Dr. Seuss week (week 20)

   

This session of Library resource was all about Dr. Seuss.  I remember watching the best "cartoons" made from Dr. Seuss books (this was way back in my childhood).  I was looking these up on youtube - especially the one about the Sneetches with the "stars upon thars" and the silly Zax who wouldn't step out of each other's way when I discovered the Library had a copy of these "cartoons" already.  The best thing about these cartoons are that Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss himself) was part of the production team and the cartoons ARE the books, just in moving form and with songs added.  They are wonderful.

I let the classes have a say in what they watched but Green Eggs and Ham was overwhelmingly the most requested.  I think the Sneetches made some die hard fans this week.  That is probably my favorite of the cartoons. 

Youtube had some finds, as well.  I didn't know Justin Bieber read The Cat in the Hat for Read Across America.  And I found a bunch of authors who read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  That story, though, was too long to comfortably fit into the resource time.

The younger grades had the opportunity to practice the Wednesday word, analyze, with a Dr. Seuss handout I made from internet finds.  One side had a "find the difference" set of the Cat in the Hat and I found a page of fish that I put on the back so they could practice making patterns.

Green Eggs and Ham
    The older grades (2-5), of course, don't have as much time to do handouts because they are all allowed to check out books at the same time for the last 15 or 20 minutes of class.  The 2nd and 3rd grades celebrated Dr. Seuss by watching one or more of the cartoons (depending on length) while the 4th and 5th grade classes were either absent due to testing or worked on their cataloging worksheets. 

And, thanks to the fabulous Heather Wehmeyer (another elementary school librarian here in Culpeper), I have a game to show the 4th and 5th graders that will help them with the concept of "where do I find this book in the library"....I am really excited about showing them this game and letting them try it out.  Thanks, Heather, for telling me about this game.

(week 19) PIRATES

Last week, the fifth grade students performed in a musical about pirates.  In honor of that, the library is doing all things "pirate" for this 6-day week. 

Pre-K, K, and 1st:  As far as I can tell, every student is familiar with  Dora the Explorer and the library just happens to have a print version of Dora's Pirate Adventure.  These younger students had a blast treating the book just like the TV show - calling for the "MAP" and the "BACKPACK" and singing with the Singing Bridge and then singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" the right way to teach the Bridge what the words really are.

Dora asks the audience to count to seven in Spanish at one point, and I was amazed at how many students raised their hands to do so.  And they could say their numbers in Spanish!  And they sounded like they had the best accents  - much better than mine. I was impressed.

  2nd and 3rd grade classes were introduced to the Melinda Long/David Shannon collaboration of How I became a pirate and Pirates don't change diapers.  We read How I became a pirate together. It was a wonderful book to read and we analyzed the pictures to figure out everything that was going on.  Afterwards, the students worked on a worksheet that was about the letter P and Pirates.  The "Wednesday Word" was "trace" and the students traced the letter P over and over on their worksheet.

               

             

 

 

It seems like the 4th and 5th graders haven't been having many library times in the past two weeks due to play practice and testing, among other things. When we do get together, we are moving on with "Library Wars" and learning about the catalog and locating books.  With the classes I do have, we go over the information and work on the worksheets before we check out books.



 



"week 18" BLACK HISTORY MONTH AND NAME TAGS

Once again, I am finding it difficult to decide what I should do with the time I have for my library classes.  Each class is only 45 minutes long, and the last 15 to 20 minutes are spent "checking out books".  That leaves, at most, 25 minutes to get everyone situated to read or work on something.  That is not a lot of time when you have so much you can do, like reading books, watching book trailers or doing an activity.... I have to make decisions about what I can do with my classes and what I sadly have to put aside.

Black History Month brings up a big topic and one that is not easy to address with a story.  I discovered that the library has some fantastic titles and I found some truly wonderful readings of stories on storylineonline.net.  But I have promised for the past several "weeks" that we would make new name tags - it couldn't be put off any longer. 

For Pre-K, I read A color of his own by Leo Lionni.  This book is just an introduction to the many different colors that even the same species can have.  I found a great worksheet for them to work on while we do check out.  It is a page of chameleons from the book with the color printed in the chameleon.  They should recognize the words and color that chameleon that color. 

   


There is only time to read one book in the younger grades (K and 1) because of the time needed to work on the name tags.  I chose The colors of us by karen Katz (also the author of My First Chinese New Year.)

 I love the illustrations in this book and I love all of the beautiful words used for the color "brown":  cinnamon, coffee, toffee, butterscotch, golden brown like pizza crust, peanut butter colored, chocolate.....it makes me hungry to read this! 

The name tags are a big hit, as I expected.  The students loved making the first name tags we used and reminded me that I promised they could take them home when we were done with them.  The old name tags had some problems, though, like the yarn being "itchy" on necks and the yarn tearing out of the index card (requiring repairs), and not helping if the students were seated in front of me in the story pit.

The new name tags are paper plates - divided in half with names written on both halves.  After decorating them, the students cut them in half on the line provided. We are going to laminate these halves and then punch holes and add string so that a half hangs on the chest and another half hangs on the back....sort of like an Egyptian collar.  The students seemed to really like the idea.

We worked on name tags up to the third grade.  Fourth and Fifth graders returned to our ongoing project:  Library Wars.  We are on a quest to learn what the library catalog is, what it can do for a person, and how to locate information and books in the library after we get the "address" (call number) of the book from the catalog.  This quest is set up like a video game - the students work at their own pace to answer a series of worksheets that have them locating information, using the catalog, and learning how books are sorted in the library.  After completing a worksheet with 100% accuracy, they win a prize and can call that section "completed" and move on.  We have two "sections" and then a "boss level" so far.  I will be the boss monster and they have to prove to me that they have learned sufficiently before they complete the game and win the final prize.

Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year (week 17)

There are so many things to read and learn about in February.  In addition to Groundhog Day, we have Valentine's Day and the Chinese New year and it is Black History Month and Library Lovers Month....

This 6-day week we celebrated Valentine's day by reading a book about the holiday for each grade level. 

         

The 3rd and 4th gradesrs loved Zombie in Love by Kelly DiPucchio. The illustrations by Scott Campbell were amazing - everytime I read the book, I discovered something new. I ended up really liking How Spider saved Valentine's Day. The illustrations were simple but perfect for younger grades. Olive, my love was a wonderful book.  It provided so many clever ways to discuss things such as, "What does it mean if someone has a big heart? If someone gives their heart to someone else, what does that mean?" 

Zim2 donated a large box of "valentines/trading cards" advertising the video game "Luigi's Dark Mansion 2."  The students loved receiving these sheets.  I can't thank them enough for their generous donation. 

For the Chinese New Year, we read My First Chinese New Year in most of the younger classes. That little book had great pictures of Chinatown New Year parades and those illustrations were a great way to show Chinese Lion Dancers and the Dragon that ends the parade.


Chinese lion dancers - clip art
 

Chinese lion dancers on pedestals

 

 

All classes discussed the Chinese zodiac and learned that this was The Year of the Snake. 

Miss Jennifer and I discovered we were both born in years of the Snake.  

After figuring out in what year the classes were born we tried to determine the "animal" sign the class was born under.  Kindergarteners, for example, discovered  they were born in the Year of the Pig.  This was not a popular idea with them.  

I found the best youtube video of a Chinese Lion Dancing competition in Hawai'i in 2007.  This 9 minute video was a huge hit with every grade level. 

                    Gung Hay Fat Choy  (Happy New Year!)