After the Fall by Dan Santat
This year, our school is really focusing on helping our students develop a Growth Mindset. There are several books on the 2019 Monarch Award list that are perfect to use as mentor texts for this. One of the books on the list, and one of my favorite picture books ever, is After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat.
In this book, Humpty's body is put back together after his fall but now he is afraid of heights. Since Humpty normally loves being up high and close to the birds, his fear of heights is getting in the way of the things that he loves. Eventually, something happens that forces him to face his fears and he learns to soar!
After reading and discussing this amazing book with students in grades K-3, I asked students to tell about a time that they overcame their fears to do something that they wanted to do. Here are a few of our kindergarten responses:
This was such a great book and activity for promoting a growth mindset!
Kindness Counter
This week, I opened a new center for students to visit...our Kindness Counter! I've had an empty counter in the library for over a year now and I finally found the perfect use for it. Students can visit the Kindness Counter after they check out books or during makerspace time. At the counter, students can create inspirational bookmarks to hide inside books in our library, They can write thank you notes and other cards to give to others. Students can create awards to give to another student, or teacher, who is deserving of one. Finally, students are free to create anything else that their imaginations can think of to spread kindness throughout our school.
This new center has already been very popular and I can't wait to see what students will create!
Happy Reading!
Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!!
We recently finished a guided inquiry research project in first grade and the students did an amazing job!! Early in the school year, many of our first graders are still not able to read or write very much. However, I wanted to have them practice using PebbleGo as well as begin learning research skills such as using resources to answer research questions, learning text features, and sharing what they learn. As we know, students learn more when the learning is student-driven, so I developed a unit that allows even young students to drive their own learning.
I began by asking students what they know about bugs and reading the book Some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi. This simple book shows the many different ways bugs move and act. The pictures are stunning and I really played up all of the different concepts presented in the book! After reading the book, I asked the students what they are curious about with bugs. What did they want to learn about bugs? We brainstormed a list of questions on the Smartboard and I told students they would be researchers the next time they came to the library. Each student chose one of the insects on PebbleGo that they wanted to learn more about.
On day two, students were paired up with another student interested in researching the same bug and were given a graphic organizer to write down their research. The questions on the graphic organizer were the same ones that we came up with as a group so they were driven by the students (and I used pictures to help those not able to read the words yet). Students used PebbleGo and either wrote words or drew pictures to record their information.
On the third day we were ready for students to share what they learned. I created a Flipgrid board and students recorded short videos sharing the information on their graphic organizer. Of course, I first modeled what a recording should look and sound like.
Finally, on the last day students watched each other's videos to learn what their classmates shared.
This short unit was the perfect way to introduce research skills to young first graders while using a guided inquiry model. Students were so engaged during the unit! This is definitely a lesson I will repeat again in future years.
Happy Researching!
This week, we were so excited to begin our after school Harry Potter book club! Our book club is for students in grades 3-5 and we meet every Tuesday and Thursday. During the meetings, we will listen to the first Harry Potter book read aloud and do different Harry Potter activities.
After listening to chapters one and two this week, students had fun inventing their own magical spells. Can't wait to share this fun book with our students during the next couple of months!!
Happy Reading!
