This was a short week. Due to being out Monday for President's Day and me taking off Friday, it was crazy! Kindergarten watched read alouds from YouTube (a great idea when you want to read a book to a class but you don't have the book) of Duck for President, Grace for President, and My Teacher for President. Then we voted on which they felt would be the best president. I may do this lesson again in the fall when it is actually election time! First and second grade read My Teacher for President and then we made a list of reasons why their particular teacher would be a good president. There were some interesting answers (i.e. "she's cute"). Third through fifth did a Presidential crossword as a class and we used Alabama Virtual Library to find the answers. It turned out really well! I am taking this Friday and next Monday off because I am flying to Orlando to run the Glass Slipper Challenge at Disney World...the Enchanted 10k on Saturday and the Princess half marathon on Sunday. Lord, help me!This week was all about Valentine's Day! For the older grades we did some online research on the history of Valentine's Day and read about St. Valentine himself. The story isn't very sweet and romantic. He actually was executed on suspicions of witchcraft on February 14. How sweet! Then if we had time we read about Milton Hershey and his chocolate amazingness! My younger grades just read some Valentine books (Crankenstein Valentine, Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day is Cool, Love Splat) and then colored some Valentine bookmarks I made. No preschool this week due to our school-wide Valentine party where I got to paint faces. Also, our school has started a program called Prime Time Reading where once a week, students and their parents come and discuss stories. The families are given 3 books a week to read at home before the next meeting. It's to encourage reading as a family and book discussion. I got to go this past week and talk about all the wonderful things our public library has to offer! Also, our plants are thriving and some are about to be moved outside! Good week!Honestly, I'm just posting this to see if I can get these images to work properly...you should be able to hover over the little red and white dots to see what is found there in the library!This week was just madness! We had early dismissal on Tuesday for a potential severe weather situation, and I was out Thursday! But in between all that, we continued with genres and talked about biographies. I tried to also pick African-Americans and lesser known people so I could tie this into Black History Month. We talked about Mae Jemison, Wilma Rudolph, Matthew Henson, Thurgood Marshall, Misty Copeland, and a few more that we just looked up for fun. I used this as an opportunity to show the students Alabama Virtual Library. While I was out Thursday, I left a packet for the 5th graders about Thurgood Marshall and then a few worksheets to do about him. For the 2nd graders I missed Thursday, I had them write a biography about their neighbor at their table using a worksheet. It looks like they did really well, so that makes me proud! I also set up my Valentine's Day displays and my Black History Month displays. We are also starting the chart our progress in Accelerated Reader for the semester too so I'm excited for the kids to see that when they come down the hallway for dismissal this afternoon. Also! Our grow lab for the garden is thriving! They will get transplanted in no time!This week we did different lessons with upper and lower grades. My upper grades (3rd-5th) read fractured fairy tales as a continuation of our genre study; then we compared the fractured story to the original using a Venn diagram. I think this went over well, but I definitely have some kinks to work out if I do it again next year. My lower grades (K-2nd) read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes and Pete the Cat: Rocking in the School Shoes. Pete the Cat is one of the best and there's always a song involved so they really go into it! We then took pictures of everybody's shoes and I'm in the process on making a book of our shoes called Central Elementary: Rocking in our School Shoes. They're really excited about that! I didn't have Pre-K this week because I had to go to a workshop. But we did have the 100th day of school this week on January 28!! Only 70-80 more! |
About MeI am a first year elementary school librarian, and let me say it is QUITE the adventure! Although I've worked in public libraries on and off for 10 years, this is a horse of a different color. Bare with me as I brave the new struggles and pure joy that this career is bringing! Archives
March 2016
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