Little Bird Tales

Kindergarteners at my school have been learning about Holidays Around the World in Social Studies. They especially learned about many Festivals of Light. Students worked with their families to create a page in a book about a holiday they celebrated.

I took these beautiful images and scanned them into an eBook to share with families.

In Little Bird Tales I recorded students telling others about their families holiday.

Please See Our Class Books:

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Readability

This week I am collaborating with one of our sixth grade teachers to learn about reading online and doing research. Soon our sixth graders will be doing their big Wax Museum and learning about famous people from the past. As they start the research process--we wanted to teach them some information literacy skills about doing research. Earlier this month we talked about skimming and scanning on the web in preparation to doing online research.

Our goals in collaboration to their 6th grade reading and Social Studies Standards are for kids to be able to answer:

• Can I trust this source?
• Is this this the source that I am looking for?
• Can I understand this on my own?
• Do I trust this source?

We are working with our students to teach them about: READABILITY, TRUSTWORTHINESS, and USEFULNESS. 

Today, we taught the students about readability. We first discussed how students find answers to research problems and then discussed how they would go about researching the topic of "bats."

I found three articles about bats for the students to read. One was too easy, one was just right, and one was much too difficult. Students read the articles and discussed in small groups what made something readable to 6th graders.

As a class we were able to agree that something was readable if:

• They could read and understand it on their own
• The text had some pictures that helped them understand
• Pictures had captions
• The layout was easy to understand (kind of like a Time for Kids)
• They could skip words they didn't know and still understand the article
• The vocabulary was understanable
• They could retell in their own words
• The charts and pictures made it easier to understand
• The font was not too big or too small

Tomorrow we are going to discuss trustworthiness and usefulness.

Infographics

In 6th grade, students are learning about nutrition in their Health class. I collaborated with their teacher to create a culminating project to teach others about what they had researched and learned. We decided to try creating infographics as a way to share information. Infographics are a visual way of presenting information. Students learned about infographics during their library time--and we viewed a lot of infographics on the internet. I then went into their classroom, and taught them how to create an infographic.

1.	Lydia [6- K]	21.	Rhea (6K)	41.	madalyn 6w
2.	Elizabeth (6- K)	22.	Sylvia (6- R)	42.	Oskar 6-W
3.	Olivia( 6K)	23.	Michelle (6-K) Final	43.	Jack 6w
4.	Melissa Final (6K)	24.	Indira (6R)	44.	jonathan( 6W)
5.	Acer (6K)	25.	Bjorn (6W)	45.	leeminja
6.	Jaden (6K)	26.	Miranda( 6W)	46.	Amya
7.	Hussein	27.	Nathan (6W)	47.	kelly
8.	Olivia ' 6R'	28.	Denis( 6J)	48.	Minjae 6W
9.	Lisan	29.	Eric (6W)	49.	Lucas( 6W)
10.	Maxine( 6- K)	30.	Tatum (6W)	50.	Tiiso 6W
11.	hussein	31.	Hayley (6W)	51.	Olivia (6W)
12.	Kaitlyn (6-K) Final	32.	Bella (6W)	52.	Lucas( 6W)
13.	Jaden (6K) Final	33.	pasy (6W)	53.	Sherrie 6w
14.	Ethan( 6- K)	34.	carly 6w	54.	Madison 6-W
15.	Carrie (6- K)	35.	Yaodong( 6w)	55.	Olivia Final (6W)
16.	hussein {6- k}	36.	changyoon (6W)	56.	Yujin( 6W)
17.	Olivia( 6K) FINAL	37.	Derek (6W)	57.	Lucas( 6W)
18.	Lydia [6-K] Final	38.	caitlyn 6-w	58.	Yujin( 6W)
19.	Anna Final Version (6- K)	39.	Eleanor (6w)	59.	You're next!
20.	Laura (6- K)	40.	Antavion (6R)

We learned about copyright of images and using the Creative Commons as a resource to find free licenses of images. We learned about citing our sources as well. Students then learned some tools to insert images into their infographic and alter them if needed.
**I was inspired to try making infographics after I read Tamara Cox's post on infographics on her blog The Eliterate Librarian. I also got a lot of great information about teaching  infographics from Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything Page.

Voting

It is election day at Brimhall School. Our students are voting for the last name of our mascot Blaze. It is fun to see them excited to vote. Students may go with their families to vote at the polls tonight to vote in the KIDS VOTING election. It is a great way for kids to experience elections in the real world.

So--go out and vote! If you need to know your polling place in Minnesota, use the poll finder. Super fast, and easy.

I'll Read You Maybe?!

Nothing shows a love of reading more than a great music video! Check out our school grooving to "I'll Read You Maybe?!!"

Video made by one of our great Parent Volunteers!

Read-a-Thon

November is our school Read-a-Thon! This year, students and staff are trying to read 1.5 MILLION minutes in the month of November.

Wow! That's a lot of minutes.

We are reading for fun--and to raise money for our PTA.

See if you can guess who these people are that are reading in our READ-A-THON!

Book Fair

The book Fair is here! Later edit--the book fair is over--and it was a huge success! Check out our online Book Fair to purchase books online or to preview book fair selections: Later edit--the online fair is closed!

CLICK HERE

Brimhall's Online Fair