We had some fun in the library today with our costumes for Halloween.
Can you guess who we dressed up as this year?
Give it a try... I'll put the answers at the end.
Ms. J. and Ms Gradwohl. Hmmm... give us a hint.
The Literacy Team - Ms. Lamenza, Ms. Marsette and Ms. MacLeod.
Who are you guys?
What did Ms. Macauda dress up as?
Happy Halloween everyone!
Read On!
-Ms. J.
(Answer key: Ms. J. is Belle from the new Beauty and the Beast Disney movie, Ms. Gradwohl is Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, The Literacy Team dressed up as "Super Readers" and Ms. Macouda is an I Spy book!)
For quite some time now, librarians have been saying - let us recommend books that students are interested in reading... and, I'll be honest it felt like maybe nobody was listening. If they were listening it felt like maybe they did not believe us.
And now we have some heavy-hitters in the literacy and reading education world saying, "Hey, let librarians recommend books that students are interested in!"
Yah!
This makes me so very happy.
And yes, this is a very BIG deal.
Welcome back to school!
We are so excited about this new school year.
There are so many exciting new things in the library.
Ms. J. is trying to read her height.
I set myself a goal of reading my height over the summer. I read a lot over the summer (30 books total), but I only read 22 inches. I'm 68.5 inches tall so I have a ways to go.
I'm not giving up. I'm going to read my height this year.
We have a ton of new books!
We were able to order so many new books over the summer. Ms. G. is practically drowning in books at her desk. They will be ready to check out very soon. We are so excited!
We have KIBO robots!
Thanks to a generous WEF grant, Sprague now has 10 KIBO robots for students to program. We will be using them in library classes and checking them out to 1st and 2nd grade classes to use during choice times.
I am excited about the new school year. I hope you are too.
Thursday was the perfect beach day and I got to spend some time jumping over waves at Horse Neck Beach in Westport. What could be better than to take a break from waves and sandcastles and enjoy a nice book? It was fabulous.
First stop for summer... reading on the couch! So comfy. So relaxing.
I'm reading York: The Shadow Cipher by Laura Ruby. If you liked all the clues and puzzles in Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library (and the sequels) you will like this one. The Westing Game is another fun summer read with puzzles and clues (and it won the Newbery Medal the year it came out).
That's right, get someone to snap a picture of you reading in a fun spot
and
email it
to
Ms. J.
at
jauniskiss@wellesleyps.org.
We will display the best Caught Reading pictures in the Summer Reading Assembly slide show and on a library bulletin board in the fall. (Just to clarify, No student pictures will be posted to this blog. Only Ms. J. and other Sprague staff will be "Caught Reading" here over the summer!)
I had never heard the story of Bob the Railway Dog until this book arrived in the library. Apparently Bob is a sort of folk hero in Australia and I discovered a whole website devoted to Bob and his travels. There is even a statue of Bob.
photo from Australian Geographic
The 3rd grade classes started off by discussing things they already knew about Australia before diving in to read the story and take a look at the website with photos and excerpts from old newspaper account of Bob and even a Google Map showing where the statue of Bob is located.
Something about a dog that traveled the rails all over Australia and made friends wherever he went captured my imagination and it was fun to share the story and the pictures and talk about Bob all together.
This week in 2nd grade library we read, "Mama built a Little Nest" by Jennifer Ward. Then we did some scientific observations of a real live bald eagles' nest with two live baby eagles.
This is a brand new book about a woman named Anna Merz and her hard work to save African rhinos that I decided to read with my 2nd grade classes. This book has some great extra materials in the back matter at the end including links to videos with real baby Rhinos so you can see them running around (just like puppies!) and also get a chance to hear what a wide variety of sounds they make. It is fun to show students how to use the extra material at the end of a book to get more information and to learn more on the topic.
After reading about Anna it makes the book come alive to hear her actually speaking about her work:
Here are some funny and rather unexpected baby Rhinos noises:
We have been having some fun with poetry in library this month.
Concrete Poems - 2nd and 3rd grade
A concrete poem takes on the shape of whatever it is about. Suddenly students realized you can write a poem about anything. They wrote some great ones about pizza, a hockey stick and a book.
Poetry and Movement - 1st grade
It can be hard to sit and listen to poetry - especially at the end
of the day. So we spread out to read some animal poems and
students had a chance to add movements to the poem. We were fish, swimming fast, and octopus, a sea turtle and even an egg and the chick hatching out of it.
Poetry and Music - 3rd and 4th Grade
I played a piece of classical music to students (without giving them the title or any information about it) and asked them to think about what it made them imagine and how it made them feel. Then I played it a second time and student wrote poems based on the music. While I did get a few poems about how long and boring the piece was - and hey, a good poem about boredom could be interesting - I also had students do wildly creative and thoughtful poems. Here is one of my favorites:
A ship in the middle of the ocean
A ship in a storm
A ship that someone has fallen off of.
- 3JB student
List Poems - 2nd Grade
We had been working on and reading an online book that the Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera was creating for the Library of Congress all year so it seemed like a good chance to listen to him read one of his own poems and talk about it. Students love hearing the poem and then hearing what the poet has to say about it.
We used Mr. Herrera's list idea to write our own list poems. Students wrote lists about why they love horses or about things they notice in the woods or about getting ready for school
Here is an interesting one:
To Do 1. Throw out my old smelly shoes 2. Feed my valuable gold pet goose 3. Cook a fresh moose for dinner 4. Make tacos with flattened tortillas to make sure they're thinner 5. Buy shoes that are brand new 6. After I told you to do the rest is up to you. - 2MH student
And here is a great Harry Potter inspired one from a team effort from three students in 2KC:
Harry Potter 1. brooms flying through the air 2. wands waving through the air, wands waving everywhere 3. 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop 4 stir and stir and stir once more 4. Expelliarmus, Stupefy, wave your wand and try again if you get it wrong 5. Look in the ball... what do you see? A black dog? What does it mean?
Thanks to Elisabeth Zimmer, the School Library Teacher at Schofield, who lent her seven KIBO robots to Sprague to tryout for three weeks during library classes.
Want to see KIBO in action and hear more about where they came from? Here is a video all about them:
KIBO robots are simple to assemble and program and we have been taking them for a test drive during during library time. Students have a chance to build a program using KIBOs programming blocks which are then scanned into the robot.
Sometimes things don't work out the way you expect when you are using a KIBO. It takes teamwork and problem solving skills to get your robot to do what you want. Great life skills to learn while you are having such a good time.
For more information about KIBO check out Kinderlab Robotics here: http://kinderlabrobotics.com/
Until I started working in an elementary school, I had never heard that March is Women's History Month. Now that I know, I enjoy reading about obscure women that have done remarkable things.
Esther Morris helped get women the vote in Wyoming in 1869 and went on to become a judge in that State. I found a delightful animated semi-animated video version of this book if you want to watch.
I don't think many people have heard Gertrude Ederle's story and this book tells the story of her life in such a compelling way with the added bonus of fabulous illustrations.
E. Nesbit was a famous children's book author, but very few people (especially Americans) have heard of her or read her books. This illustrated and slightly abridged version of The Book of Beasts is one of my very favorites and it is truly marvelous when read aloud. If you have never read any E. Nesbit books, I highly recommend The Story of the Treasure Seekers and The Railway Children. You are in for a delightful read.
E. Nesbit - one of the first authors who wrote for children
We have been talking about The Sustainability Challenge in library this week with several grades. Sustainability and Renewable are big words. But WEF is sponsoring a STEM Expo on Saturday, April 8th and they have issued The Sustainability Challenge to all students living or going to school in Wellesley.
I've been reading this great book called, Green City: How One Community Survived a Tornado and Rebuilt for a Sustainable Future. Thank you to the Caiazzo Family for donating this book to the library.
This book is all about one small town in Kansas that was wiped out by a tornado and decided to rebuild as a green city. This true story is a great way to talk about what "going green" and "renewable energy" is all about.
Governor Baker mentioned the excellence of Massachusetts students in his State of the State address on January 23rd. Here are some ways that librarians help support students in their pursuit of skills and knowledge.
