Favorite Summer Reads

It's hard to believe we are nearing the end of summer vacation!  We adopted a new puppy at the beginning of the summer from the animal shelter.  Daisy has been keeping us very busy but there is always time for reading! 

I've read SO many good books this summer.  I can't wait to introduce a few of my favorites to our students this fall!  Here are some of them:

Other Words For Home by Jasmine Warga

As violence threatens her home in Syria, Jade and her mother are sent to live in the United States.  Jade is worried about her father and brother left back home and has a difficult time adjusting to her new life.  After she makes an unlikely new friend, and decides to follow her heart and try out for the school play, things start to turn around but will the United States ever feel like home?  This novel in verse shows us what it's like for many immigrants trying to adjust to a new place and would be a great read aloud!

Allies by Alan Gratz (releases October 15, 2019)

Alan Gratz is one of my favorite authors and I really enjoyed his newest historical fiction book, Allies. This book takes place on D-Day and follows several teens/young adults from different counties as they fight in different missions to help the Allies win. The characters are memorable and I love how their stories are all woven together. Alan Gratz is a masterful storyteller!

I received an ARC of Allies from the Scholastic Reading Summit (thanks, Scholastic!) and can't wait to order copies for our library when it is released in October! 

Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly

What is beauty?  I love Isabelle's strength and courage in this interesting, magical story told from the "ugly" stepsister's point of view.  This is a book about the importance of staying true to yourself that our junior high students will love! 

The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! by Mo Willems

The latest Pigeon book came out this summer and it's the PERFECT read aloud for the beginning of the school year.  Why does Pigeon have to go to school?  What if he doesn't like it or what if his teacher doesn't like him?  Mo Willems uses his perfect humor to help students who might be a little worried about starting school.  I loved the ending!!

How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexander and Melissa Sweet

Two of my favorite author/illustrators teamed up to create this book and it's another great one for the beginning of the school year!  This book has beautiful pictures and language and would be a perfect mentor text for word choice.

What exciting books have you read this summer?

Stop Motion Animation

I am lucky to be part of the junior high Explore class rotation and we just wrapped up a fun, new library Explore class...Stop Motion Animation.  The students blew me away with their levels of engagement, their creativity, and their videos! 



Our Explore classes meet everyday for six weeks and are open to students in grades 5-8.  I've always been intrigued by stop motion animation as a form of storytelling but I've never taught it before.  This was the perfect opportunity and I was fortunate to have our student teacher, Mrs. Leonard, with us at the beginning of the session to help lead us.  She showed the students examples of different types of stop motion animation videos and created a great storyboard for students to use when planning out their stories.

Storyboard  

After the students planned their stories, Mrs. Leonard led the students in a peer review activity.  Students showed their storyboards to other students to get their feedback.  This helped some of the students see where they might need to make adjustments in their stories.

  

Once they completed their storyboards and their peer reviews, students began working to create their projects.  It was so interesting to see all of the different materials and techniques that the students chose to use!  Many students brought in materials from home to use to create their backgrounds or as the characters in their stories.  The students used the Stop Motion Studio app on our iPads to film their videos (most had the paid version but a few groups used a free version because we didn't have enough paid version licenses).

Rachel and Alexis brought in paint and paintbrushes to create all of their backgrounds.  They also brought in characters and set props.  

Two different groups brought in candy to use for filming their videos.

Carter used Play-Doh to create his story.  He filmed it in front of a green screen.  Then, he imported his video into the DoInk green screen app to add in a background.

Mason and Joe also used Play-Doh.  After several days of filming, they noticed that the lighting wasn't always consistent so they figured out a way to adjust the lighting within the app.

Aiden and Jacob drew out each frame of their story using a whiteboard.  

Trevor used Play-Doh but created his own background to go with his story.

Haylie designed her own set and brought in characters from home to create her video.

Finally, Tristan and Connor used Legos and a variety of other materials to create their story.

In the end, we discussed the process and decided that the most challenging aspects were lighting and not being able to keep the materials set up from one session to the next.  However, most of the students were proud of their videos and said they would be interested in doing a stop motion animation class again.  

Mr. Ferris and His Wheel

It's almost summer and the start of summer festival season.  We love reading books about how fun things were invented so this is the perfect time of year to read Mr. Ferris and His Wheel by Kathryn Gibbs Davis and Gilbert Ford.



In this book, we learn about how the Ferris Wheel was designed to be the star attraction at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.  While most people thought that George Ferris's idea was crazy and would never work, Mr. Ferris was an engineer and had faith in his design.  Luckily, he persevered and now we have his fun ride to enjoy!

After reading the book to students in 3rd and 4th grade, the students were challenged to work in groups to build a Ferris Wheel using Strawbees.  Before starting, we looked at a few designs and talked about what to keep in mind when working in a group.

Each group then sketched out a design and began filling out a STEM Journal page.  After showing me their design, they were given a box of Strawbees and connectors and they got to work.  It was so interesting to see how each group approached the challenge!

 

 

This was such a fun activity incorporating literature and STEM!  We were able to really emphasize how to be productive group members.  Overall, it was challenging and most groups weren't able to finish in our time together, but they really enjoyed it!

Personalized Summer Reading Lists

Our student teacher, Mrs. Leonard, finished her time at Harrison School last week and we were sad to see her leave!  Before leaving, she planned a wonderful lesson with our 3rd and 4th grade students to promote summer reading.  The students created their own personalized summer reading lists!  



Mrs. Leonard began each class with a discussion about how to find new books to read.  She also showed the students how to use the "explore" feature in Destiny Discover.  Then, students were invited to preview books that were pulled that are similar to some of the more popular books in our library (Dog Man, Raina Telgemeier, Harry Potter, and state award lists).  

 

Finally, students browsed the shelves, used Destiny to locate books, and talked to their friends to get new book recommendations.  They added all of the books that looked interesting onto their list.



Most of the students left the library with long lists of books they'd be interested in reading this summer and they really seemed to enjoy the activity.  It's definitely something we will do again in the future!

Happy reading!

Battle of the Books

We recently finished our Battle of the Books season and it was bigger than ever!  This year, we had three different competitions: 3rd grade, 4th/5th grade, and 6-8th grade with a combined total of 81 students participating on 16 teams!!

Our season began in December with assemblies to share the books for each level and to kick-off the competition.  We tried something new this year during our kick-off assembly for grades 6-8.  Instead of simply book talking the books on the list, we used Kahoot and had students try to guess each of the books on the list.  It was fun!

 

Students started reading the books right away and teams were formed in January/February.  Each team was assigned one staff member as their adviser who checked in with the team periodically to make sure the team stayed on track.  Most students read 2-4 of the books on the list.

Harrison School 2018-19 Book Lists!

3rd Grade	4th & 5th Grade	6th, 7th & 8th Grade
Andy Shane and the Barn Sale by Jacobson^	Bridge to Terabithia by Paterson^	Bruiser by Shusterman*
Buddy Files: Case of the Library Monster by Butler	Fish in a Tree by Hunt^	Cinder by Meyer
Clementine by Pennypacker	Hachiko Waits by Newman	Ghost by Reynolds^
Frindle by Clements^	Mighty Jack (1) by Hatke	Jefferson’s Sons by Bradley^
Hilo (1) by Winick	Moo by Creech^	March, Book One by Lewis
Houdini Box by Selznick	Plants v Zombies: Plant your path by West	Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25 by Evans
Infamous Ratos by LaReau^	Project Mulberry by Park*^	Pull of Gravity by Polisner
Little Wolf’s Book of Badness by Whybrow^	Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Berlin	Running Dream by Van Draanen^
One and Only Ivan by Applegate^	Tuesdays at the Castle by George	Shadow by Morpurgo*
Stick Dog by Watson	What Was the Great Chicago Fire by Pascal	Temple Grandin by Montgomery*

The Battles!

We started with the preliminary rounds last week on Monday and Tuesday.  Since two of our levels had an odd number of teams, we tried something new.  For the 4th/5th grade battle and then again for the 6-8th grade battle, all of the teams competed together in the first round at the same time.  Each team worked together to answer the same 20 questions (using Google Forms).  The teams with the highest scores moved on to the semi-final round, which was a traditional bracket-style competition.  All of our questions are in the format of "In which book..." with the answer being the title and author of the book.  Because we had so many teams, this stage of the competition took two days!

 

 

Our final battles were on Friday and all of the teams did so well!  We had TWO staff teams this year and they kicked off our morning with a staff vs staff battle.  I LOVE how much these teachers are modeling a love of reading with our students by reading the books and competing in the battle!!

 

After the staff battle, the two junior high teams in the final had their competition.  It was close but "The Fantastic 4 + Camran" won!

 

Next, the winner of the junior high team competed against the winning staff team.  Last year, the junior high team beat the staff team.  The staff team was out for revenge...and they prevailed this time!



We then moved on to our 4th/5th competition.  Both teams competed hard but the fourth grade team, The BOB Squad, beat the fifth grade team!

 

Finally, our rookie 3rd grade teams were so excited to compete in their first battles in front of an audience!  It was close but The Thunderbolts won!

 

The Battle of the Books competition is always a highlight of our school year.  With so many students and staff members participating, it truly brings our school together.  It promotes a love of reading and it's so great to see students succeeding who sometimes struggle in other areas of school.  One of my favorite parts is seeing the teams working together, collaborating, to answer the questions.

I'd like to give a special shout-out to my library student teacher, Emily, who helped write questions, organize the questions, and was a time keeper during the battles!

I can't wait until Battle of the Books next year!

Poetry

April is National Poetry Month and we celebrated in many ways in the library!

  

Kindergarten

After reading Once I Ate a Pie, kindergarten students wrote their own sweet puppy poems!  

We also read various nursery rhymes, which are fun a type of poetry.


First Grade

We read Dogku and students chose to write their own puppy poem or "I like" poem.  We also wrote Earth Day acrostic poems!

Second Grade

Students wrote rainbow sensory poems and cinquain Earth Day poems!

Third Grade

After reading Guess Who, Haiku students wrote their own animal haiku riddle poems.  They are typing their poems onto a Google Slide and adding images.  I can't wait to see them all!

Fourth Grade

Students have been researching people they view as heroes.  Students in Mrs. Ellis's class are now writing poems about their heroes.  

Poetry is so much fun to read and write!

First Grade Retelling Activities

This past week, we finished up a retelling unit with first grade and they loved it!!  Each week, I read a different book out loud to the students. 

    

After reading the book, students were given a "prop" to use to help retell the story such as a picture of a cat (Lost Cat), a spoon (Spoon), and a pair of chopsticks (Chopsticks).  Then, the students used Flipgrid to record a video retelling the story.  We worked on sequencing and adding in different story elements such as characters, setting, problem, and message.  

This was such a fun activity and a great way to combine books, technology, and ELA standards.  Flipgrid was the perfect tool for this!


Student Teacher

Our new library student teacher started this week!  Her name is Mrs. Emily Leonard and she will be with us at Harrison for six weeks.  The students were very excited to meet her!

Happy Reading!