Skip to main content

Wrap It Up!

Another great year is in the books!  Am already looking ahead toward next year, gathering ideas for genrifying sections of our library, but am definitely taking some time to relax, restore, and spend time with family.  

Here's a brief overview of happenings from March to May:

Thanks to the VERY supportive parents of our school, we held our Spring Follett Book Fair.  (I helped decorate a bit.)  While the set-up was super easy and they give 30% cash, we've decided to go back to Scholastic Book Fairs, until they build more Follett distribution centers near us, and/or hire more staff.  We missed having a regional person on-site, to ensure that we were getting the books we needed.    

I continued on with monthly Biblionasium Challenges, ending in the grand prize giveaway of 2 Paperwhite Kindles, donated by our local Zaxby's.  


Loads of more lessons for my K-5 kiddos, with an emphasis on a variety different authors: James Preller, Eric Carle, Lois Ehlert, Kate Messner, Leo Lionni, and Kevin Henkes, just to name a few.   

 
                              (I bought them some Eric Carle board games - LOVE!)


(Kindergarten & Autism enjoyed searching for birds from Feathers for Lunch!)

(Second grade used PicCollage to draw themselves Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner.)

(Kindergarten enjoyed Leo Lionni crafts and watercoloring, as well as building their own Pezzettino.)


(First grade drew their own Kevin Henkes mouse character, modeling it after Lily.)

Created a Nearpod on Guide Words, to teach 3rd, 4th, and 5th about them, and to give them time to practice before Georgia Milestones.  It was quite a mundane topic, but definitely something they hadn't had much practice with before.  Will have to consider how to introduce it earlier in the year, so as to repeat it again, so that students get more practice.  

Our school did a book character parade!  It wasn't my idea, but of course, I participated with one of my faves, Sandra Boynton's Pajama Time. (Any excuse to wear comfortable pajamas!)

Focused some lessons on poetry in April, of course!  Made several poetry centers:  haiku, rebus (magazines to cut and paste), shape (stencils), acrostic (could write a poem to leave and take someone else's), and free verse (built poems with blocks). 


Fourth grade reviewed parts of poems (stanza, verse, meter) and then created something for a poem that sparked joy for them.  LOVED to see what they came up with!  They also got up and read their poem to the class.  

Finally, with having to push into classrooms during testing, I had the students break into groups to practice and read aloud a standards-based drama from a Scholastic book I bought many years ago.  An easy way to review parts of a drama AND to get kids to practice their reading fluency!  They really got into it, making simple props and staging their scenes.  

Fifth grade Castle Apprentices helped me make this board for the end of the year.  Got the idea from Pinterest, and it turned out so cute! Didn't quite get them all back, but "Better to get back a reader than to get back a book" - Susan Grigsby.  


I don't have a picture of it, but our school already ordered and put up a bulletin board outside of the library.  It will have our 'Birthday Book Stars' on it, who donate to fund our library next year!  Hoping to get a bit more revenue to ramp up our Makerspace and the amount and frequency with which we can purchase more books for our readers!

Happy Summer!



Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fond Memories & On to Summer!

As always, I'm very far behind on posting, but I've finally combed through all of the photos and put them into Layout to share with you. Created a "Reading Helps Your Mind Bloom" book display, to leave up as state testing started.  I pulled lots of gardening, bees, and butterfly books. Plus, lots of potential parents came through at the end of the year for tours, so it was good to have this out to keep it from being too sterile as all the library books started coming back.     I did a "Hop Into a Great Book" display here to put an emphasis on some seldom-circulated books as well as to highlight nonfiction, though I also put out some fiction books too! Kept on teaching kindergarten and first graders about different authors.  I did create some very fun centers for Mo Willems.  As one paraprofessional said to me, "You're brave to do Play-Doh on carpet."  However, we didn't really have any issues when I gave the kids clear expec...
Post a Comment
Read more

Smile

Look at that shelf. Such disarray.  That's kind of how I felt around mid-August.  Pulled in too many directions.  On overload.  In need of a bookend to hold me up and set me straight.  (or, in need of more time in my day)  One week, I tried staying no later than 4 PM, and leaving undone what I couldn't accomplish, but that was stressful, too! I currently spend around 30 minutes everyday, either during classes, during planning, or after, afternoon car duty, to keep all of the books shelved.  I'm doing a better job of preventing the shelves from looking like the one pictured above.  (We've had 3 different moms come a collective six times to volunteer to help with shelving. Yay for Mrs. Stratton, who has come back multiple times!)  I implemented a new change this year, to allow 4th and 5th graders to re-shelve their own fiction or everybody/picture books.  That has helped! I also started a 5th grade program called "Castle Apprent...
2 comments
Read more

Summer Already

Wow.  I cannot believe that this year went by so quickly!  I also can't believe, though I shouldn't be surprised, that I haven't posted ANYTHING since October 2016!  Here's a quick, catch-up of relevant events with captions.  :) Third grade's CultureGrams projects turned out really well.  They worked feverishly, even when we were displaced into the multi-purpose room. They loved learning about a different country and its similarities and differences with their own.   Second grade finished learning about the different periods of the Dewey Decimal system, and shared some of their work for our library bulletin board. Fun bulletin board idea from Pinterest for the start of second semester Kindergarten through fourth graders then listened to me read aloud 20 different Georgia Picture Book Award Nominees, over many weeks, so that they would be able to vote for their one favorite book.  I worked in "28 Days:  Moments in Blac...
Post a Comment
Read more