According to my students, this is what our School Rules look like and sound like in the School Library

The first few weeks of school are spent establishing rules and creating routines. Given that I see about 520 students each week, I have streamlined this process slightly. I adopt our all school rules as our library classroom rules and then have the students share what living by each of those rules looks like and sounds like in our space. 

Each week, we read a book that helps start a discussion around one of the rules. The students then discuss and share their ideas for what it looks like (the actions they will take) and sounds like (the things they will be saying). I then condense all the student responses into common themes and ideas. 

This year, I had a parent help design the poster and went to the expense of getting them printed. They just arrived. and I am in love with them. I am so excited to have these posters hanging in our library reminding all of us of our school rules and guiding all of us on our learning journey. 

As part of our Responsive School Library Program, I plan to use their language to reinforce expected behaviors, like: "Students are showing that they know how to take care of each other by using kind and encouraging words." Stay tuned!

Poems about Ezra Jack Keats inspired by A Poem for Peter

A few weeks ago, the fourth graders and I read A Poem for Peter, written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Steve Johnson  and Lou Fancher.  You can read about the read aloud experience here. Seeing how moved the students were, I decided to turn it into a project about biographies and poetry. 

Step One:

The students began by exploring the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation webpage. 

They read about Ezra Jack Keats, they listened to people talking about the influence of his books, they explored the neighborhoods of and characters in his books. Embedded in the lesson was information on biographies and where and how to find them in our library.

Step Two:

Using A Poem for Peter for inspiration, the students used the information they gathered and their memories from the book to write poems about Ezra Jack Keats. This lesson also included a refresher on a few commons styles and forms of poetry. Having the dictionaries and thesauri in plain sight encouraged the students to dig a little deeper for juicy words.

Step Three:

The students decided how to illustrate the final draft of their poem. They could choose from collage, water color pencils, colored pencils, crayons, and markers. 

I will post the finished poems next week!

5th Graders' shark research yields many interesting facts...

My fifth grade students spent the few weeks leading up to the break researching sharks while also learning about being good digital citizens. You can read about the project at its outset here. 

Working in pairs or small groups, the students crafted a researchable question about sharks. Using our library resources they worked to find answers to their questions. This project provided an opportunity to practice using our note taking and sources documents: 

They then presented what they learned on a Google Slide (or more if they wanted). The students used Britannica ImageQuest to find an image that reinforced the content of their slide. Being good digital citizens they also worked on presenting their information in a clear and concise manner. (We talk a lot about not letting the message get lost in the medium.)

A huge thank you to Heather Lang for the inspiration for this project. We started off by reading her new book, Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark. 

Both narrative and art shine in this very cool and engaging biography.  I had never heard of Eugenie Clark prior to reading the biography. The students in my school are likely tired of me talking about the power of the picture book biography to inspire and inform. Heather Lang does a wonderful job of balancing her narrative by providing enough details about Eugenie's life to understand her contributions while also giving insight into the personality and character traits that made her successful in her ventures. The author's note fills in a few more important details about Eugenie's life, details which got a few of my students fired up about the obstacles she faced.

Jordi Solano's beautiful (in both depth and detail) illustrations make the reader feel as if he or she is swimming with the sharks, bringing us right into Eugenie's world. The images of Eugenie portray her as the serious scientist she was.

Below are the slides my students created. Thanks for taking the time to watch!

Please share your feedback. What did you learn from them? What did they do well? 

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Student reflection and feedback on this project:

 

What else should I know

to make this project better in the future?

I would like this project to be a little longer

Let people choose their own partners.

I think we should use powerpoint in the future.

Make sure that everyone is doing work and including each other and letting everyone do the work.

Nothing! Just do it more in the future

Choose a different topic

Cool effects such as music and other things 

Cool effects such as music and other things

Give more time to create the slide but otherwise the project was great.

You should have more time to make it.

well I loved the idea of letting us feel more free, but I think next time we should have a more engaging topic.

nothing

I think the topic we were researching (in this case shark) should be something else. I already know a lot about sharks because of my sister

larger slides!

more freedom

to have everyone use the same source

I think you should give us a bigger project to complete and more time.

Make this project more fun.

nothing

More freedom 

We should work on something we want to research on and get to pick our partners

Use google images from the research tool

Maybe a little more time to develop presenting/more practice time

A little bit more explaining but otherwise I really enjoyed it!

I think the project would be even better if all the computers worked. Thanks!

To get all the computers to work

you should let us pick the topic that we research and pick our OWN partners that we will work well with.

Let people pick the subject they want

It wasn't my favorite project.

I can see that this project helped students feel more confident as digital citizens and that we need to spend more time on citing sources. Opening up the topics would have made many of them happier, but I think keeping it contained for this project was a good choice. 

ReedALOUD: We Found a Hat

The existential hat journey continues! Jon Klassen finishes the trilogy in classic Klassen style with with We Found a Hat. 

Were we expecting answers? Of course not. Were we expecting another book that would get us thinking? Of course we were!

I am eager to read all three stories with my second graders and have them react/reflect/respond. I would love to know what these students think happens after the last page, taking advantage of that emotional and imaginative space that Jon Klassen leaves for readers' imaginations. That will have to wait though. Today, my kindergarten students and I read We Found a Hat.

This hat story is presented in three chapters. This format adds to the story arc. It also puts emphasis on the time of day and this is a day that I would like to be a part of! Not only are these turtles best friends, they are partaking in some of my favorite activities: exploring nature, watching a sunset, and sleeping under the stars. This is a perfect day in my books! Klassen uses a color palate that perfectly captures the mood of and moments in the story. What stands out is that incredible sunset. It is serene and stunning. 

A dilemma ensues. Two friends. One hat. 

They decide to leave it where they found it.

But... one friend is having a hard time not thinking about that hat.

Those eyes are glued to that hat. 

What will they do? I don't know, but my kindergarten students have some fabulous ideas.

If fan art is any indication, my kindergarten students completely understood the importance of those eyes.