Week of January 11, 2010

It's mighty cold outside and I have so many great books to share with our students. The suspense is rising in kindergarten when we read Something is Going to Happen by Charlotte Zolotow. We will also enjoy Pip & Squeak by Ian Schoenherr and Geraldine's Big Snow by Holly Keller.

Chris Van Allsburg is an amazing author and illustrator of fifteen children's book, many of which your children will hear before they leave M.E.S. This week in second grade we will discuss the achievements of Chris Van Allsburg, including two Caldecott medals for Jumanji and The Polar Express and we will read The Z Was Zapped.

In the beginning of November our first graders were introduced to author and illustrator Marc Brown, creator of the Arthur books. We learned then that Mr. Brown likes to hide the names of his children, Tucker, Tolon and Eliza, in his illustrations. This week, we will read Locked in the Library by Marc Brown and then we have plenty of Arthur books to go around so we'll do illustration searches to find Tolon, Eliza and Tucker's names.

We are continuing on with our biographies in third grade. We will touch base with the third graders that chose their biographies last week to see if anyone needs more materials to complete their project. Then we will read a biography on Snowshoe Thompson.

An exciting addition has come to our media center...a SMARTboard!!! After a very successful Scholastic Book Fair in the fall, we were able to purchase it with our profits. So again, thank you for your support. If you are not familiar with the SMARTboard, it is an amazing interactive learning tool. I'm counting on the 4th graders to teach me how to use it! We will again practice our use of Alexandra cataloging computer system and locating resources in the library. Everyone will get a turn!

Week of January 4, 2010

Happy New Year!

We'll be talking about the weather in kindergarten for the next couple of weeks. We will read some non-fiction in How Do You Know It's Winter? by Allan Fowler and When Winter Comes by Robert Maass. We'll also read Snowballs by Lois Ehlert and get lots of ideas for making the perfect snowman...so let it snow!!!

We have a new season, a new month and a new year. We'll discuss all of those and then read some wintry books. First some non-fiction: Ice by Helen Frost, and then Snow, a Caldecott Honor book by Uri Shulevita and Stephen Gammell's Is That You, Winter? We'll also have plenty of time to check out some wintertime books!

 

We wrapped up 2009 in second grade with author and illustrator Jan Brett and that is how we'll begin 2010. Ask your child what makes her illustrations different from others. Our story this week is Berlioz the Bear, a delightful story about Berlioz who is supposed to play his double bass in the village square at eight. But there is a strange buzz coming from his instrument. What could it be? Hmmm! We will watch the video of this book paying special attention to the background music from Flight of the Bumblebee.

The time has come to start the third grade biography projects! This week Mrs. Schenck and Mrs.Wilson's students will peruse the biographies in our library and choose a famous person that they would like to learn more about. Our remaining third grade classes will not choose their biographies until the week of February 1st, therefore we will read together the biography of Snowflake Bentley, the beautifully illustrated Caldecott Medal winner about the first man who was able to photograph snowflakes. We will also get to view his snowflake photographs in Mr. Bentley's non-fiction book Snow Crystals.

We've got some housekeeping items to take care of in fourth grade this week. Our first item of business will be to make sure everyone has completed and taken their blue dot test on their December book of the month. We are then going to have some review time about how our library is set up, looking up books by title, author or subject in our Alexandria computer cataloging system, and where to locate our book. Alexandria is the same system that is used at Madeira Middle School too, so by the time these students hit that library, they'll be old pros! Finally, the students will be encouraged to choose their January book of the month.

Week of December 14, 2009

While it hurts my feelings, it is very exciting for the students when they get to watch a book on video rather than have me read to them.  These poor deprived kindergartners have not had that treat yet! And so, this week they will get to watch Morris's Disappearing Bag and Max's Christmas by Rosemary Wells.

Two weeks ago, the first graders heard some bear stories while we discussed hibernation patterns.  This week, Bear is back and we'll read Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson. We'll also revisit a favorite author, Eric Carle and we will read Dream Snow.

Author and illustrator Jan Brett's books are so much fun to read and learn about the borders that she uses in her illustrations. In second grade we are going to enjoy her version of The Night Before Christmas.  We will then be entertained by Lewis and Gilbert in Jingle Bells, Homework Smells by Diane DeGroat.

We will read one more Patricia Polacco book this week, Uncle Vova's Tree. This is a beautiful Christmas story that I'm sure the third graders will love.  They have really enjoyed all of the Patricia Polacco books that we've been reading.  They'll be sad that we won't be reading another Patricia Polacco book until springtime!

Since fourth grade was researching during their library time

last week, we'll need to cover both a Hanakkah and a Christmas story. We will first read One Candle by Eve Bunting. This is a beautiful story that really gives the students a history lesson too.  Then we will lighten things up by reading A New Improved Santa by Patricia Rae Wolff.

 

Week of December 8, 2009

Our good friend Biscuit celebrates it all!  Kindergartners will learn about Christmas and Hanukkah traditions when we read Happy Hanukkah, Biscuit! and Merry Christmas, from Biscuit by Alyssa Satin Capucilli.

For first graders, author Eric Kimmel has not only the dreidels spinning, but he also spins quite a tale in The Magic Dreidels. This tells a great story while teaching about the traditions of the Hanukkah holiday.  We'll also revisit our favorite friends by Cynthia Rylant when we read Henry and Mudge and a Very Merry Christmas.

A favorite Hanukkah story is Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel. Second grade will hear how Hershel perseveres and saves Hanukkah for his village.

I mentioned last month that we would read many Patricia Polacco books throughout this year and this week it will be The Trees of the Dancing Goats. This is a beautiful story of a family who celebrates Hanukkah but when they find that their neighbors who celebrate Christmas become very ill with scarlet fever, they do what they can for them so they will be able to celebrate their holiday too.

Fourth graders have a tall order to fill...next week they will be teaching the teachers! So we'll use this week for research and preparation.  They will be using the internet, books and any other reference material that they can find to research wind turbines, hydro-power, solar power, alternative fuels, recycling and anything else about going green! And why are they teaching their teachers?!! I think it has something to do with their musical that is coming up next week!

Week of November 30, 2009

Several weeks ago I went down to the Books By the Banks event at the convention center and had so much fun seeing new books, meeting authors and illustrators and getting autographed books for our library. Some of our lessons this week feature these new books:  Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep! , Dewey:  There’s a Cat in the Library! and  One Fine Trade. 

Kindergartners are going to be exploring the alphabet in the library for a while. We’ll start off with the fun and interactive book Amazing Alphabet! With Fantastic Flaps written by Richard Edwards and illustrated by Susan Hendra.  Students always have enjoy this ABC lesson!  And we have lots of wonderful alphabet books that your child can choose from to check out of the library.

 

           

Bears, bears, bears! It’s almost wintertime and our bear friends should be bedding down.  First grade classes will read some hibernation non-fiction and then Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep! by Maureen Wright and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand and also Bear Snores On written by Karma Wilson with pictures by Jane Chapman.

 

Dewey: There’s a Cat in the Library! co-authored by Vicki Myron and Bret Witter is irresistible even to a dog lover like me and I think the second graders are going to love it too!  This is based on the non-fiction version of the adult book Dewey.  Author Bret Witter tells me that soon we should be seeing a teen version of this book on the shelves too. And for the record, I’m an animal lover, but terribly allergic to cats!

 

 

 

We will hear one last Native American story in third grade.  Reading Rainbow featured The Gift of the Sacred Dog by Paul Goble so we’ll get to watch that on video and then it is followed by a real pow-wow that the students will see.  I know that they have learned so much in this unit from their studies in the classroom, the speaker that came to visit and the field trip that they went on last week. 

 

One Fine Trade retold by Bobbi Miller and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand is the story that fourth graders will hear this week.  We will be paying close attention to the illustrations in this book and how Mr. Hillenbrand portrays actions, thoughts, size and conversation in this hilarious tale.

 

 

 

November 18, 2009 - November 24, 2009

Thank you for your support of our Scholastic Book Fair! This has been the most successful book fair that we have ever hosted!!

It's all about Thanksgiving this week!!!

In Kindergarten we will read If You Give a Moose A Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff and one of my favorite Eve Bunting books, A Turkey For Thanksgiving with wonderful illustrations by Diane deGroat.

Last week in first grade we met Marc Brown, author and illustrator of the Arthur books. We learned that Mr. Brown hides the names of his children in the illustrations of his books. This week we will read Arthur's Thanksgiving and then we'll take some time to find Tolin, Tucker and Eliza's names in the pictures. We will also read the final chapter of Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon by Cynthia Rylant.

 

 

Second graders will be revisiting Dav Pilkey when we read 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. We will also read the very funny book Sometimes It's Turkey-Sometimes It's Feathers by Lorna Balian. The children are always fascinated by the lack of color in the illustrations-just brown, black and white, but still such great pictures!

We are continuing with Native American stories in the third grade. This

week we will discuss pourquoi stories, that is a story that explains why something is the way it is. For example, this week we will learn How Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joseph and James Bruchac

Who wrote two dozen books? Who wrote hundreds of poems including Mary Had a Little Lamb? And who wrote thousands of letters to many politicians including President Zachary Taylor, President Millard Fillmore, President Franklin Pierce, President James Buchanan until 

finally President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a National Holiday? Sarah Hale did! Fourth graders will learn of this ambitious woman in Thank you, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, written by Laurie Halse Anderson, a distant relative of Sarah Hale's.                                  

Week of November 9, 2009

Each week for our kindergarten lessons we usually have a combination of fiction and non-fiction. This past week the students were encouraged to choose a non-fiction book to check out of the library. They were amazed at all the different subjects there were! This week our lesson is going to be all non-fiction just to try to help them grasp the scope of topics. We'll read Sea Horses by Lola Schaefer, Ohio by Christine Taylor-Butler, Being Active by Mari Schuh and because we strive to be topical, Thanksgiving by David F. Marx.

In first grade we'll meet author and illustrator Marc Brown, creator of Arthur. We'll watch a short video segment of Marc Brown explaining what it takes to be an author and illustrator, how he gets his ideas and what he hides in his illustrations. We'll then take a look at his biography and read Arthur's Nose, the first book that Marc Brown wrote.

'Tis the season to talk about germs!! In Germs Make Me Sick! by Melvin Berger we will learn how we get germs and how they travel through our bodies and from person to person. We'll also review what we can do to stay healthy. And then for fun we'll read Farm Flu written by Teresa Bateman and illustrated by Nadie Bernard Westcott.

In the third grade classrooms the students have been studying Native Americans. Anytime that we can tie into the classroom curriclum, that's a positive. We will be looking at several Native American legends. These are multi-tiered lessons because it allows us first to define a legend and then to revisit our cataloging system in the library and where we would find legends and fables in our non-fiction collection. This week I will read Sootface:  An Ojibwa Cinderella Story by Robert San Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci.

The fourth graders have done a terrific job learning how to navigate the world atlas! We will review the atlas later in the year, but we're going to put it to rest for a while. They've worked hard so this week they will get a bit of a break and read the book The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. We'll also watch a short video This Land is Your Land sung by Arlo Guthrie. This is followed by a biographical section about Woody Guthrie who wrote the song This Land is Your Land, narrated by his daughter Kathy Jakobsen.

Week of November 2, 2009

The M.E.S. Scholastic Book Fair is on November 11 & 12! Students in grades 1-4 will make their book fair wish lists this week. Don't forget to ask for it at the main table in the hallway when you come for conferences.

Our kindergarten students will be introduced to author and illustrator Mercer Mayer. As time permits we will read There's a Nightmare in My Closet, There's an Alligator Under My Bed, and There's Something in My Attic.  The children will then have an opportunity to check out a Mercer Mayer book from the library.  Please help your child remember to return their borrowed book.  Mrs. Mayer and Mrs. Bell's class come to the library on Monday and Mrs. Blanck's students come on Friday.

In grades 1 - 4 this week, each class will hear a "book talk" given by one of their classmates. This will be a Book Fair book that a student has read and they will give their review to the class.  We will also take a few minutes to fill out Wish Lists.  Special thanks to our fourth grade students who will be helping our first grade students make their Wish Lists.  

Parents:  

Be assured that we stress that these are "Wish Lists" as opposed to "I'm Going to Get Lists!"

 

Week of October 26, 2009

October is fire prevention month and the kindergartners have met some firemen, seen the fire trucks and gone through the smokehouse.  We're still going to read one more book on fire safety called Crawl Low Under Smoke by Lucia Raatma.  But it is Halloween week so we'll have some fun too reading one of my favorites,  The Little Old Lady WhoWas Not Afraid of

Anything, written by Linda Williams.  We'll learn how pumpkins grow by reading Pumpkin Pumpkin by author and illustrator Jeanne Titherington and then one more dash of non-fiction when we read Jack-o-Lanterns by Lola Schaefer.

Things are going to be a little batty in first grade! We'll first read Zipping, Zapping, Zooming Bats by Ann Earle.  We'll learn how bats use echolocation to hunt, their hibernation patterns, and how they play a vital part in our environment. Then on to the fun stuff when we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! by Lucille Colandro...always a hit with the kids!

In a second grader's mind, nothing is better than beginning to read chapter books! 

This week they'll meet Minnie and Moo (more cows!) by Denys Cazet.  I'll read a couple chapters of Minnie and Moo:  The Night of the Living Bed, Minnie and Moo Meet Frankenswine  and Minnie an Moo and the Haunted Sweater - just enough to get them hooked!  We'll also meet author and illustrator Dav Pilkey when we read The Hallo-Wiener and Dragon's Halloween.

In January and February our third graders will do a report on a biography of their choice. Up until that time we will read quite a few biographies in class. This week we'll learn about the life of author James Stevenson as we read his autobiography When I Was Nine.  And then, in the spirit of Halloween, we will read Mr. Stevenson's thriller What's Under My Bed.

Fourth graders are still hitting that atlas hard!  This week we will be answering questions about the U.S.A. map and also a few on some of the other countries in the world. These are great exercises to learn how to properly use the Table of Contents and Index sections of reference books.  We'll wrap things up with some fun poetry by Daisy Wallace in Ghost Poems.

Week of October 19, 2009

• In kindergarten this week we read two non-fiction books entitled Scarecrows by authors Lola Schaefer and Calvin Harris.  We also read a story called The Shy Scarecrow by Mary Packard.  There are no kindergartners that have a scarecrow at their house...and neither does Mrs. Welt.

• First grade read one of my favorites Humbug Witch by Lorna Balian. We also featured author Cynthia Rylant by reading chapter 2 of Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon and Moonlight the Halloween Cat.  Cynthia Rylant is also the author of the Poppleton, Mr. Putter and Tabby and High-Rise Private Eyes series. Older readers will enjoy her Newberry Medal winning Missing May.

• The second grade classes are taking their field trip to U.D.F. Step 1 in making ice cream is the cow!  This week in library we read Cow written by Malachy Doyle with beautiful illustrations by Angelo Rinaldi.  It tells of a day in the life of a dairy cow. Our lesson then took a fun turn with The Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming and a video of the Caldecott Honor book Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin.

• For the Love of Autumn was thoroughly enjoyed by the third grade this week.  This was their first introduction to author and illustrator Patricia Polacco.  We will be reading Patricia Polacco's biography and reading many more of her books in the springtime. Many stories that she shares with us are written from her childhood memories.  Her books and illustrations have become favorites with me.

• Wow! The fourth graders have really impressed me with their map skills. We began our work with the Children's World Atlas in September during our study of 9/11 by locating New York City, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania. This week they had some really tough questions that they had to answer. No sweat!! Ask your child to tell you about the Antarctic Treaty, or what is the smallest country in Europe, or maybe locate the Great Barrier Reef.  If they can't tell you, just give them an atlas and they will be able to look it up for you!