Students in third through fifth grade are book reviewers! They began this project by looking at examples of book reviews and figuring out what should be included in a good book review. They decided a good book review should include an interesting introduction, a summary of the story but NOT the ending, and a recommendation. Good spelling, punctuation, and grammar are important, too. They chose a book that they wanted to recommend and wrote a draft of the review. When completed, they were able to type the review into Biblionasium, which is a book recommendation site (like Goodreads) for students. When the reviews were complete, students looked at each others' reviews and found new books that they were eager to read and add to their bookshelves. Students have their own login and password and can use this great website at home.
For the past couple of months, several Lawrence students enjoyed an after school book club. The kids are still enthralled with Ivy and Bean and chose the first book in the series to read with the club. Each meeting was a lot of fun. During snack time, we shared great books we were reading with our club members. We took turns reading aloud from the book. We wrote down questions we had about the story and discussed them together. Readers' theater was a highlight for many club members. For this, we took passages from the book and reenacted them with club members pretending to be different characters. At our last meeting, we created our very first podcast and shared what we liked about the book. To hear it, click on the link below. We were all sad when the club ended and look forward to enjoying more great books together in the future!
Read Across America is an event that honors Dr. Seuss’s birthday! To celebrate, Ms. Mullen and Mr. Gaudreau have planned a fun-filled night on March 3 with face painting, treats, games, crafts, and, of course, reading!
Kindergarteners will learn that many Dr. Seuss books like Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, and Dr. Seuss’s ABCs are perfect for practicing to read on their own or with someone else. First graders are reading books by Steve Jenkins and will create their own animal book. Second graders will use the dictionary to help decipher unknown words in the poem, “The Germ” by Ogden Nash. Third through fifth graders are creating and enjoying each others’ book reviews on Biblionasium. Once again, the PTA will hold the Scholastic Book Fair in the library media center during the week of March 7. Stop in before or after your child’s conference and pick out some great books. THANK YOU to the PTA for all the work they do to support literacy in our school! We have wrapped up our Mock Caldecott unit for 2016! To begin the unit, second and third graders took a quick look at twenty books and voted on which ones they wanted to read together as a group. Eventually we narrowed it down to four: After hearing each story, students discussed and rated each book based on the following criteria, which are adapted from the official Caldecott criteria: Illustrator’s artistic skill Appropriate art style for the story Pictures help tell the story Kids like it. Kids discussed these things with a partner and as a whole group. After hearing all the stories, students voted for the book they thought should win the Caldecott Medal. They picked a book and explained why they thought it should win. We held an award ceremony to announce the winners. Students read descriptions of the books and then the winners were announced.
The envelope, please! Third place was Waiting Second place was Shark Detective First place was Finding Winnie. The following week, we watched a video of the ALA Youth Media Awards (Caldecott is announced around 55 minutes), and the kids were very excited to recognize some of the winners. Here’s what the kids had to say about Mock Caldecott: Kindergarteners and first graders will revisit fiction and nonfiction texts related to the February holidays (so many for such a short month)!
Second and third graders will wrap up the Mock Caldecott unit with voting and an awards ceremony. Fourth and fifth graders will publish and share their book reviews on Biblionasium. Looking forward to World Read Aloud Day on February 24th! This month, kindergarteners and first graders will meet some of the most beloved authors (Rosemary Wells, Mo Willems, etc) and characters (Elephant and Piggie, Amelia Bedelia, etc) in children's literature.
It’s award season! In January, the American Library Association (ALA) announces the winners of book and media awards, such as the Caldecott and Newbury Medals. Second and third grade students will read and analyze different picture books and bestow their own award to a winner of their choice. Fourth and fifth graders will write book reviews to share with classmates using Biblionasium, a book-sharing website similar to Goodreads. The cold weather makes it a perfect time to settle in with lots of good books! Once again, Lawrence students participated in the Hour of Code and had a chance to do some basic computer programming. They also learned that people tell computers what to do and that you need to persevere to solve a problem. Here are some of their reflections on the activity.
In their regular classrooms, first graders have been studying how other children live in other parts of the world. To supplement this unit, during library class we connected with other students from Athens, Greece; Shanghai, China; and Cuenca, Spain using a website called ePals. After reading a book about kids in other countries, the first graders sat with a partner and came up with questions they had about kids living in other places. Then they chose one and shared it with the class. We emailed these questions to their buddy classrooms.
1K class's questions 1N class's questions 1W clas's questions
The class from Greece told us that they were sending a slide show about their school, so we decided to create our own presentation to share. Students worked with a partner to decide what was important to teach them about our school. Then, each pair of students was responsible for writing details and a closing sentence for their topic.
Students took pictures around the school, and we added it all into Little Bird Tales, a digital publishing tool. Students then read and recorded what they had written. You can watch each presentation below.
In the meantime, some classes received answers to our questions from our buddy classrooms. Our friends in Greece also created a slide show and video for us, which you can find here. The first graders then worked with their partner to answer questions from our buddies, if they sent any. It has been fascinating to learn about the similarities and differences between their schools and ours!
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AuthorKerry Darby Archives
April 2019
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