Scrolling back through the photos on my phone - wow, what a full year it's already been, and it's only the beginning of November! I'm just so grateful to work with the amazing students and staff at my wonderful school!
Went back to an oldie, but goodie - Quiver Vision app to make our Dot Day come to life with virtual reality. I gave students the option to donate their dot to our display, if they didn't want to take it with them. I've seen cute, color-coordinated Dot Day displays on Pinterest, but I LOVE letting the kids express themselves and make a dot that is uniquely theirs.
Last year's 5th Grade Class Legacy Project donated enough money to buy our library 2 sets of Cubetto and some new, non-fiction books! Both kindergarten and first grade have already done coding in the library! Students coded routines, and subroutines, to move Cubetto around the map. The excitement in their voices is priceless!
I added a fun lesson for second graders, where they practiced looking up call #s and going to the shelf where the call # is. They looked on the top of the shelf, and wrote down the secret word, which created a silly, nonsense sentence. They were completely into practicing this, otherwise boring skill, in their quest to find the next silly word! I made 4 different sets, so they actually had to do the work of locating their call #s. They couldn't just follow the group next to them.
I shifted some lessons around in my vertical continuum, to do more author studies in 1st and 2nd grade, earlier in the year. In 1st grade, we looked at author Jack Chabert, a pen name for Max Brallier. His Eerie Elementary books, practically flew off the early chapter book shelf. They've become just as popular as Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We also looked at picture books and novels by Doreen Cronin. In 2nd grade, we already looked at and read books by Grace Lin and Kate DiCamillo.
(Students drew costumes on pigs, to make costumes for Mercy Watson.)
I also moved the reference materials lessons, for the upper grade students, (3rd, 4th, and 5th) into earlier in the year. That way, I would have more time to reinforce those key terms like: atlas, economic map, physical map, political map, almanac, encyclopedia, volume, periodical, entry words, guide words, etc. I've also worked on doing "citing our sources" lessons already, to help solidify the words: citation, attribute, copyright, and bibliography into their minds.
Genrefying the fiction section is well underway, thanks to our 5 wonderful parent volunteers, and thanks to substitutes who come in and help, periodically.
We're all the way up to the "F" part of the fiction section!
I'd estimate about 1,000 books done, and 3,000 more to go!
I've been doing a better job of incorporating Osmo into our lessons. Kindergarten used it during a center, to practice sounding out the first letter in words. Other classes have used it as a Makerspace option. They've played the letter, words, and Tangram games.
Our PTO parents ran our fall, Scholastic Book Fair, that wrapped up this week. They did a FABULOUS job of decorating with this year's theme: Arctic - It's Snow Much Fun to Read!
Fifth grade helpers picked out a cute bulletin board idea for November. I had this Scaredy Squirrel look-alike laminated, so that we can use him again in the future. So cute!
Our new library furniture came from Ernie Morris! My principal helped me get some of the monies from PTO, and she funded the rest with school funds. It looks SO much better than the worn pieces that were in there. Added bonus - these have a higher clearance at the bottom, so when/if something is dropped and rolls underneath, you can actually reach under there and get it.
Our school put on a 5K Fundraiser in support of one of our families. Their oldest son, who had just graduated high school, was the victim of a severe car accident. He is recovering, but the journey is long. Two of his siblings are still students at our school, so we all rallied to support the family with our presence. I was fortunate enough to walk the 5K with our Instructional Coach.
And lastly, I'm anxiously anticipating getting the courses I need on Monday, November 18th, when registration opens at University of West Georgia. Starting my Ed.S. program in Instructional Technology in January, 2020! Super excited to be going back to school!
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