per week to learn about coding.

Several of our 4th grade students participated in the club last year, but there are also a lot of newbies. All the students at Prairie Hill used their computer lab time in December to celebrate Hour of Code with Code.org. That got a lot of our students excited about the idea of coding!

The matrix isn't perfect, but it's a good start.

So far, we've been using Scratch to show some basic programming moves. We created a matrix for students to give them ideas of what to work towards. Now that we've got some of the basics down, we'll start giving more options to explore and for students to create video games, movies, stories, or whatever else they want!

A LOT of kids--the more, the merrier! 

3rd Grade Picture Book Reviews

During January, the students in 3rd grade read picture books and created short video reviews for our younger students using an iPad app called Chatterpix.

The first step, of course, was selecting and reading a picture book. I challenged the students to find one that they hadn't ever read before. After that, they filled out a summarizing sheet using the Somebody Wanted But So Then model. They rewrote the summary but left out the THEN part and replaced it with a question or teaser such as "read to find out."

After writing their summary, they took a picture of the book using the Chatterpix app and recorded the review. The kids love, love this app, and so do I because it's so easy! The kindergarteners and 1st graders have enjoyed watching them, too, via QR codes in the books!

The final products look like this:

New Books!

Last week we were fortunate to receive a shipment of about 500 new books. It was so fun to see how excited the kids & teachers all got while looking at them! I tried to take some time from our busy schedule this week to let the kids explore the new selections. The kindergarteners and firsties also got to watch the picture book reviews that the 3rd graders created using Chatterpix! It was a very fun week!

Using iPads to scan QR codes that are linked to the 3rd grade book reviews.

Doing a 5 finger test on one of the new books to see if it is a "just right" book.

Exploring a stack of new picture books!

The kids thought it was so cool that students at our school had made these videos!

Exploring a stack of new non-fiction. 

New book shelves and signage.

Letting 4th grade library helpers unpack 14 boxes of new books = big awesome mess in the library office!

Wrapping up Peter Reynolds Author Study

This week, the first graders wrapped up our author study on Peter H Reynolds by reading a book that he illustrated, called The Museum. The book is by author Susan Verde and was a great ending to our study, because it is about a trip to an art museum. Art is one of the major themes throughout Peter's books, so it was a perfect book to finish with!

After reading the story, the students participated in our own little art gallery. I printed off some famous paintings and hung them on large poster paper throughout the room. Students walked around, like it was a museum, and wrote how each painting made them feel. The kids were awesome at expressing how the paintings made them feel and what they thought about as they were looking at them. Some of the words they wrote were very descriptive!

Here are some pictures of them in action:

Sky Color

The first graders have been studying author and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds. Last week, we read his book called Sky Color. In Sky Color, Marisol's class is painting a mural and it is her job to color the sky. But, the blue paint is missing! Marisol notices the sky around her as she goes home from school and day turns into night, and that inspires her idea--Sky Color!

After reading the story, we talked about different colors in the sky. Then, we created our own Sky Color in the windows outside the library using crystal effects window markers. It was such a fun time, and we had lots of questions from other classes about what we were doing! They were very concerned about whether or not we had asked for permission from Miss Sherry and Mr. Schipper.

This was the final product!

I stayed late to get some work done one night and the sun just happened to be setting. Our Sky Color looked very cool with the sunset in the background! 

I love these markers! 

This was one of my favorite moments--The windows were getting full and the students wanted to stand in the windowsills. I had told other classes that I thought our feet should stay on the floor, but this class I decided we could "break the rules" and stand up on the sill. That inspired some singing, dancing, and drawing. The song went something like, "We're breaking the rules on Friday, on Friday." They were singing it over and over again and it made me laugh!