Week of Feb. 20

Olympic Maker Week!!

The last full week of each month is our maker week.  The students really look forward to this all month.  The theme for our February maker week was the Winter Olympics!  Here are a few of the activities that students did.

Creating Lego flags and Lego ski hills

Coloring in the countries participating in the winter olympics on our world map using an Atlas

Drawing athletes and country flags

Completing a curling "challenge".  The students had to design and build a curling "stone" that they could slide to hit the target.

Coding the Sphero to do an "ice skating" routine

Students were also able to use the Osmos and record themselves reading books aloud to share with younger students through Flipgrid.

It was such a fun maker week!

Rebecca Caudill Voting Party

We had quite a few students read three or more of the Rebecca Caudill Award books and attend our voting party!  Students voted for their favorite books, had snacks, and played a Kahoot game based on the books.  The winning books were (tie) Drowned City and Beneath.

Happy Reading!

Week of February 12th

Valentine's Day, love, kindness, and books!



What is love? What does it feel like? What does it look like? Most of our classes this week heard the book Love by Matt de la Pena. In this beautiful book, the author shows us many ways that love looks like. Sometimes love is obvious like when we spend time with loved ones. Other times, love is not so obvious.

After reading the book, students wrote what love means to them. They had so many great ideas!

This week we also kicked off the McHenry Public Library Book Madness Tournament! The theme this year is "Clash of the Genres". Which book will win? Stay tuned! A special thank you to the McHenry Public Library for organizing the tournament.

Happy Reading!

Evaluating Our Sources

How can we tell if the websites we use are trustworthy?



This week, our fifth grade students finished a fun activity locating information and evaluating websites.  The students were given a list of ten unbelievable and amazing animal facts from the book Two Truths and Lie (we read part of this book out loud several weeks ago).  Nine of the facts on the list were true and one was a fake and it was up to the students to be detectives to find the fake one. The students worked in pairs using an iPad to determine which one of the ten facts was fake. Some of the facts on the list include "some octopuses have three hearts", "scorpions can survive being frozen inside a block of ice", and "bats can have sparkly poop".  

Here is the link to the facts we used.

While students were searching for the information, we discussed the importance of checking who the author of the website is.  Is the person or organization who published the information an expert?  Can we trust them?  To determine this, we need to look past the information that is given on the Google results page and actually click on the link provided to find where the information is coming from.

Evaluating websites can be a dry activity but with an interesting topic, it can be fun. The students were so engaged during this activity and one fifth grade boy said "I LOVE library days!".  

In other news...

Many of our younger students heard the book One Day in the Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus Tree.  



In this Monarch Award book, the boy gets eaten by a snake.  Inside the snake's belly, the boy encourages the snake to eat more and more animals until finally, the snake is so full that he burps all of the animals out.  The students connected this book to the traditional story about the old woman swallowing bigger and bigger animals and also to The Mitten.  We will be voting for our favorite Monarch Award book in March!

In PreK, we learned all about penguins!  



Happy Reading!

Week of January 29th

World Read Aloud Day!

This week, we celebrated World Read Aloud Day for the entire week!  Reading aloud is so important that every child should be read aloud to every single day.  When children hear books read aloud, they learn new vocabulary, learn about text structure, learn new concepts, learn to love reading, and they learn so much more.  World Read Aloud Day is a special day to highlight the importance of reading aloud to children.  

Most classes heard the amazing book After the Fall: How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again by Dan Santat.



This is a fabulous story that teaches us that we need to follow our dreams and not be afraid to try again if we fail. This book has a surprise ending and I loved seeing the students' faces light up when they realize what happens at the end. One second grade student said, "I did NOT see that coming!"

After reading the book, many of our third and fourth grade students recorded themselves reading a book aloud using Flipgrid. We then shared the Flipgrid with our younger (PK-1) friends so they can enjoy hearing stories read aloud by their older friends. The older students really had fun reading doing this. Many worked as pairs to read the Elephant and Piggie books using the different voices.

Finally, Mrs. Ellis's class had a special opportunity to Skype with an author on World Read Aloud Day (Thursday)! Many authors volunteer their time on this special day to Skype with students and share a love of reading. We Skyped with author Beth Ferry and she read to us one of her books: Land Shark.



After reading the book, Beth answered some of our questions about being an author and we learned so much about the writing process. Beth was so enthusiastic and very inspirational.

What a fun week in the library!!

Week of January 22nd

Maker Week!!

Once per month, our students in grades 2-5 participate in a maker week during library time.  During maker week, students are provided materials and the time to create, explore, collaborate, learn, and grow.  This month, our makerspace had a winter theme.  Students were invited to make snowflakes and draw Olaf (from the movie Frozen).  We also had an engineering design challenge that was very popular.  Students were given a certain amount of materials (such as rubber bands, plastic spoons, popsicle sticks, and paper tubes) and had to design a catapult that could throw a "snowball" (cotton ball) the farthest.  

The girls in the video below designed a double catapult!  

I think we have some future engineers!

This month, we introduced a new coding board game.  Students have to use cards to code their player to reach the "gems" first. The idea for this game came from here. 

We also introduced two new technology tools that students could use.  

Sphero is a robot ball that is controlled through an app.  Students code the ball (using block coding on an iPad app) and then press start to watch the ball roll.  The challenge was for the students to code the ball to move in a rectangle around a big piece of paper.  It wasn't easy and many groups got close, but this group of students succeeded!  I love their excitement at the end of the video!

Sphero is so much fun and it's a great way for students to see their coding in action!

Finally, we introduced our new Osmo devices.  Osmo is a program that uses an iPad as well as manipulatives to teach critical thinking, coding, creativity, word skills, collaboration, and more.  Our school was the lucky recipient of a Meemic grant and we were able to purchase enough to use with four iPads.

We LOVE maker week!!

Week of January 15th

This week we celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day!  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr had a dream to make the world a better place.  In this spirit, we read the multiple award winning book Last Stop on Market Street with ALL grades K-5.



In this wonderful book, C. J. and his nana take a bus through the city to go to volunteer at a soup kitchen.  At first, C. J. doesn't want to go and he complains about many things.  Nana is friendly to everyone and she sees the positive side of things. In the end, C. J. is glad to be where he is. 

After reading the book, we determined that the theme of the book is appreciating what we have because that is what Nana teaches C. J. through her words and actions.  We also noticed that even though C. J. is just a kid, he was making the world a better place by volunteering at the soup kitchen.  Some students then wrote about (or recorded themselves using Flipgrid) how they can make the world a better place.  I loved all of our discussions and all of their great ideas!

Happy Reading!

Week of January 8th

Welcome back!!

It was so nice to see our students again and hear about the wonderful books they read over winter break!  Many students started reading their books for Battle of the Books.  This is very exciting!

Here is what happened in the library this week...

Grades 4 & 5


We read a chapter in the book Two Truths and a Lie.  In this engaging book about plants and animals, each chapter has three stories.  Two of the stories are unbelievable but true and the third story is a fabrication.  It's up to the reader to do some research to determine which story is false.  I love this book because the authors provide research tips and students are encouraged to question what they read.  This is a great book to use when learning about finding credible sources.

Grade 3
   

In third grade, students are reading biographies during their intervention block.  Several of the Monarch Award books are biographies so in library this week, we read the Monarch Award books Trombone Shorty and Ben Franklin's Big Splash.  We learned about alliteration (used in the Ben Franklin book) and we also watched a short video with Trombone Shorty playing when he was just 13 years old.

Grades PK-2


We read the Monarch Award book Lion Lessons.  In this book, the lion tries to teach the boy the seven steps on how to be a lion.  Some of the steps include roaring, looking fierce, and pouncing. The boy doesn't do too well until he reaches the seventh lesson: looking out for your friends.  After reading the book, students in some of the grades retold the story using a graphic organizer.

Happy Reading!