Thanks Coach Sloth

Last month (I'm a little behind!) we welcomed author Coach Ryan Sloth. Coach Sloth has written several books about his character Sammy Sloth. I was able to share these books with students before he came in, and they thought they were awesome!

We also did some research about sloths using Britannica Online and posted them out in the hallway for Ryan to see when he came in. Our 1st-3rd graders listened to or read the article on sloths, and picked out their favorite facts to write down. The fourth graders used Keynote on their iPads to insert a picture and some facts.

We were able to amaze Coach Sloth with all we knew about sloths.

The kids really enjoyed hearing about Coach Sloth's history with football, movies and how he decided to become an author. He has inspired a few of our students, who have showed me books that they are writing. He also inspired me! I wrote a book about a year ago, and hadn't done anything with it, but recently I've started sending it out to publishers and literary agents. We are all thankful to Ryan for joining us, and inspiring us!

Hour of Code

This past week, we joined in with millions of other students around the world and participated in the Hour of Code. Granted, we didn't complete the full hour because of scheduling, but the kids enjoyed it all the same. It was quite possibly the quietest I've ever seen some of them, and then there were others shouting suggestions across the room. I absolutely loved it, and I think that the students did too.

We are lucky because we have opportunities for elementary, middle, and high school students to participate in robotics through FIRST which includes programming. The elementary and middle school students use a drag-and-drop programming software, and the high school students use more of a linear code with RobotC, and some drag/drop with LabView. I am also hoping to start up a programming club using iPad apps after school in the Spring.

These three 5th graders finished the first 20 lessons in under 30 minutes. They are rockstars. Two of them are programmers for our Lego League team, and we're going to recruit the third one!

The code.org games were by far the favorite, since they featured angry birds and plants vs. zombies. Some of the students played with Tynker, as well.

Overall, this was a super fun experience, and I'm hoping we make this an annual thing!

We Are Thankful For....

At the end of November we spent some time during library talking about things we are thankful for. We put a big turkey on the wall, and students cut out their handprint and wrote some things they are thankful for on it.

Our turkey looked a bit like a peanut before he got his feathers, but he turned out cute!

This was another one of my favorites: thankful for his bff's.

I enjoyed this one!

I appreciate that Keara wrote that she was thankful that her family's money. 

This 3rd graders was thankful for myself and Mrs. Smith, the library associate, and for one of his friends. He earned some good brownie points here!

Books!! Success!!

Frog Research to End Marty McGuire

As part of the Global Read Aloud, our 1st graders read Marty McGuire. I was nervous that the book would be a little bit over their heads, but the students did a great job. I am also very thankful to their teachers for volunteering to read aloud the book in their classrooms and to let me do the fun connecting in the library.

To wrap up the project this week, the first graders used Britannica Online to research frogs, since frogs are Marty's favorite animal. We started with a sheet to take notes on that looked like this:

The students were able to listen and follow along with the article on Britannica using their iPads. I love that the read-aloud feature works! As they read, they would pause the article and write down the facts they learned. Some kids had a FULL sheet of notes, I was so impressed!

Then, I showed them how to use Educreations to insert photos and to record their notes. Educreations isn't perfect, but I do love the final products. 

And here they are! I think these all turned out really well, and the kids had a great time watching them in class on Friday.

1st Quarter Newsletter

Our first quarter came to an end 2 weeks ago. One of my goals for this school year was to complete a library newsletter to send home with K-6 elementary students each quarter. It took me awhile, partially due to not saving the first one I created, but it is finished! 

3rd Grade Book Reviews

3rd graders in Mrs. Redenbaugh's room created iMovies about pictures books of their choice.

First, we picked and read books. Then, we filled out a storyboard. I created a story board with 6 boxes: title, beginning, middle, problem, solution and ending. In the box, they drew a picture and underneath they wrote words to describe that part of the story.

Usually, a book trailer wouldn't give away the solution or the end, but I wanted them to show all the parts of the plot. Next time we create these, we'll leave the trailer hanging with a question.

These turned out great for our first big project of the year!

First Skype Calls of the Year

As I mentioned, we are participating in the Global Read Aloud again this year. I simply love this project, and I am glad so many teachers at my school have partnered with me to make this a fun and successful project for the students.

The 6th graders were anxiously awaiting a call from Mr. McCleary's class in Buford, Ontario.

First, each class presented three facts about where we are from. It turns out, we live in very similar small towns. Both of our towns are rural and rely on farming, and we have the Wapsi river, while they have the Great Lakes close by. 

Then, we wrote about how we'd feel if we were Melody and couldn't walk or talk or control our body movements. Several students shared things that they would miss doing. It is really easy to think about the physical limitations--not being able to play sports, etc, but we also talked about the mental frustrations Melody must experience since she is so, so smart, but no one knows. Being able to speak and communicate is something that we all decided we take for granted.

Our 4th graders got to chat with a class from Noblesville, Indiana. We had a few connection issues, but we were still able to tell a few facts about our school and listen to theirs. 

We also shared our thoughts about the book so far. We are excited to keep this connection going with Ms. Mertens this week--we are Skyping again tomorrow! 

First graders got to meet Ms. Murphy's class in Wisconsin this morning. 

Both classes had prepared 3 questions based on the reading to ask the other class. At first, we were a little shy and no one wanted to talk, but by the end we had opened up! Hopefully we will get to do this again soon! 

Global Read Aloud

I am so excited about the upcoming Global Read Aloud project. We have participated in the GRA the past two years, but this year there are more students worldwide, and more students in our school participating.



During the Global Read Aloud, students all around the world read the same book in their classes. This year, 1st-3rd grade students are reading Marty McGuire by Kate Messner. The 4th-6th graders are reading Out of My Mind  by Sharon Draper. Both are excellent books that I can't wait to get started on!







We have 10 out of 12 of our 1st-6th elementary classrooms participating. They will be reading the books in their classrooms with their classroom teachers and making connections throughout the country and world during their library time. We have connections in Hawaii, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Washington, Canada, other Iowa towns and several others already!

To make connections, we use Edmodo, Kidblog and Skype. Edmodo is a safe social network, built for students and teachers. All groups are password protected to ensure safety. Kidblog is a place where kids can write blogs that are moderated by the teacher. We will be using Skype for video-conferencing. This week we started out by writing introductory posts about ourselves and our school and our predictions about the books after watching book trailers. I love seeing the kids connect with other kids, and they think its so cool when anyone responds to them!

I am very thankful for our classroom teachers that have volunteered to do the reading part in their classrooms, and we are all excited to get started on the project next week! We have a Skype set up with Canadian 6th graders, and one with kids from Iowa!

Happy Dot Day!

This past week and a half we've been celebrating Dot Day which is based on the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. We watched the story on BookFlix and then discussed ways that we could make our mark on the world in both big ways and in small ways.

I didn't know this, but the Disney Channel has been running short commercials or PSAs about making your mark. The kids had seen several of them and they gave us a great discussion about how kids can make a difference and make their mark. I found a playlist of them online, and there are some great stories.

After brainstorming as a class, each student filled out one of these "Make Your Mark" papers with something that they could do to make a difference. I told students that it could be something as small as helping your mom or dad set the table for dinner to as big as what they want to be when they grow up.

Our kids had lots of great ideas. Some of them made me tear up. A few kids wrote about going into the Army and fighting for our freedom and a few wrote that they want to be teachers. Several also chose service positions, such as police or firefighters, and some wrote about working in hospitals as doctors and nurses and radiologists. I love that even our youngest kids are thinking about these things and have dreams in mind for when they grow up. I also loved reading the ones that focused more on the present and wrote about being a good friend, or helping brothers and sisters or parents. There was also one that simply said, "I want to do the little things." I had talked to them about how even little things can make a big difference, even if they only make a difference to one person. I told them about how I rescued a kindergartner last week in the commons during the crazy time before school when we have K-12 students in there at the same time, and explained that doing that was an easy, simple thing, but that really helped out this little guy. I truly believe that the "little" things are some of the biggest things in life.

After filling out that paper, kids colored dots. Many of them chose to use the dot coloring page from the ColAR website and a few used plain paper. I bought some new watercolor color pencils that you dip in water to give it the effect of watercolor paints. Those were really fun!

Here's a video of just a few of our dots & ways that we hope to make a mark! The rest of these are on display in the hallway outside the library.

Summer Readers

Yesterday morning, I invited all of the students who had turned in their summer reading forms to come to the library to pick up their prizes.

For summer reading this year, I handed out a Genre BINGO form. Students wrote the titles of books they read into the corresponding boxes and turned the sheet in in the first week of school.

Because of all our early outs and crazy schedules we had to keep pushing back the prize handouts, but we finally got to it Thursday morning. Those of you who know me know how much I love Target, and I especially love their dollar spot. I'd been collecting things from the dollar spot throughout the summer: bags, pencils, erasers, bookmarks, stickers, books, etc. As a prize for turning in a sheet, students got a bag full of those goodies. Students who accomplished a blackout received a gift card to Barnes & Noble, courtesy of PTO.

I took the basic template for our Wildcat's Read teacher posters and turned them into student certificates.

The goodie bags--thanks Target!

I'm very thankful that our PTO has sponsored the summer reading program again!

And here they are! Congrats to these readers!

First QR Codes of the Year

Scanning QR codes is one of my kids' favorite things to do. This year, I decided to use QR codes to link to the AEA resources that we'll be using throughout the year. That way, they have them to use in their classrooms, as well as here in the library.

I created codes for Student News, iClipart, Britannica Online, GALE Infobits, TrueFlix, and NetTrekker. I also created one for the library website. Kids went around to each table and scanned the codes, then added the site as a button on their home screen. When they were finished, they put those bookmarks, plus Destiny Quest and Follett Reader into a folder. We should be set!