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Kids' Mock Sibert Picks

We held a Mock Sibert Award in fourth grade for the end of the year. The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal is awarded annually to the author/illustrator of the most distinguished informational book (aka nonfiction). I thought it would be fun to read the actual winner for this year along with some of the honors and one non-Sibert contender and see how the results compared. First, we read Neighborhood Sharks by Katherine Roy. Students loved this book. Both classes voted to keep it on the finalist list. Next we read Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh. Classes were split on this book. One class overwhelmingly voted to keep it in the finals because they felt the subject matter was so important. The other class felt that even though it was important, it was too long for most kids to enjoy. The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus by Jen Bryant, the real Sibert winner for this year was next. Both classes voted to drop it. I had one student who really wanted to keep it because she thought it was interesting, but other than that, it was unanimous to remove it from our finalist list. Finally, we read Unusual Creatures: A Mostly Accurate Account of Some of Earth's Strangest Animals by Michael Hearst. This was my wild card. I picked a nonfiction book that had an interesting cover and that was not a narrative. It was not a winner or honor book for the actual Sibert Award for any year. Surprisingly, both classes chose this not only as a finalist but as the winner. Students liked how the book featured unusual animals. They liked the author's humor. They also liked illustrations and the shortish descriptions for each animal.  I can see how Unusual Creatures is appealing in that it can be read from cover to cover or as a browsing book. Personally, I loved all four books. I would have a tough time deciding between any of these.

Students' Book Look Questions in Library Class

A few weeks ago, I decided to write down all of the questions students ask me during our checkout time. Book Look and checkout is always a whirlwind of activity at every grade level. At the end of the day, when I reflect on how the day went, it's not always easy to remember the details of checkout time. Usually somewhere between three and twelve students ask me questions about books within a ten minute time period. This was a great exercise to document the range of questions students have during Book Look in the library.  It's encouraging to see how students are interested in exploring a wide variety of topics.

• Can you recommend a good book for me?
• Do you have any books about real ghosts?
• Can we research our person for the biography project at home?
• Recommendations for the two of us? We want to read the same book.
• Where are the Bad Kitty books?
• Do you have any books on ATV’s or motorbikes?
• How do I change a book from my Currently Reading to Have Read shelves in My Quest?
• I went to the Seekonk library and got out a bunch of books and realize I have high expectations for what I read. Do you have any good fantasy chapter books?
• Is The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco historical fiction or nonfiction?
• Can I use a Google search result for my paper if it is an “ad”?
• Can you put the Philadelphia Eagles book aside for me when it comes in?”
• Can you see I lost a tooth? - kindergartener :)
• Do you have a 2015 almanac?
• Can you help me find a good fantasy book?
• I’m having trouble finding a book. Can you help me find something good?
• Do you have another book about Helen Keller?
• Do you have a short fantasy book for my book talk?
• Is there a Coretta Scott King book here?
• Is Cinderella a fantasy book?
• Do you have a book about sea monsters?
• Do you have any Lego books?
• Where are the princess books?

Adopt a Pet Flyers with SMORE in 5th Grade

Students in grade five are presenting their SMORE pet flyers this week. Their job was to act as a pet shelter employee in charge of marketing the animals up for adoption. They worked in groups to come up with the animal, find an image, cite their image source, write a short blurb about the animal, and create a SMORE flyer with all of their information. This flyer was a culmination of an earlier research lesson about searching online for information. Read more about that in a previous post. The pet adoption flyers were adorable. Students worked well together to come up with ideas and enjoyed looking for cute pet photos and designing their flyer themes. Read about Oreo and Nutter Butter below for an example of their work.

Scranimal Poems in 2nd Grade

Applemon Fish (apple & demon fish)

After reading Jack Prelutsky's Scranimals, students in 2nd grade wrote their own Scranimal poem by combining a plant and animal into a new creature and writing a poem about it. See examples below.

Tangerape (tangerine & ape)
Swinging through the treetops is a fragile tangerape.
You barely get to see one, despite their planned escape.
Their body is all orange but they have good grip on hands.
That hold on tight, very tight, just like rubber bands.

Seachark (seaweed, chimp, & shark)
Watch out for a seachark, he's very bad to meet.
You should get away before you are his treat.
He can go on land.
He does not have a band.
So never ever go near a seachark.

Diamante Puppet Poems in 3rd Grade Complete!

Kadir Nelson Marionette

Third graders have completed their diamante (diamond) puppet poem performances. Students worked in groups to research a famous person. They gathered words from that research and created a diamante poem. Students performed their poem aloud with a marionette puppet they made in art. Diamante puppet poems were shown at the Art Show Medley last week so the whole school community could see our work. If you missed the Art Show Medley, see our YouTube playlist below.

Shadow Puppet Folktales in Fourth Grade

Students in 4th grade read folktale stories from around the world. After making shadow puppets in art class, they rewrote the tales in the form of a script to perform a shadow puppet play in library class. Not only did students have to learn to work together to create the puppets, scripts, and to perform, they also explored Common Core Standards in reading, writing, and speaking and listening (RL.4.1, RL.4.2, W.4.3, SL.4.4). Upon reflection, both the art teacher and myself felt that the process of taking a folktale and transforming it into a shadow puppet play was extremely valuable in combining art, reading, writing, and speaking skills as well as fostering a creative community where students are excited and proud to share their work with peers and family. We will show the shadow puppet plays as part of our upcoming Art Show Medley on May 7th. All shadow puppet plays are posted on our YouTube Channel below:

Research Reflection in 5th Grade

Students in grade 5 are finishing up a research unit on a pet theme. As a starter, I read a few pet shelter-related excerpts from Gaby Lost and Found by Angela Cervantes. We talked about using key words and how being specific helps improve your search results. (I used this Common Sense Media lesson). First students used WorldBook and Searchasaurus on Askri.org to find general information about pets. Then, they worked in groups to generate their own question about pets and used the Google search engine to answer the question. This was much more difficult than I thought it would be. It turns out, based on a writing reflection on the unit, that many students felt the same. Over half of the students said it was harder than they thought to find information on Google.  One student said, "Finding information using Google is really hard. We looked forever, and couldn't find our answer." Another student commented, "It was a little harder than I thought because of our question and all of the websites." And finally, "you had to use very specific words and even then it had random results." The unit turned out to be a lesson in adaptation. Many groups ended up changing their original question so that they could get the information they needed. And while I pushed askri.org and other sources so that students turn to those sources first when they go to middle school, I think the Google search helped students to realize the vast information landscape that is out there. Now, students are presenting their information by doing a television-style interview with their group. Despite their challenges finding information quickly, they were able to answer their questions and are having fun creatively sharing that with their peers. As a final end of year project, students will create their own adoption advertisement for a pet using the online flyer website, smore.com.

Legos in the Library K-2

We have completed another Legos in the Library after school program, this time with grades K-2. We began each day with a "handful of bricks" activity where students used the same 30 bricks to build something different each class given a 10 minute time frame. Then we read a story and built a Lego creation inspired by that story. We read and built around the following  stories and themes:
The Adventures of Beekle by Dan Santat - Imaginary Creatures
Clink by Kelly DiPucchio - Robot Friends
How to Bicycle to the Moon to Plant Sunflowers by Mordicai Gerstein - Vehicles
Mr. Wuffles - Alien Space Vehicles

See our slideshow below of students' creations:

Robots, Friends, and Early Readers in Kindergarten

Who doesn't love a robot? Kindergarteners listened to the early reader chapter book Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover by Cece Bell. Students enjoyed hearing about Rabbit & Robot's adventures and I got to practice reading in a robot voice. We talked about the character traits of Rabbit & Robot and retold what happened in each chapter. Students also created their own robot buddy using geometric shapes cut out from construction paper. See more robots below.

The robot story was part of a larger unit on early reader books that feature friends. I've separated early readers in our library to make it easier for emerging reader students to find books that they can actually read. In addition to Rabbit & Robot: The Sleepover, we read Mouse & Mole: Winter Wonderland by Wong Herbert Yee, Sam and the Firefly by P.D. Eastman (and watched a cool firefly video for students who had never seen a real firefly that you can see below), and
Flora & Flamingo by Molly Idle.

Fireflies

Everybody Loves a Daredevil in First Grade

Students in grade one are investigating the topic "daredevils" by listening to nonfiction books, watching videos, writing, and practicing text features. It's a fascinating topic and students have been at the edge of their seats waiting to see what happens to these brave (and crazy!) people. Through online videos, we are able to enhance the stories with real footage of stunt locations and similar modern daredevils. My favorite part about this unit are the questions students generate about the daredevils and their stunts. This is an excellent topic to practice inquiry.

Annie Taylor

First person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Read aloud:

Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg (truncated a lot of the text to make it digestable for 1st graders)








Video:


Activity: Create your own vessel to go over Niagara Falls. Draw a picture and write about it.

Betty Skelton

Early female flyer who flew stunt planes, rode motorcycles, raced cars, performed water stunts, and trained with astronauts.

Read aloud:

Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skelton by Meghan McCarthy








Video:


Activity: Build a stunt plane with craft sticks and cotton balls and use the "label" text feature.

Phillippe Petit

Man who walked between two buildings in NYC on a tight rope.

Read aloud:

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein








Video:


Activity: Students practice walking on a "tightrope" made out of tape. Students create a "Coming Soon" poster using text features about a tight rope walker coming to East Providence.

"I Have a Dream" in First Grade

I have a dream that people have enough
money to keep their children healthy.

We read Happy Birthday Martin Luther King by Jean Marzollo & Brian Pinkney (illustrator) in first grade in honor of MLK's birthday. First grade teachers get an A+ for giving students an excellent foundation on Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and accomplishments. Happy Birthday Martin Luther King also gets an A+ for explaining the changes MLK made in a clear and concise way perfect for early elementary-aged students. After we read the book, students were asked to think of a dream they have for making the world a better place. This took a little explaining as first responders had dreams like, "to get a new dog", or "to make it rain candy." It had to be a dream that would help everyone. They wrote it in an "I Have a Dream" cloud that I found here and drew a self portrait. I was amazed at the thoughtfulness of the responses not to mention how darn cute they looked. Below are a few of the portraits and below that are all of the responses from three first grade classes.

I have a dream for everyone to read more books.

I have a dream that everybody will stop fighting.

I have a dream for noone to bully anyone.

I have a dream that people will never litter again.

First grade responses to "I have a dream to/for..."

everyone has a house
all the school can get updated
that we can be together
to give people more food
give people money who are poor
have more to drink
rain candy
everyone stop fighting (2)
everyone stop polluting
everyone stop littering
everyone read more books
everyone can get back their Dad and me too
to make the world a better place
that everybody would be nice
that people have enough money to keep their children healthy


to calm people down
to help elderly people
to help elderlies cross the street
to share and share alike
to pick up trash
that people don’t hurt themselves
to stop polluting for animals
help other people cross the street
to donate clothes
help people with their mail
that everyone will be nice to each other
to help people that have allergies to make them feel better
to give poor people food
help people walk if they are hurt
to give the food they need
to help the earth
to help people learn

that nobody litters (2)
that everybody can live
that everyone does good in school
for everybody to be happy
the world be a better place
every class will get along
to stop bullying people
for none bo bully anyone
that the world had better food
that I was the nicest ever
that nobody will steal
don’t do something against the law

Lego Animal Alphabet in Kindergarten

Kindergarten students are finishing up a mini unit on alphabet books in library class. We read The Beetle Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta,  Dr. Seuss' ABC, and Alphabet City by Stephen Johnson. During the first class, students were assigned an animal that began with a letter of the alphabet. They colored a picture of it and also drew the animal in rectangles as a blue print for their Lego version. We had one practice day of building their animals. The second session, I snapped a picture of their final product. It was interesting to see how some students could easily recreate their animals with Legos and others had a hard time getting started. Sharing examples as we went along was helpful for some students who had trouble at first. Seeing their friends ideas made a light bulb go off in their heads and they got right to work. Thanks to our Occupational Therapist, Heidi Correiro, for helping me in the first class. It's terrifying to dump Legos out on tables for 26 five and six-year-olds for the first time.  I imagined absolute chaos but with Heidi's help and awesome students, it all worked out. Below are Lego Animal Alphabet slideshows for Mrs. Ream's, Miss Wayland's, Miss Martin's, and Miss Johnson's classes.

Lego Animal Alphabet Slideshow  - Mrs. Ream's Class



Lego Animal Alphabet Slideshow - Miss Martin's Class


Lego Animal Alphabet Slideshow - Miss Wayland's Class




Lego Animal Alphabet Slideshow - Miss Johnson's Class