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!
