We're getting ready for our first ever INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE BOOK FAIR! I'm so excited to have had so much input on the materials available for our students, and know that we're supporting a local business. I'll be blogging a LOT about that in the coming weeks as I sort through the logistics and do all kinds of PR for it!
Without planning it to work out this way, many of my week #5 lessons had to with social learning. It was a very active week and took a lot of energy to get through it but when you end each day with this cuteness, it's hard not to be excited about the next round of students! My kinders are still adjusting to the norms of school, and expecting them to sit still at the end of the day (after they come in from recess!) is a challenging task! I decided to search out some kind of dance/movement story and "The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything" was perfect. We started with the eBook (thanks to the Tumblebooks subscription our public library provides for us) "Frank was a Monster Who Loved to Dance" - and one student made a connection to Frankenstein! I was so impressed! They I told them THEY get to dance along to a song, as long as they can retell me the story at the end. I found a song version of the book on YouTube, which was perfect for this! We also predicted what all these body parts would turn into - all very authentic literacy skills, but done in a very kid-friendly way. In 1st grade classrooms, students are learning about the Daily 5 and the steps on how to build literacy. One of those 'stations' is reading with a friend so to prepare for Halloween, a big stack of books were waiting and off they went with a friend and a good read! Some books were good fits for the partners, but others were a bit challenging. If the book was too hard, students were instructed to read the PICTURES and made up their own stories. Once they all read their stories, we came back together as a group and answered 3 questions about each book: "WHO is your story about?" "WHERE does it take place?" and "WHAT happened in it?" This way, we covered a lot of great books in just 1 class period! 2nd graders are learning about adjectives and how to describe characters so we gathered some favorites and students worked in teams to come up with posters for our library! We started by watching a clip from Despicable Me ("Look Ma!") and as a class, we came up with ways to describe young Gru, his mom, and Vector together on the white board. They came up with some great adjectives like "curious" and "harsh" and it was great scaffolding to prepare them for their group work. I gave them several books with their character and I saw different methods to tackling the challenge: some students were so familiar with the character that they listed words from the top of their heads, where other groups opened the books and wrote down adjectives directly from the text - what an encouraging thing to see in 2nd graders! The student-made posters will hang in our Everybody section for all students to see in the next few weeks :) 4th and 5th graders were back on Destiny Quest last week learning how to use more tools now that they have their own accounts! Last time they placed holds and wrote book reviews, which went extremely well. I've had some great reviews come in (examples above) and I love that some students are even submitting them over the weekend!!! They are home, on the library catalog, writing about books, on weekends. Hello - what a cool way to see how this has been a useful lesson! Last week we had the iPads and students were shown how to make a "to-read" list on Destiny Quest, so that if they've already used up their limit of holds & are waiting for books to come in, they can still keep a digital list of other books they've been meaning to read. The most popular feature though... adding friends!! You would have thought I had told them they were signing up for Facebook... seriously! They were giddy over adding friends and sending book recommendations to one another. I even got a handful of requests from students so that they can tell me which books they've liked and get electronic recommendations from me :) Be still my heart... So the moral of this week has been that using media for social connections does just as much for literacy building as making them sit silently and read their books. Sure, playing on iPads doesn't "look" like literacy building... but they are making authentic connections with what they're reading, giving opinions on a public forum, sharing recommendations with peers, and learning more about how to use the information that technology provides for their personal benefit. As for the younger students, who says reading has to be a solo sport?? They covered 10+ books in less than 30 minutes by buddy reading and sharing details of a story - all important factors when it comes to literacy skills.
We're getting ready for our first ever INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE BOOK FAIR! I'm so excited to have had so much input on the materials available for our students, and know that we're supporting a local business. I'll be blogging a LOT about that in the coming weeks as I sort through the logistics and do all kinds of PR for it!
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"Flex Week" is the week where I do not have a set schedule for media lessons, but instead, am flexible to work with teachers, collaborate, co-teach, open the media center for classes to be held w/ homeroom teachers, and more. They are b.u.s.y. weeks but always rewarding! In the last 2 years, I haven't had a true flex week because we had 6 sections of 1st grade and 6 sections of 2nd grade so I would teach them on a weekly rotating schedule. In the past 2 months, I've really made the most of the flex time. Check out some of the activities we've had buzzing through our media center over the last week... Virtual Field Trips 2nd graders in Mrs. Wheeler, Mrs. Walston, and Mrs. Tawes classes came down to wrap up their weather unit with a Virtual Field Trip. Back in June, I presented at our county's technology conference about what a VFT is and how they can enrich students' experiences - both with their curriculum content, as well as engaging with their personal interests. We "Connected With Weather" thanks to a program put together by Discovery Education and The Weather Channel. Thanks to a great video, we took a tour of the Weather Channel headquarters and saw how their technology helps us better understand the world around us. We "read" a picture of Jeannette's Pier from the tour video and determined (from context clues) that it was shot during a hurricane, and it must have been Sandy or Irene as it was a daytime photo. Then students headed off in partners to learn more about Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Winter Storms, and Wildfires. They shared their findings on a meteorologist's' report which we will turn into a book to have in our library! You can tell from their body language in these photos just how engaged they were and thinking deeply about what they were learning - the fact that each student in all 3 classes stuck with their tasks and didn't ask to play on other apps makes me know that it was a successful VFT! I can't wait to work with the 2nd grade team more throughout the year (they're moving to a new wing being built off the library) and take these smarties on more virtual trips. In the midst of all this, our gym teacher asked me if I could compile a virtual field trip on INDOOR ROCK CLIMBING - now that is a challenge. When I was able to pull it off, she called me the "Virtual Field Trip Guru"... I think I'll put that on my resume... Art museum collaborative project For a girl who didn't study much Art throughout my schooling, I have a deep appreciation for Art History and finally got to share some of my experiences and enthusiasm with students! Since my first attempt at collaboration, my friend Mrs. Corbett has been open to teaming up on projects so we are always bouncing ideas off one another. She was getting ready to start From The Mixed Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler and wanted students to connect to the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art by creating a brochure. We evolved that idea into students creating their own museums and giving a presentation about the pieces they would select to exhibit, what theme ties their museum together, and how they would draw people in to their museum. I helped launch the project by presenting a slideshow to them of some of the museums I have visited and rather than focusing on what was inside, I showed them some architectural details and the history behind the buildings (The Louvre, Centre de Pompideau, Walker Art Center, Guggenheim, Uffizi, Musee d'Orsay). To prepare them for their presentations, I used art terminology when discussing such as "curate" and "medium." I encouraged them to ask questions and approach this like an inquiry project - one student asked "Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world?" - which I couldn't answer on the spot, but researched and followed-up on... another said, in response to showing my favorite piece of art (Fourteen Year Old Dancer by Degas) "I don't get it. It's just a ballerina. Why do you like that if you're not a ballerina?" - this lead to a great discussion about art and the many ways people interact with it, define it, and appreciate it. After working on it over the week, the students invited me to their room to see what they came up with! Below are their created museums and clips of their presentations. I then got to follow up with them on those earlier questions and give feedback on their presentations. The link I showed to explain the Mona Lisa is PRICELESS and adorable. Highly suggest watching (2nd video below). Also, the most rewarding comment by a student: "Mrs Holloman? How do you know so much about so many different things? Like Art? And History?" Books, of course! And some personal experiences along the way :) Media Mentors - 5th Grade helpers I'm loving our new help in the library... Yes, Ms. Terri is great BUT I mean my 5th grade media mentors!!! I have 2 students come on a bi-weekly schedule from the time I open the media center (7:40am) through the morning bell (8:05am). For those 25 minutes, they assist morning patrons with finding and checking out books, and help ME by checking in books, getting them on carts, and allowing me to prep for the day. These students are ones who helped me Genrefy the fiction shelves so they already have some ownership of the library, but I'm seeing it emerge even more when they come in the mornings. Their excitement over seeing which books are circulating, the new titles I've added and displayed, and talking to their peers about books is so much fun to see. I see them as advocates for the media center - they are my "go-to's" when I want some feedback or need to get something promoted across the school. For example, I've been trying to get a grant for iPad minis to be housed permanently for media use. I use our mobile cart on a pretty regular basis but 1) it's a good 10 minute walk for me to collect them from the upstairs computer lab, and another 10 to return them (students cannot do this for me). I REALLY want them so I can do more with Augmented Reality and QR codes and make them available all the time to students... so I had last week's Media Mentors do this little promo for me... And on Friday, Dare Education Foundation APPROVED our grant!!! We're getting iPad Minis!!!!!! I'm so excited for our students and how these tools are going to be used to reach our goal of celebrating our School of Readers. The Augmented Reality book reviews is just one example of how this technology will enhance literacy... I can't wait to see some literature circles reading eBooks, QR code scavenger hunts, using the Destiny App to search for books, etc. Check back often to see how this great news will be put into action!
It's been an exciting few weeks at MES - lots going on (but isn't that normal in an elementary school?) The last teaching week was jam-packed with some cool lessons, and my flex week (next post) was all about collaboration & some exciting news to end the week. Teaching week Sept 29 - Oct 3:
What I really love about this is how independent the students become when you give them the tools and freedom to explore. Yes, I asked them to do a few steps, but they constantly ask to hold books so giving them the power to do so on their own will hopefully encourage them to read more. They also seemed very invested in writing honest opinions of books they've read - a few even searched additional books to write about. After they completed those 2 tasks, I gave them time to explore on their own. I was expecting some to ask for free time to play on the apps, but surprising, ALL the students stayed on Destiny and searched for books. A few of my more tech-savvy students figured how to use it as a social tool and added friends to their account & started sharing recommendations with one another. Lucky for me, I was observed by an administrator doing this lesson and she was able to see and hear how excited the students were... TALKING ABOUT READING! At the end of the week, I found out that our PTO will be funding the "titlepeek" upgrade so the students will not see icons of books, but the actual book covers. This will be perfect for making them even more independent, and will encourage even greater use of the catalog. There are so many cool features that I will definitely be doing follow up lessons on that and will post some screencasts of it in the coming weeks! Kindergarten is off and running with picking out books and reading with book buddies. They are SO excited about picking a book off the shelf and sharing with their classmates. I end my days with Kinders and it helps to forget about the technology that failed, frustrating moments through the day, and overwhelming moments that tend to get to me. Their eagerness over just one book (which most cannot even read the words!) reminds me why I love what I do and that I need to get every grade level that excited over reading. I felt like this block of lessons really succeeded in that - not an easy feat! Next post will be about the fun lessons we had during flex week... and even MORE good news!
My first schoolwide Banned Books Week initiative was very successful!! It had a lot of students talking about WHY they read and thinking about WHAT they take out of a story's lesson. The activities I did and displays around school drew in teachers as well and it really was a whole-school effort. I cannot wait to do more of this in the future! Below are the video teasers I showed on the morning news show each day. We received a LOT of feedback about this - not only did the students enjoy seeing which books were banned and which teachers participated, I heard the music would draw their in attention (a trick the morning news staff hopes to replicate in the future!). I had a class that asked to have their photos taken too, but for privacy sake, that video will just be shared with their classroom. Enjoy the teasers and don't forget to appreciate your fREADoms! |
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