Global Read Aloud

We recently kicked off Global Read Aloud at Harrison School!

Several of our grade levels are participating in their classrooms and every year I choose one grade level to participate in the Global Read Aloud picture book study during library time.  This year, I chose second grade and both classes are reading picture books by author/illustrator Yuyi Morales.

      

After introducing Global Read Aloud to our students, each class created a video to send to our Global Read Aloud partner classes in Canada.  The video tells our new friends about our school and our community.  I used Adobe Spark Video to create both videos because it is so simple to use!  One of our partner classes posted a video on Twitter showing their students watching and reacting to our video and it was so much fun to see!

 

Then, we jumped right in and read the first book: Dreamers.  This beautiful book is about the author's experience immigrating to the United States from Mexico.  She shows how important the public library was when they were first learning to navigate their new country.  After reading the book, we discussed why Ms. Morales named the book Dreamers.  Finally, students used Flipgrid to record videos introducing themselves to our partner classes and telling what they dream about.  One of our partner classes responded back with their own videos!



This week, the students in Mrs. Gieseke's class connected live with their partner classes!  We used Zoom to video chat while talking about our schools, our communities, and the book Dreamers.  It was so much fun!

  

Sadly, one of our two partner classes has backed out of the program.  Instead of connecting live, the students in Mrs. Hermann's class heard the author, Yuyi Morales, read her book Just a Minute.  Going forward, this class will participate by joining other group projects.



We can't wait to read the rest of the picture books and connect with others about the books!

Literature and STEM: Alfie (The Turtle That Disappeared)

The students and I LOVE combining literature with STEM projects!  When we combine the two, students have better comprehension of the story and they seem to remember it longer.  Also, the book gives more meaning to the STEM project.  Finally, it's just plain fun!

The past two weeks, we read Alfie (The Turtle That Disappeared) in most of our K-3 classes.

This fun 2020 Monarch Award book is told from two different perspectives.  First, Nia tells how she got Alfie and all of the things she likes to do with him.  However, Alfie didn't appear to be paying attention so Nia kind of forgot about him...until he disappears!  Then, Alfie takes over telling the story and we learn a very different perspective.  After leaving his tank, Alfie embarks on a long journey to find the perfect gift for Nia.  We used this book to work on skills such as: sequencing, story elements, and point of view.

There are various ways to combine the book Alfie with STEM projects!  First, many of our kindergarten students were provided various building materials.  They were given the task of building a home for Alfie.  Here are some of their creative designs!

Students in grades 1 & 2 had fun drawing maps of Alfie's journey!  Drawing maps helps to support sequencing and spacial thinking, which are both necessary skills for coding and other STEM projects.

Alfie would be a great book to use with mini-robots such as Ozobots and Mini-Spheros.  Students could draw Alfie's journey on a large piece of paper and then code the robot to travel Alfie's journey. This book could also be used for coding Alfie's journey using SCRATCH.

New Library Seating

I'd like to give a special thank you to our Harrison PTO for providing our library with awesome new pod rockers!

These pod rockers, purchased using funds from our Scholastic Book Fair, are big enough for ALL of our students and they are so sturdy.  Our students love them already and they are a fun addition to the flexible seating options in our library.  Thank you PTO!!!

Happy Reading!!

Dot Day 2019

Every year, one of the highlights in our school library is participating in International Dot Day!  Dot Day, which is celebrated on September 15ish, is based on the book The Dot and is a celebration of creativity and making a difference in the world.

Each year, we begin by reading the book.  Then, different grade levels had an opportunity to express their creativity in a variety of ways.

Our Kindergarten and first grade students colored a dot on a special sheet of paper from QuiverVision.  After coloring their dots, the students got to see their dots "come to life" using the free QuiverVision Augmented Reality app!  The students were so amazed and excited!  They even figured out how to "pin" their dot so they could walk around the room and see their dot in different locations.  It was so much fun watching the students full of wonderment!

After reading the book, our third grade students had an opportunity to code a dot using Scratch. Our students use Scratch with our Code to the Future program but this time they had more freedom and could experiment with different features.

In fourth grade, the students colored a dot and then used a mini green screen to create "wormholes".  We used the green screen feature in iMovie for the first time (we've always used Do Ink in the past).  It was quite a process and not all of the students finished but you can see some of their cool projects on our Flipgrid board.  Directions and inspiration for this project came from this amazing blog post.

Second grade did not participate this year because we were busy creating introduction videos to send to our Global Read Aloud partners in Canada.  More to come on this next month!

Library Genre Scavenger Fliphunt

This week, our fourth grade students participated in an active, collaborative activity in the library that was so much fun...a library genre scavenger Fliphunt!  With this activity, I wanted students to learn about different fictional genres, where the different genres are in our library, and how to tell what genre a book might be.



The books in the fiction section of our library are arranged by genre.  For example, all of the realistic fiction books are together, all of the fantasy books are together, etc and it's important for students to learn about the different literary genres.  By fourth grade, the students are mostly familiar with the genres so to demonstrate their understanding, they recorded videos using Flipgrid.

 

First, the students were placed in groups of 2-3 and each group had to find the different Fliphunt task sheets.  There were six different tasks and each one was in a different section of the genres.  Students had to read the task and then record a video on Flipgrid showing their understanding.  

Examples include: 
-Find one mystery book and record a video predicting what the mystery will be about
-Find one science fiction book and tell why you think it's science fiction.  

Here is a link to the materials I used.

 

The students seemed to really enjoy the activity! Most of the groups did not finish in one class period so we will finish another time.  I love how this activity gets students up and moving and forces them to work together in groups.  We will definitely do more Fliphunts throughout the year!

Bernie’s Book Bank

“You get a bag of books! And you get a bag of books! Everybody gets a bag of books!” I feel like Oprah when passing out Bernie’s Book Bank bags!

Harrison School is so lucky to be partnered with Bernie’s again this year. Bernie’s Book Bank is an amazing organization that provides bags of six books to PK-6th grade students in Title I schools two times per year.  These new and gently used books are donated to Bernie’s and volunteers help sort and fill bag the books. Many studies show that book ownership is an important predictor of reading success. Many low income families don’t have many books in their homes so Bernie’s is filling a big need for us.

Several staff members from Harrison School had a wonderful opportunity volunteering at Bernie’s this summer for a few hours. While there, some of us helped sort out donated books that were in poor condition or not appropriate for PK-6th grade students. Others helped put Bernie’s stickers on the books. It was interesting to see their well-organized system and we all agreed that we’d love to volunteer there again!

Earlier in the summer, Bernie’s contacted us to see if we’d be willing to get our first donation before the school year started. They are trying to service more schools and they need more days to deliver. Of course, we said YES! School started for us on Wednesday and students received their bag of books on Thursday and Friday.

What a GREAT way to start the year! Our lucky students now we have new books to read at home and we are start the year by reinforcing a love of reading through book ownership.

We are so thankful for this great organization and we are looking forward to a great year of reading!!

Biography Organization

Welcome back to a new school year!

As our students return this fall, they will see a new and improved biography section in our library! Previously, most of our biography books were organized alphabetically by who the book is about and our "Who Was..." books were in a separate spinning rack.  While the "Who Was..." books have always been popular, the rest of the biography books rarely get checked out.  

This summer, I decided to rearrange the biographies based on topic and I hope this will make it easier for our students to find biographies that they are interested in.  Our topics include: Presidents, Musicians & Artists, STEM, Authors, Athletes, and other Important, Influential & Historical people.

Each topic is a different color with a color dot on the spine of the book to make them easier to put back on the shelves.

Also, all of the books were scanned into different sub-locations in our catalog system (for example: Biograph-President (Red)).  This allows students to see where they are in the library when searching the catalog.

We still have the "Who Was..." books in their own location but hopefully students will now begin checking out the other biography books this year.

I'm looking forward to another GREAT year of sharing reading and books with our students!!

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?