week 26: ALIENS

                                      

The ALIENS theme came about solely due to the book Aliens love underpants.  I'd heard about the book and bought a copy and it was too good not to use for a class.  

We read Aliens love underpants in PreK and K and it was a blast.  The whole thing rhymed and we picked out so much from the pictures. Afterwards, the students had activity sheets from the book to work on while we did our usual check out one table at a time.





I had to find books with Aliens to continue with the theme and I chose Mrs. Watson wants your teeth for the first grade.  It is a semi graphic novel about a girl going into first grade who is told that the teacher is an alien that collects baby teeth.  This was not only good for the alien theme, but it was a great introduction to graphic novels. We discussed the different types of thought bubbles and if they meant the person was speaking the words or only thinking them.

The students loved what we did next.  Each student was given a small rectangle of card stock and markers.  They drew an alien on the paper and cut the alien out.  We had left over quarter page forms with space ships on them from a previous book fair, and the students cut those out and decorated the space ships.   We glued popsicle sticks to them to make stick puppets.  

examples of the two stick puppets the first grade created after reading Aliens love underpants

I discovered Baloney (Henry P) by Jon Scieszki and Lane Smith and read it to the 2nd grade.  This book was very interesting.  The author used words in other languages as the "alien" words Henry used and we guessed the meanings via the context and pictures. There was a list of these words in the back and we could see if we guessed correctly and 





  
   



The second graders were able to make a "girl" alien or a "boy" alien with pre-drawn forms.  After choosing body style, they also could choose what the alien looked like, what colors, how many eyes, how many arms and where the arms were....  There were some wonderful aliens but the kids definitely wanted to take them home, so I can only take a picture of the 2 examples I made and put on the door.

Check out ended during this 6 day period, as summer is here and the library has to be inventoried.   In 3rd, 4th, and 5th, I was keeping notes of which class skipped resource, which watched Pagemaster and where they were in the movie.

Bees and Bugs (and worms and spiders) and Mother's Day ("week" 25)

Bugs and Mother's Day sounds like a strange combination, but it worked very well. 


In PreK and Kindergarten,  I introduced the students to David Kirke and "Miss Spider".  We read (and watched an animated version afterward) Little Miss Spider because of Mother's Day.  This book is about Miss Spider when she was little.  After she was born, she went looking for her mother and ended up adopted by a beetle because this beetle "loved her the best".  The book is entirely rhyming and the last page says: 

For finding your mother,

There’s one certain test.

You must look for the creature

Who loves you the best. 

After reading Little Miss Spider, I handed out Mother's Day cards with this poem inside so that they could make cards to give their Moms.  They really liked being able to make something to give as a gift for Mother's Day.


The first grade watched a very funny reading of Eric Carle's The grouchy ladybug on youtube.  The constant refrain of, "Oh, you aren't big enough," was a real hit.  After this, we made Mother's Day cards shaped like lady bugs and attached wings with brads.

Tumblebooks (which I accessed via the Culpeper Public Library) had all three of Doreen Cronin's "Diary of a..." books.  Our library only has Diary of a Fly.  So, with tumblebooks, the 2nd grade "read"   Diary of a worm, Diary of a spider,  and Diary of a Fly by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Harry Bliss. The plan was to continue working on our book covers but there turned out not to be enough time for that and to do check out.

        

Due to SOLs and the lack of Miss Jennifer, plans for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade had to change.  I researched movies until I found one that met all of my requirements:  it had to be rated G and about libraries and books. The movie I chose was The Pagemaster with Macaulay Culkin. The movie starts and ends with live action but turns to animation in the middle. With the help of books named for genres (Fantasy, Horror, and Adventure), the main character delves into some literary classics like Moby Dick and Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  

"Dogs" Week 24

The theme this "week" (6 days) was all about dogs.  However, the PreK students were learning about butterflies and caterpillars this week, so I read Ten little caterpillars to them and then gave them die cut butterfly bookmarks to decorate.

Back to dogs - starting with Kindergarten, I showed a "big book" version of Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day.  I was surprised at how much they loved this book - and they laughed.  A lot.  I made a handout with a rottweiler on one side and another pencil drawing of a rottweiler on the other so they could make their own "picture book without words".  They had to draw in the baby and show Carl and the baby up to something on one side and then draw how Carl resolved the issue on the other side.  That was a hit, too.

            


I read another fun book to the first grade:  Officer Buckle and Gloria by  
Gloria Rathmann.  I had worksheets to do after the story, where the students drew a safety accident in progress and made up a safety rule to prevent it.

For 2nd  grade, I showed the classes Harry, the dirty dog, as read by Betty White on storyline online.  First we discussed the actual book and talked about what was on a "front cover", the spine, and the "back cover".  I made a template to give them so they could make their own covers for Harry, the dirty dog. Learning the ins and outs of book covers didn't come easily to the 2nd grade.  Another lesson on that would be helpful.

Our "haiku" wall

A haiku about how haikus are worthless!

Dogku by Andrew Clements is a book about a lost dog who finds a home - and it is written entirely in haikus.  (A haiku is a three line poem with 5 syllables in the first and third line and seven syllables in the second line.)  In addition to being a really neat concept, the pictures are awesome, too.  After reading this, the third graders wrote haikus.  They were reluctant at first, but in each class I sat down and composed a haiku (showing it via projector) and I got quite a few hilarious ones.  In the first class, my "example" haiku was about Captain Underpants.

      

In 4th and 5th grades, at least 13 students used the computers to play "Order in the Library."  This game is the perfect hands-on game that lets the students practice what we've been learning.  The students complete levels by dragging books into the proper place on the "shelf". They can complete levels like "Genius" and "Master of the Universe".