Library Orientation

At Brimhall, students show Bengal Pride by showing:

Respect
Responsibility
Safety
Care of Property
Best Effort

Here is a short video we made last week showing students many ways to show Begal Pride in the library.
 

Summer Reading Ideas

Click here for a better viewing experience:

Brimhall Book Bowling

The last week of May was Brimhall's first ever Library Book Bowling. Students in every grade have been trained in using the library this year. As a culminating event to show what they had learned I had a Book Bowl off in the library. I saw this idea on Tina Benedek's library blog and modified her Biography Bowling Activity.

Mr. Thomas hoping for a strike!

Each grade had a different task they were assigned to find in the library:

• Kindergarten= a book that had a call number that started with a specific letter of the alphabet (worked in pairs- given 2 cards)
• 1st= a specific Everybody Book (worked in pairs- given 2 cards)
• 2nd= a specific Fiction Book
• 3rd= a specific Non-fiction Book
• 4th= given a name of a famous person, had to look it up in the catalog and find me a biography
• 5th and 6th= given a title, looked it up in the catalog then found the book. 5th graders were given an extra minute.

I made cards with information about different books in the library. I handed them out to students and then set my timer while students frantically tried to find the book they were assigned. When the timer went off, classes were given 1 point for each book found. One bowling pin was awarded for each

Classes were then given the opportunity for a bowling BONUS! Teachers had two chances to knock down their class pins to add onto the point totals. My favorite part of the activity was seeing the teacher different reactions to bowling for their classes-- from excitement to pure nerves-- they all ended up having fun!

Using the catalog to find materials.

Checking the score

Looking for books!

Looking for books!

Ms. McCormick warms up.

Checking the score

Get Caught Reading

National Children's Book Week

The Minnesota Department of Education asked some of our K-2 students about their favorite books for National Children's Book Week. They published our responses on their website.

Click here to check it out!

Kindergarten Research- Minnesota Animals

Minnesota Projects
Albert
Mohamed
Showalter
Tyrer
Vang

This past month Brimhall Kindergarteners learned about reading and writing non-fiction. In library, we first practiced reading informational texts and finding the answer to three questions about animals:

1. What does my animal look like?
2. What does my animal eat?
3. Where does my animal live?

Students used captions and photos to help find the answer to these questions about different animals.

The next week, students came to the library and learned about note taking.  We first listened to information about our animals using Pebble Go! (My very favorite resource for informational reading in the primary grades). Students then used books to read the pictures and take notes as I modeled to them each different topic.

Kindergarten teachers and teaching assistants and I were all on had to work with students as they learned and researched their Minnesota Animal.

In the classroom, teachers used the information the students gathered to write reports. This was a great effort on collaboration.

During library the next week, we used the iPads and the Little Bird Tales  app to draw our animals. We took photos of the students final reports using the iPad, and then recorded their voices reading their text. I just listened to my daughter's from last year, and had a little moment with how much she has grown in one year. There is something magical about hearing your child's voice reading their writing.

Lastly, after a few technical difficulties-- I uploaded all the projects to the web. Here are our projects. All of us are extremely proud of the work our kiddos did!

Albert
Mohamed
Showalter
Tyrer
Vang

We can't wait for parents to view them at the Minnesota Program later this week!

2nd Grade Research

2nd Graders are awesome at research. Students used all of their research skills they have learned this year to research animals from around the world.

We have practiced summarizing, using captions, online sources and books. Students then used the computer to draw their animal.

Students started by thinking about what they wanted to learn about animals, then they used Pebble Go to research and books. After their research was complete, classroom teachers worked with students to summarize and write paragraphs. They have more information hanging up near their rooms. Students picked one of their paragraphs to type and publish online.

I used a variety of presentation tools to publish (I am trying to learn some new skills). Click on class name to link to completed project.

Anderson
Kath
Nelson
Olson
Rowan/Hinderer