Library Goddess

Week 35! This coming week (Week 36) will be our last FULL/regular week of school. That is so totally crazy.

This week, I was able to finish up quite a bit of “things.” Book Fair planning, 1st grade small group research, story time planning, etc. One “thing” I feel like I’ve been working on FOREVER is my summer reading information. Here is what I created:

This will be sent home with report cards. I will also give a copy to the little ones who come to Lion Cub Story time this week.

I put together a summer reading edition of our newsletter. 

And, I put some stuff on our website. 

As far as classes go, Kindergarten continued reading books about ocean animals. This week, I read two non-fiction books – Guess Who Bites and Fishy Tales.

5th graders in Media Technology learned about QR Codes and made their own.

The whole week was pretty busy with kids coming in and out (on their own, in small groups, etc.) to do research for our upcoming school-wide Leadership Day. Can I tell you that THIS is what should be happening ALL THE TIME?! Our Learning Commons was hoppin’ and that’s a good thing.

VBF

Week 34, you say? Here’s what we did!

On Monday, I wrapped up more PASS Review Lessons for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders.

Kindergarten started reading and learning about ocean animals. I read Wow! Ocean! and then they checked out library books and went to centers. They will visit one center each week for the next few weeks. The centers are -

1. Read a Book (try to figure out if it is Fiction or Non-Fiction and talk about it with a friend).

2. Watch Ocean Habitats on BrainPop Jr. and draw your favorite ocean animal using “Draw About It” on BrainPop Jr.

3. Play a game (found some printables online for playing Memory, putting letters in order, and putting numbers in order…all with an ocean animals theme)

5th grade Media Technology students learned about Kerpoof.

I started a new round of small group research with first graders. This time, one group will present their information using Puppet Pals and another will use Little Bird Tales.

During Week 34, I also hosted our first Music Monday and I went to Leadercast. Both will get their own blog attention soon.

I hope you had a wonderful week LAST week and that you have a super week THIS week!

VBF

We may have only been in school 3 and 1/2 days this week, but I think I managed to pack in a full week…here’s what’s what!

I did a reference resources review with most of my 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes. I do this every year before our statewide assessment. It is pretty basic – getting kids to think about which resources are best for what purpose. It is also pretty BORRRRRRING. I tried to spice it up this year by turning it into a QR code activity. Students scanned the code and the question popped up. They really did seem to enjoy it more than in the past. I know they will do super duper on the test next week.

Still working on research with small groups of 1st graders. They are finished with their research (which they did with non-fiction books and the internet) and their writing. Now to the presentation part. A few are creating projects using Puppet Pals. We’ve got a couple making iBooks using iBook Author. The rest are creating Little Bird Tales.

Kindergarten students moved from Earth Day to plants and seeds. I read A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds. We pretended to BE our favorite fruit, vegetable, or tree – growing into it from a seed (snuck some yoga in, basically ). Then they checked out and went to centers:

1. Read a book about plants and seeds

2. Watch “Parts of a Plant” video via the BrainPop Jr. app on the iPad (our state library pays for Brain Pop Jr. THANK YOU, SC State Library!)

3. Draw a picture of a plant (include all of the parts of a plant – root, stem, etc.). I pulled up BrainPop Jr. for this and used the “Draw About It” activity that is included in the “Parts of a Plant” video

5th grade Media Technology finished up with Garageband. The Technology Integration Specialist and I had them record a poem from books I pulled from the library and compose some sort of background music.

Today (May 4th) is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! I hope you went out and supported your local Comic Book shop or library…find out who is participating here: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/Home/1/1/27/992  If you missed out, you may want to ask that same comic book shop and/or library if they have extras – they may be willing to let you have them for your classroom or school library.

Hope you had a fantastic week!

VBF

PS – Here’s a link to our May/June newsletter! Enjoy!