Vaccinated!

Oh my goodness!  I found a draft of a blog post from back when I got my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.  I was so excited and relieved to receive it!  I was proudly, fully vaccinated as of mid-March.  In the original draft, started a summary run-down of all the lessons I had been doing with students, but only managed to get through kindergarten and first grade.  To the draft, I added on what I did with students for the rest of spring 2021.  

I do have to say, I am so proud of all of teachers everywhere for our efforts, our love, our devotion, and our perseverance in the face of truly difficult times this school year.  We made it to the end of a year to be proud of, building relationships, teaching students, and growing as professionals!

Without further ado, here are my lessons:

Kindergarten:  

• We made puppets of Kevin Henkes' characters from Egg, after reading the book together and learning about how he uses his typewriter, his Sharpie, and his water colors to create his illustrations.  The kids loved making and then playing with their chicks and alligator puppets! 
• Then we did a little STEM fun by building our own tents from 5 toothpicks, some sticky tack, and paper.  Everyone got the same materials and the same directive:  Build a tent.  We all observed that the tent in Lucy Cousins' Maisy Goes Camping book looked to be made up of a rectangle and a triangle, and then students got to work manipulating their supplies to make a tent of their own design!  
• We looked at artwork by Molly Coxe and read aloud one of her phonics books.  Students used Wixie to practice their typing skills.  They learned about how to make an uppercase/capital letter, to only put one space between each word, and how to add a period at the end of a short, phonics sentence.  
• We read Jonathan Fenske's A Pig, A Fox, and a Box and giggled along.  Then we identified some rhyming pairs and used Wixie to type and draw those rhyming pairs.

• We laughed along with Ame Dyckman's You Don't Want a Unicorn and used Wixie to type up our own story for why we wouldn't want a dragon!  (Just added her book, You Don't Want a Dragon! to our collection.)
• We created our own 10 black dot drawings, like Donald Crews did in his book Ten Black Dots.  We looked at his many other books that our library owns.

• We listened to Christian Robinson read us Last Stop on Market Street and followed his guided drawing lesson to draw our own buses.
• We laughed and giggled during Kelly Bingham's story, Z is for Moose and began work on a Wixie ABC Book that gave us the opportunity to practice typing a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence and putting a period at the end.  We also practiced only placing one space between each word as we flexed our creativity for what each letter could be.  We also enjoyed learning about Lois Ehlert's books and hearing Eating the Alphabet.  (A kindergarten teacher who had a virtual class this year, saw the ABC Book because her daughter attended face-to-face and was so excited about it from my class that she wanted to work on it after school!  I shared it with the virtual teacher, and she was able to utilize it with her online students!!)

First Grade:

• We listened to Drew Daywalt read us his book, The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors and then created our own versions complete with hand signals.  It took a lot of critical thinking to be sure each item beat one other item.
• We learned about how Cynthia Rylant gets ideas for books from her life and growing up in the country, and then cut out beautiful snowflakes after hearing her book Snow.
• We heard Lucille Colandro tell us about her writing process and then listened to There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow.  We used Wixie to take a selfie and build our own "I swallowed a..." stories.  
• We also learned all about Doreen Cronin's picture books and early chapter books, and then did some PebbleGo research on worms or spiders.  Students made THE.BEST. stories in Wixie, adding narration and music!  
• We also took a journey into Nutancia to learn all about artificial intelligence!  We used a curriculum created by Meor Amer to learn that machines have sensors that collect data.  The more data we give our machines, the better they can predict and learn.  Students learned fundamental information about artificial intelligence, and imagined what they might invent in the future that utilizes artificial intelligence.  To wrap up our 10 lessons, I had students create a "My Artificial Intelligence Book" in Wixie.  

Second Grade:

• We learned about Melanie Watt and how she does her artwork, and then created our own Scaredy Squirrel puppet after watching some book trailers and reading Scaredy Squirrel.
• We celebrated Lunar New Year by listening to Grace Lin read to us from Ling and Ting:  Twice as Silly and hearing the story Bringing in the New Year.  We then followed Grace Lin's tutorial on drawing our own Chinese dragon.
  
  
  
• We listened to a read aloud of Andrea Beaty's Sophia Valdez:  Future Prez and then used Scratch.org to learn a bit about coding so that we could code our own playground scene.
• We learned about Herman and Peggy Parish and listened to a read aloud of Amelia Bedelia Chalks One Up.  We learned about idioms and then explored the features of Pixton.com to create our own idiom cartoon strip!

• We listened to Steve Jenkins read aloud from his book Earth by the Numbers and began using Britannica School and Google Drawing to create an infographic.  We learned about font and color choice; how to add, format, and recolor icons, and the importance of citing our sources.  

Third Grade:

• We reviewed how to be a Super Digital Citizen by discussing the importance of not only making safe choices for ourselves, but also encouraging and assisting others in making safe digital choices.  (We used a Nearpod created by Common Sense Media.  Made it so easy and fun!)

• We listened to Paul Goble's The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses and began Nearpod's "Traditional Homes and Dwellings" to review why/how indigenous Americans built their homes.  We also listened to Monique Gray Smith's My Heart Fills With Happiness and Duncan Tonatiuh's The Princess and the Warrior as we worked our way through the Nearpod.  Students love, love, loved taking virtual field trips around the world to view present-day homes to compare/contrast to Native American homes!
• We reviewed how to research in Britannica School, how to paraphrase, and the importance of citing sources as we created a Google Slideshow to share information about a major U.S. river or mountain.  (I purposefully tried to tie in these social studies standards to help students review before the state standardized tests.) Slideshows had to include a political map and students learned how to use "Explore" to make their slideshow look professional.

Fourth Grade:

• We listened to Lesa Cline-Ransome's book Game-Changers about Venus and Serena Williams.  Some of fourth grade worked on researching and creating a Google Drawing poster about a famous black American for Black History Month, and then the rest of fourth grade created their Google Drawing poster about a famous woman for Women's Herstory Month.  Students that finished their posters in time, and cited their sources, had them printed and hung up on the library bulletin board.

• We also reviewed how to be a Super Digital Citizen, like third grade (See section above.).
• We listened to Margarita Engle's All the Way to Havana and completed a Nearpod virtual field trip to Cuba.  
• We also learned about Newberry books and how to locate them in the library.  Many students got excited about reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, thanks to a BrainPop movie about it!
• We reviewed how to research in Britannica School, how to paraphrase, and the importance of citing sources as we created a Google Slideshow to share information about the major physical features of the United States.  (Again, I purposefully pulled in social studies standards to help review before state testing.)  Slideshows had to include a political map and students learned how to use "Explore" to make their slideshow look professional.

Fifth Grade

• We wrapped up activities from Georgia Picture Book Nominees by building a rubber band race car to go with Matthew Cherry's Hair Love book.  We also listened to Sandra Neil Wallace's book, Between the Lines:  How Ernie Barnes Went from the Football Field to the Art Gallery.
• We listened to several other good books by Allen Say, Magarita Engle, and Kevin Noble Mallard to inspire students as they used Scratch.org to create their own book trailer videos on Scratch.org.

All grade-levels, having worked so hard during the school year, got to do a choice board of activities during their last rotation.  Students did everything from origami to coding to Wixie Choice board activities to simply reading or listening to books.  

It was one jam-packed, full year, and despite all the extra work due to Covid rules, another great one! 

p.s.  I finished my 3rd semester of my Educational Specialist degree in Instructional Technology through The University of West Georgia.  Three more classes this summer, and then I graduate!