Monday, January 18, 2016

Big 6: Evaluation

All of my 5th & 6th graders have come to the end of their partner research project. They had to create a book list of at least 10 books they thought a student would like based on their reading inventory. As a final step, students did a self-reflection, shared their project with their partner, and then their partner answered the same questions! It was great to see students enthusiastic about showing off their hard work. Some did Google slides, docs, Animoto videos, posters, and more!


 
 Reflection questions to be answered individually


Friday, January 15, 2016

Will the Glitter Girls Win Again?

Our Battle of the Books is coming soon! January 29th our 4th, 5th, and 6th graders will compete in this trivia game based on a book list. Last year, our school champs were the Glitter Girls, a team of 4 5th grade girls. This year, will they win again as 6th graders? Only time will tell! Good luck teams...

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Rotary Teacher of the Month

I have been honored with the award of Mukwonago Rotary Club Teacher of the Month for January! I have been struggling with how to present all the innovative things going on in the library and eventually decided to do an Animoto video (along with my information/speech). I thought I would share with the blog readers first!

Friday, January 8, 2016

50 Makers.. and Gears... and Readers!

This week, we had a little over 50 students come to the Makerspace on Friday. I think with the cold weather, many loved the opportunity to stay in. We got some new Gears sets that some students experimented with, and some girls came in to sit and read (which of course I admire!). We also had the usual craft projects, some Chromebook coding, painting (I brought back the watercolor paints; less messy!), and more!




Ipad "Gems" We Used This Week!

This week, a few of my grade levels are using different Ipad "gems" to help with our learning. 4th grade has been doing a unit on Internet Safety so they played the Professor Garfield Cyberbullying app. Garfield's friend is trying to be the Animal Idol and someone is trying to ruin it for them. It's a great comic with checkpoint games throughout.



My 3rd graders are using the Ipad "gem" Kahoot. I set up a game about different genres of books and they would get a clue such as "this genre has smooth writing with rhythm and sometimes rhyme" and they get 4 choices and must choose the correct answer in a game show style. They LOVE this! It is not an app but rather a website but using a tablet is best to choose answers quickly.
Lastly, my 5th and 6th graders are presenting their Big 6 Research book recommendation lists to final publication. Some are using Google docs, slides, a good old poster, and some are using the Ipad app Animoto and creating a video out of images.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Retelling Snowmen

This week, first graders are focusing on what the Caldecott medal is. We read Kitten's First Full Moon (image from bn.com) and looked at how the illustrations tell parts of the story that don't have words.

Then we retold the story using only illustrations on snowman pieces- beginning, middle, and end and then glued them into snowmen!


In addition, our paper chains around the library have been completed! My Monday classes before break made chains. The 4th & 6th graders did the main idea of a non-fiction book on the blue chains and details on the white chains and my 1st & 2nd graders retold stories on the chains using beginning, middle and end. They stretched quite a distance and give a nice January feel to our library!