Check It Out

The library has been abuzz this past week. I was anticipating the announcement of the CYBILS Awards, students were anticipating Valentine’s Day and everyone couldn’t wait for our four day weekend.

These are my fifth graders.  They are studying the American Revolution, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence by working in groups and readingfrom  “A True Books” series.

Right now, the groups are taking notes. The students are fact-finders.  They’ll create group posters about their topics to present to each other.

We are hoping to get to the bonus part and create a “Jeopardy” like game about this period of time in American History.

The kindergartners through third grade are continuing exploration of the titles nominated for the Washington Choice Picture Book Awards.  I love reading each of these nominees.  We laughed hilariously at The Great Fuzz Frenzyby Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel.  The dragon lovers were happy to see that the dragon in The Knight Who Took All Day by James Mayhew escaped without injury. 

One third grade class has taken the plunge into research.  The teacher is having them research topics they love.  It has provide me the opportunity to talk about the BIG6 with both the teacher and the students.  Hopefully, others will jump in.

One of the most exciting things to happen in the library is the beginning of the Lego structure.  A staff member visited another school. He saw what students were doing with earned points from Accelerated Reader; a lego block to add to the structure.  Then I attended a conference about books and boys.  The presenter spoke about the importance of creating some competition with especially boys.  The light bulb came on.

I have had students keep track of the number of hours they read for about three years. It needed some refreshing. So now when the students turn in their 20 hour log, they get 3 legos to add to the structure.  I adapted the project for kinders and first graders by bringing in weekly reading logs.  Here is a first look at our structure.

Have great weekend and get out there and read.

Happy Reading,

MsMac