We just finished a 1st grade collaborative library/art project that was so much fun!
We wanted our students to practice retelling a story read aloud. The book that we chose was Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell.
This is a beautiful picture book about a girl who finds a wolf pup lost in the snow. She brings the pup back to it's pack but then she is lost and tired. The wolf pack surrounds and protects her until her parents find her. It's a wordless book so it's perfect for retelling.
After reading the book, during library time the students drew out the four main events in the book.
In art class, they worked in groups to create beautiful winter backdrops to go with the story.
Finally, in both art and library, we used Flipgrid to record the groups retelling the story.
Here is one example:
Next week in library, we will use their retelling pictures with our new Ozobots to retell the book in a different way.
If you have a 1st grader at Harrison, ask them to retell the story to you!
World Read Aloud Day is always such a fun day! It's a day to celebrate the power and the joy of reading books aloud.
On this day, many authors volunteer their time to connect (Skype, etc) with classes, which we've participated in several times over the years. Unfortunately, this year WRAD fell on an early-release Wednesday so the library schedule didn't allow for that to happen.
Instead, we celebrated reading aloud within our own building and it was magical! First, during library time a couple of weeks ago, we (Mrs. Ringa and I) invited students in 7th and 8th grade to sign up to volunteer to read a book aloud to a PK-4th grade classroom. The junior high students were really excited and many chose classes that their siblings/neighbors/friends are in. They signed up in pairs and chose a book to read at the same time. We encouraged them to practice reading the book a few times during the following week's library class.
When World Read Aloud Day arrived, the students were given their schedules and their books and then each pair visited one classroom at some point throughout the day.
Afterwards, most of the junior high students said that they had fun! One student even stopped in the library the next day to thank me for the opportunity to read to a younger class!
Feedback from the PK-4 teachers was equally positive! Many teachers said that they would love to have junior high students come back and read aloud to their classes again.
Reading and sharing stories aloud is always magical, but it was extra special to see the older kids and younger kids enjoying books together! 📚❤️
"Mrs. Anderson, do you have any book recommendations for me?" This is a common question in our library! My goal is to get to know each student enough, their passions and their reading preferences, so that I can help them find books that they might enjoy. Sometimes we are successful in their quest to find a new favorite book and sometimes not so much.
As we head back to school next week, many students will need an extra boost to find a book to read. Some students will have read over winter break, but not all of them. I want to help them find interesting books to jump start their reading year.
Of course, many students will be drawn to their old favorites. Here is a list of the top 25 books checked out in 2019 from the Harrison Library.
Almost all of these books are graphic novels or heavily illustrated chapter books (like Wimpy Kid). Graphic novels are wonderful and I fully support our students' right to choose what books they want to read. However, I also want to challenge our students to find new books and expand their reading lives.
In 2020, my goal is to do more book talking to introduce students to new books that they might not know about. I'll begin with some of my favorites of 2019:
As well as several books that I read over winter break:
We will discuss the importance of setting reading goals and how to find more time to read outside of school. What is your reading goal this year?
We'll also begin 2020 with several library activities that will introduce students to new books. Students will participate in book tastings and book walks during their first few visits to the library in January. They will watch book talks that our students and staff recorded on Flipgrid last year and many will record their own book talks to share. I will ask our older readers if they have suggestions for other ways to promote reading with our junior high students. We will do whatever we can to find new books for students to become interested in.
Hopefully 2020 will be the year that our students find their NEXT favorite book! Happy Reading!
We just wrapped up our Nature Kids Book Club and it was such a fun way to run a book club!
For the past several years, Ms. Sturgis and I ran an after school book club with various themes. The past two years, we met once per week after school and read a book out loud together (last year was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the year before that we read Wonder). While the students enjoyed our time together, many had a difficult time staying focused on the book after a long school day. We also found that we wanted to do more activities related to the books but we never had enough time.
This year, Ms. Sturgis is teaching science and she had the wonderful idea of combining books with nature/science. I was excited because there are so many wonderful, interesting picture books related to nature!
Our Nature Kids Book Club met once per week (10 times) for 45 minutes and we had 20 3rd/4th grade students. Each week, we started by reading a picture book out loud to the club. Then, we did an activity related to the topic of the book. Here were some of our meetings!
Book: Our Tree Named Steve
Activity: made paper out of recycled paper
Book: Me...Jane
Activity: made nature journals and went outside to observe with our senses
Book: Thanku
Activity: went on a nature scavenger hunt
Book: The Reader
Activity: made snowflake catchers and looked at snowflakes outside
Book: Owl Moon
Activity: dissected owl pellets
Book: In the Snow, Who's Been Here?
Activity: made animal tracks with plaster
Book: One Plastic Bag
Activity: made friendship bracelets/bookmarks out of recycled plastic grocery bags
We tried to get outside as much as possible and we are so fortunate to have a natural area (benwell) right next to our building. After our first meeting, we realized that we needed to keep our activities short and hands-on because we had several students in the club with special needs. We'd like to give a special shout-out to the McHen
ry County Conservation District for helping us make paper and make animal tracks!
I loved sharing picture books with the students and then combining them with related activities. This format could be used with so many other themes such as art, STEM, poetry, animals, biographies, and more!
This week, schools around the world celebrated #HourOfCode! We are a Code to the Future school so our students practice coding every week. However, I wanted to show students how coding can be combined with literature and used in any setting. Coding is a form of storytelling so my idea was to read a book and then have the students using coding to retell the story.
We started by reading the book A Big Mooncake for Little Star. This book is on the 2020 Monarch Award list (Illinois). In this book, Little Star and her mama bake a mooncake and put it in the sky to cool. Each night, Little Star flies up to the moon, takes a little nibble, and then flies back to bed. On one double-page spread, we see the different phases of the moon as Little Star eats away at it. In the end, Mama notices the mooncake is gone and the two make another one. This is a perfect book to use for retelling using coding because there is lots of repetition!
Kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade
After reading the book, we talked about the important story elements in the book: a moon, a character, and a night sky. Our students are very familiar with ScratchJr. I showed them an example of what was expected and we talked about the "loop" block, which would be helpful with this project. Then, students got to work!
Kindergarten:
They did an amazing job remembering the story and coding it! Some students even added extra elements such as Little Star's mama and a moon getting smaller and smaller. Here is a video of a few of our 1st grade students explaining how they created their code.
2nd Grade
All week I've been waiting for a student to figure out how to make the moon get smaller each time Little Star goes up to take a bite. Finally on Friday, Dante was the first to figure it out!
Coding promotes important skills such as critical thinking, sequencing, and creativity...and it's so much fun!! The students were so engaged during this activity and we can't wait to combine literature and coding more in the future!
