Survey Says....

During the first week of school, I gave students in grades 1-5 a survey to measure how many people had either computers or digital devices at home and how many read e-books on their devices. The results would help determine whether we should purchase more e-books for our library. Over 86% of students have either a computer or digital device at home. Of those students between 38% and 54%, depending on grade level, read e-books on their devices. At the moment, we have a several e-book titles in our collection plus a subscription to Tumblebooks. Based on these results, we will purchase more to keep up with demand. I don't think e-books will ever replace print books, especially at the elementary level. But, if kids are reading on devices, we'll need to give them digital reading options.

Library Class is Back!

Had enough of summer brain drain? Don't worry, library class is back! Students in grades 1-5 will watch the panda PowToon video below for an intro and recharge of what we do in library. Looking forward to a great year!

P.D. Eastman Kindergarten Celebration

We have been exploring P.D. Eastman over the last few weeks in kindergarten. My hope is that students who are emerging readers will be familiar with good, fun,  and readable options as they enter first grade. Last year, I separated "easy readers" from the rest of the picture books. I let first graders know about this section during the first week of school so they know where to find books that will help their reading skills blossom. So, this year, we are ending with a P.D. Eastman celebration as a segue into first grade. We have read the following books either written, illustrated, or both by P.D. Eastman:
Go Dog Go
Sam and the Firefly
The Best Nest
Flap Your Wings
Fish Out of Water
Are You My Mother

For our final celebration, we made party hats reminiscent of Go Dog Go's party hats that appear throughout the book. My favorite line from the book, "Hello again, and now do you like my hat?" "I do! What a hat! I like it. I like that party hat."

Since three out of the six books we read have a bird theme, we will have a spoon and egg race.

Students will get "doggie bags" with a summer reading list, and some writing supplies.

And finally, P.D. Eastman cowrote the screenplay for the 1951 Oscar winner for Best Animated Short Subject film, Gerald McBoing-Boing. Students will watch this 7 minute film originally written by Dr. Seuss.

Life as a Kid Infographics

Fourth graders finished up and presented their Easel.ly infographics which compared life as a kid in the United States with life as a kid in another country. Students gathered their information from CultureGrams, filled in a Venn diagram graphic organizer, and then transferred the information to Easel.ly to create an online infographic. See below for some examples.


easel.ly


easel.ly


easel.ly

Prelutsky Multimedia Poems

Second graders explored Jack Prelutsky poems in library several ways this spring. I already posted about our haiku riddles and Scranimal poems. As our final project to our Prelutsky poetry unit, we created a multimedia version of poems that we had originally read reader's theater style. Students were given one or two lines of poetry and illustrated their part. We recorded the audio in class using PhotoStory. Watch the poems below.






Mrs. Silveira's class

Mrs. Macnie's class

Mrs. Paiva

Scranimals in Second Grade

Students in second grade have been exploring Jack Prelutsky's poetry. Recently we read Scranimals which explores the world of Scranimal Island and it's odd creatures. Creatures in the poetry collection are combinations of a plant and an animal. Students tried their hand at creating their own Scranimal. See examples below.

Pupshroom by Amanda

Oh, pupshroom your such a cutey,
With your big eyes and your beauty.
You might cry, you might moan,
But you will be on your own.
I love you, you love me,
And we are just meant to be.
Even though I might love you,
I will still always eat you.

Frapple by Jake

The Frapple sits by the water
Of an apple, of a frog
It looks so tastey
I so want to eat it
Bye bye frog
I'm going to eat you
Oh no! He got away.