New Agriculture and Farming Books at DC Elementary

Earlier in the school year, the Dallas Center Elementary library was awarded a $200 grant from the Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation. This grant allowed for the purchase of several new farming and agriculture books to add to the collection and to use with units of study.

Recently, second graders completed a mini-unit that reinforced the main idea/detail note-taking work they had been doing in their classrooms throughout the year. Students could work individually, with a partner, or as a trio to read all or part of a new book, then complete the handout, identifying one main idea and two supporting details.

Access the handout HERE

Below are some of the things students learned in their work:

Once students had read and completed the handout, it was time to return to one of their favorite web tools, Flipgrid. This group of students has used Flipgrid several times and with very few reminders were able to record their learning. 

We've Been Busy!

It's been a long time since we've posted about our students' work and activities. What have we been doing? All sorts of things! Take a look!

Fourth and fifth graders are working on several things at once: accessing our AEA databases, reading nonfiction for main idea and details, and citing their sources. Eventually, their notetaking will lead to the creation of a Google Slides presentation.

Third graders have just wrapped up their look at mythology and myths from around the world using a Scholastic site.

Access the site HERE

Students read myths, identifying main characters, summarizing the plot, and determining the purpose of the myth.

Online catalog work is the focus for our second graders in the fourth quarter. Students learn about the visual and basic searches, then practice using the catalog to find books on the shelves.

First graders are busy using PebbleGO to browse for an animal of interest, then learn facts about their animal that they then combine with make-believe information. The facts, along with their added silliness pieces, come together in a storytelling activity on Flipgrid.

 Finally, kindergarteners take the last several cycles of the year to read and listen to a variety of themed books. For example, recently students read Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Spider, then created their own Diary... books featuring animals or objects of their choice.

Our year's not over yet--stay tuned for more work and activities!

Talking' about Traits

As part of our Iowa Goldfinch Award work, students spent some time talking about character traits. To help us understand the difference between a character trait and other traits (like appearance), we used everyone's favorite orange cat as an example.

We decided that a character trait had to do with a person's (or cat's!) personality. So, while we could all say that Garfield was a big, orange cat, we couldn't say those traits referred to his personality. Instead, we decided that he was lazy.

Then, it was on to more Goldfinch read-aloud books to practice talking about character traits in books. We used This a Moose and Meet the Dullards for this activity.

Students talked about two groups of characters from each book: Moose and Duck from This is a Moose and the parents and the kids from Meet the Dullards. Here are some of the descriptors they arrived at when talking about character traits:

Moose: determined, brave

Duck: angry, hypocritical

Parents: boring, surprised

Kids: bored, sneaky

Students then used Flipgrid to record their thinking. Using our lists of traits, students chose a character and trait, then said why they believed that character showed that trait. Click on the link in the caption to access the students' responses.

CLICK HERE to access the grid.

Stay tuned--we're not done yet with our Iowa Goldfinch Award nominees!

Goldfinch Work, Part II

It's busy times in the library during Goldfinch Award book "season." :) We've paired additional books and have had thoughtful, creative work from our students. Recently, we read The Little Shop of Monsters and Fright Club.

Students quickly picked up on the mood of the books and enjoyed the unexpected "scariness" of the cute little creatures in Fright Club and the silliness of the monsters in The Little Shop of Monsters. 

As an extension of the day's readings, students at South Prairie visited The Little Shop of Monsters website, where they watched a video first and then designed their own Pocket Monsters. 

Students at Heritage Elementary and Dallas Center Elementary used iPads to design their own monsters using the apps Doodle Buddy and Monster Moogle Maker.

Both apps allowed students to choose a background and design a monster, usually an animal that they then modified to include physical features and accessories to create the perfect, scary monster!

Another pairing of Goldfinch Award books has been The Night World and Sleep Like a Tiger.

Author Mordecai Gerstein's note at the end of The Night World is a great place to start with students as you prepare them for the read aloud, and the sleeping animals on the last page are a wonderful transition to Mary Logue's Sleep Like a Tiger. We also watched a video called Animals at Rest to gain some background knowledge or reinforce what we already know about sleeping animals.

Students then designed their own night worlds on black construction paper using light-colored crayons and colored pencils, or they wrote and illustrated a page showing the animal they most resemble when they sleep.

With Goldfinch Award voting not happening until March, stay tuned for more read aloud pairings and ideas! 

Getting a Start on Goldfinch Books

We've recently begun reading some of our Iowa Goldfinch nominees and completing different follow-up or extension activities. We began with The Bear Ate Your Sandwich and Bear & Squirrel are Friends.

Before listening to the two stories, we watched a PebbleGO video about black bears. We learned that 2 of us kindergarteners lying head-to-toe are likely as long as a 7-foot black bear, and 4 or 5 kindergarteners in a group weigh about as much as one!

After the stories, students completed this handout, choosing two more animals that probably aren't "friends" in nature, but like Bear & Squirrel, maybe they could be friends!

Our look at Goldfinch nominees continued with "the crayon books"--The Day the Crayons Came Home and Frankencrayon.

Kindergarteners got creative and designed their own scribble "monsters" using an activity from Greenwillow Books.

First & second graders focused on two crayons from The Day the Crayons Came Home--Estaban and Neon Red. Acting like travel agents, first graders decided which world tourist destinations Estaban visited once he finally made it out of the house. After choosing destinations, students then wrote a postcard in Estaban's voice, describing something from his travels.

Finally, second graders helped Neon Red visit European landmarks that he may have missed as he made his way back to Duncan. Using Google Draw, students dragged an image of Neon Red to one of several destinations--check out a few of the class examples below:

Stay tuned for more activities and ideas related to our Goldfinch books!

Holiday Season Activities

It's that time of year! With the holidays approaching, we took a break from state award book activities to have a little holiday fun. Students participated in a variety of both technology-related and craft activities to spread holiday cheer.

Kindergarten
Time for some reindeer games with our youngest students! Students listened to a read aloud of Little Santa, as well as watched Olive the Other Reindeer before also watching a short Britannica Online video of reindeer in the wild. Students learned that 12-14 of them together can weigh as much as just one reindeer!

Then it was on to a craft, when students cut out and put together pieces of a reindeer to take home with them.

1st Grade

These students listened to Redbird at Rockefeller Center and watched a video to learn about the real holiday trees that have stood between Rockefeller Center and the world-famous skating rink for nearly 90 years. 

 Depending on the students' attendance centers, students then either created a holiday tree of their own, or they used the iPads to access the Quiver app to bring a tree "to life."

3rd - 5th Grade

Our older students also got into the holiday spirit with different holiday games shared with them through Google Classroom. Click on the caption below the picture to access the document.

ACCESS THE DOCUMENT HERE

Looking for more wintery Google activities? Try this post at ControlAltAchieve by Eric Curtis: 

Happy holidays from all of us at the DCG elementary libraries!

Mock Caldecott Work at Heritage Elementary School

Heritage Elementary second grade students have recently named The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Drew Daywalt and Adam Rex as the Mock Caldecott winner in the building.

In addition to choosing a book, students also named their award and designed a medal. After many voting rotations, students chose "2nd Grade Goldshroud Award" as the name of their medal, and the winning design is now placed on the book.

To start their work, second graders learned about the criteria for the true Caldecott Medal and looked at several winning books along with Caldecott Honor books. We started with last year's winner Finding Winnie.

Working then in table groups, students evaluated 28 different picture books using the evaluation page below:

You can access the handout HERE.

Based on total scores from all second grade classes, the students narrowed their choices to seven finalists:

Using the same scoring rubric, students looked anew at these seven books and evaluated them to determine the winner. Finally, then, students voted on the name of their medal as well as the design, and the winning book was chosen.

Creating Our Own Tall Tale Characters

Second grade students are finishing the school year reading and watching tall tales, comparing and contrasting character traits and plot points. Students talked about Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Pecos Bill, noting things like:

     •  the men were stronger, bigger, or faster than others

     •  they often had "sidekicks"

     •  they were in contests 

     •  they get credit for making things in nature.

With these things in mind, students then created their own tall tale characters using the handout below:

Access the handout HERE.

Once students had made decisions about their characters, they accessed our class FlipGrid to record their information. While students had used FlipGrid before, this was the first time they independently recorded themselves. You can see part of our grid below and click on the link in the caption for the full list of responses:

CLICK HERE to access the full grid.

Enjoy the students' responses--their creativity and voice definitely shines through!