Public Library Visit

I love my Public Library! There are so many great resources for kids. Today, Roseville's Youth Librarian came to talk to our 2nd graders about the Summer Reading Program.

Students were very excited to hear about:

• Bookawocky the Library's Summer Reading Program. Students win prizes (MN State Fair tickets, Water Park of America tickets, ice cream, AND a free book!) for reading 20 hours over the summer. I wish I could participate. Sign up at you Public Library starting June 9th!

• Summer Library Events like storytimes and many other activities for kids (like Lego Club...) see the calendar or the Bookawocky flier that will go home in next week's folder for dates. Be sure to check locations, as all Ramsey County Libraries have events.
• If you need some great book suggestions for the summer see you Public Librarian. They love helping kids find good books. Their web site also provides a great list. Look for a post about Brimhall's Best Reads next week.

I feel pretty lucky that we live so close to such an awesome library! Hope to see some of you there this summer!

5th Grade

Fifth Graders have been working on creating online posters using Glogster. During library time, we learned about The Dewey Decimal System. Students then worked in small groups to analyze one section of our nonfiction. They found five books in their section that represented that section for our school library. Students then photographed the books, and we uploaded them to the computers. Students then learned how to upload the images to Glogster and create captions to teach others about their section of the library.  We have linked up to our posters below.

Caldecott Challenge

The whole family has been enjoying Caldecott Books! It thrills me to hear my three year old yell out, "Mom! A Caldecott!" I must be a real book nerd.

Pictured on the left is my 5 year old Frankie reading The Paperboy to her dad. When he came home she could hardly contain her excitement to show him this book, because her dad was a paperboy when he was a child. She and her brother decided that Oliver should be a paperboy too, and they played "paperboy" for a good portion of the evening.

Here are some other Caldecott highs and lows:

Baboushka and the Three Kings: A Russian Folktale

by Ruth Robbins ; illustrated by Nicolas Sidjakov

Winner 1961

High: My kids loved the connection to the traditional Christmas story.  Frankie let out a gasp, when she recognized the three kings.

Low: Not all children can make the same connections that my kids did. It is adapted from a folktale--so I'm not going to let it bug me too much.

The Paperboy
Written and Illustrated by Dav Pilkey
Honor Book 1997

High: I had not read this book before (I was a senior in high school in 1997!) so I was pleasantly surprised by Dav Pilkey (known to me as author of Captain Underpants)

It is a delightful little story. My true high of this book was the illustrations of the early morning skies which were inspired by Starry Night.

On a personal note, I loved hearing my daughter read this medal book out loud to her dad. I think it is her first Caldecott that she read by herself.

*Note upon rereading this post, I noticed I didn't have a low for this book. I honestly can't think one, except that more kids don't read this book by Dav Pilkey.

Hey Al
by Arthur Yorinks ; illustrated by Richard Egielski
Winner 1987

High: I love the details of the pictures.

Low: While the pictures were great, I was hoping for a bit more from the story. It reminded me a bit of Where the Wild Things Are yet the ending wasn't quite as satisying.

Library Tic-Tac-Toe

This week in fourth grade we played Library Tic-Tac Toe. Our goal was to practice using the library catalog, call numbers, and find books throughout the library. 

I created Tic Tac Toe boards for the students to fill in. Students were given index cards with book titles and authors listed on them. They then:

• Wrote the title and author on their Tic-Tac-Toe Board
• Looked up the book in our online catalog
• Found the call number and recorded it on their board
• Located the book on the shelf

If the book was in, the students go an 'X' on their board from me or their teacher. If the book was checked out, they got an 'O.' To win the game, student needed 3 'X's in a row. I think their favorite part was that I had them yell, "Tic-Tac-Toe--Three in a Row!" when they won the game.

Kids were zooming all over the library trying to locate books. It was a lot of fun to see the students able to use the catalog to locate materials in the library and having fun to boot!

UPDATE I have had a lot of people ask for this document. I added it to my google docs. Click this link to make your own copy. Feel free to edit as needed. I did not print out the direction page.

Hot Diggity Dog--A Poetry Picnic

On Tuesday Night, we invited all Kindergarten to 2nd graders to attend Brimhall's first Poetry Picnic. I originally saw the idea for a Poetry Picnic over at the Eliterate Librarian who had modified the ideas from A Year of Reading. I love great ideas that are shared!

We modified the Poetry Picnic to include some different stations, and we invited parents to join their children for a hot dog picnic as well as an evening of reading and writing poetry. We created an open house type format in which families moved from station to station, read the directions and then participated in the activity. Teachers had 2-3 stations set-up in their rooms and helped students and parents as needed.

Here is a list of the stations we had--again, many were ideas from the other Poetry Picnics:

• Read A Book or Two: Parents and children read poetry together.
• Ouch: Students read the poem "Sick" by Shel Silverstein, then wrote poems about things that hurt. (Thanks Nancy VandenBerge at First Grade W.O.W. for the great poetry idea!)
  

  
  

• One Inch Tall: Students watched this video of Shel Silverstein's poem "One Inch Tall"
   and then measured one inch with a ruler and drew themselves doing the activities in the poem as one inch tall.
• Tag Team: Families read the book Tag Team on the iPads, and then wrote a poem as inspired by the book.
• Roll a Word: Students use phonics dice to create word families.
• Poetry Splatter: Families used the Poetry Splatter Website to create poems on the Smart Board.
• Acrostic Poetry: Students use letter stampers to stamp their names down the side of a piece of paper. Families then brainstormed words that described their child
• Word Tiles: Students created magnetic poetry using word tiles.
• Poetry Placemats: Families read Meals and Snacks on the iPad. They then wrote rhyming words that they heard in the poems on a placemat.
• Fold Me a Poem: Families read "Fold Me a Poem" then created origami dogs together.
• Falling Down the Page: Families read poems from "Falling Down the Page" and then students created their own list poems.

If you would like any of the station directions or handouts, I would be happy to share...just leave a comment below.

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Pete's new book came out last week, and this week we are rocking out in the library. I was happy to introduce my students to our new stuffed Pete, as well as to his new book, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons. We love Pete and we have read his other books (see my previous post here). Listening to the music when we read is probably the best part of these books. (Check out the free downloads to all of the Pete Songs here).

Read Alikes

In fourth grade, students have been learning about read alikes.

This week, I showed students the web tools What Should I Read Next and Scholastic Book Wizard. My favorite Read Alike tool is used at the Public Library--Novelist K-8. a database from Ebsco is something I hope to someday subscibe to--until then, Yeah for my Public Library card!

Joyce Valenza in her blog post Reading Suggestion Engines: Your Next Read offers other suggestions for finding read alikes.





What is your favorite Reader's Advisory Tool?

Dewey with 6th Grade

In 6th Grade students are getting more familiar with the Dewey Decimal System. These past few weeks, we learned about Melville Dewey. Ten, students were assigned a section of nonfiction to examine (000s, 100s, 200s... ). In small groups students then looked at the books in our library along with the main subject heading. They then collaborated to use Creative Commons to find images that represented their Dewey Section and were licensed for free use.

Students are currently working on adding these images to iMovies. We are going to add appropriate captions and music to make our own Dewey movies which we will publish.