Library Scavenger Hunts: A Back-to-School Adventure

To get back into the swing of things at South Prairie, 3rd-5th graders worked on different library scavenger hunts! Each hunt had students search for important places in the library as well as the locations of popular books and series.


3rd graders did a BINGO-style hunt. Instead of a BINGO, students wrote the number that appeared next to the item/location they found.

4th graders got to do the QR code scavenger hunt this year. QR codes are a handy and easy tool to use in the library when students need to access information! With a partner, students worked to locate QR codes around the library. Each QR code provided students with essential beginning-of-the-year information. Students would then record the answer on their paper.

5th graders did something totally new to them! I created a library scavenger hunt in the GooseChase app. GooseChase is a scavenger hunt app that asks users to complete missions using photos, videos, and text.

Here are some of the missions in our GooseChase:

This was my first time using GooseChase as a facilitator and not a participant! 5th graders loved taking selfies to complete missions, working in a group, and using a new app on the iPads!

Doin' Dewey

Fourth and fifth graders in several buildings have recently been learning about the Dewey Decimal System and practicing finding books in the nonfiction section of our libraries.  Here's a brief look at the DDS activities.

Day 1
Before starting our conversation about the DDS, we discussed various collections we already have at home, like DVDs, video games, clothes, and yes, even books! Students offered different ideas about how to arrange these collections: by gaming systems, popularity, release date, color, height, or no arrangement at all. We then talked about the arrangement in libraries--that Melville Dewey's system of arranging books became the way by which nearly all libraries arrange their nonfiction books. We followed up the conversation with the book Do You Know Dewey? by Brian Cleary.

We further explored the DDS with a Kahoot! It is a public Kahoot! so others who are interested can access it online.

Day 2

This day had students up and moving around in the nonfiction section of our libraries, searching for books that satisfied different task cards. On Teachers Pay Teachers, this particular bundle of DDS/nonfiction task cards was especially great--it's from Staying Cool in the Library and available for purchase at TPT.

Students worked in groups of 3-4 to search for the books in our catalogs, to find the books on the shelves, and to record their findings on an answer sheet.

Day 3

Finally, students demonstrated what they learned about the DDS on a Google Form quiz that they accessed through Google Classroom.

As they wrapped up with their, students could also visit a variety of sites to learn more about the DDS. Click on the caption to access the document and the links within.

LINK to document

Students found the rap quite entertaining and the concentration game much more challenging than the 16 cards led them to believe it would be!

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! 

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!

Celebrating Dot Day

Again this year our students celebrated International Dot Day. Here's what our students enjoyed:

Kindergarten
•  We read The Dot and used the Quiver app to create our own augmented reality dots.

1st Grade
•  We watched The Dot on BookFLIX, then read Press Here before designing our dots.

2nd Grade

•  We watched The Dot on BookFLIX, then read Let's Play before creating our own dot books.

3rd Grade

•  We watched The Dot on BookFLIX, then read A Million Dots (yes, we looked at all one million dots!) before working on a dot to become a buddy dot.

4th Grade

•  We watched The Dot on BookFLIX, then read Ish, which inspired "ish-ly" drawings.

5th Grade

•  We watched The Dot on BookFLIX, then used PicCollage on iPads to design dot collages.

Using Flipgrid to Recommend Books

We're excited to share how we're using Flipgrid in our elementary libraries. Over time we've used it to share our newly created tall tale characters, to promote student-written and illustrated ABC books, and to plead the cases of books with zero checkouts. (You can read about these activities HERE.) Now, we've used it with our Grades 3 - 5 students to recommend our favorite books.

Taking advantage of access to both iPads and Chromebooks, students were able to share some of their favorite books with others. South Prairie Elementary students shared books in a Read This Book grid:

YOU CAN ACCESS THE GRID HERE.

Heritage Elementary and Dallas Center Elementary students added more than 200 recommendations and has had more than 1350 views after their initial postings!

YOU CAN ACCESS THE GRID HERE.

Flipgrid has been a tremendous tool to help us build our community of readers, and our students would love to have you take a look at their work. Enjoy!

Ahoy, Mateys! The Book Fair is Coming!

With conferences rapidly approaching, it's time to remind everyone that the Scholastic Book Fair is coming to your elementary school! All of our elementary libraries will host a book fair during the afternoons and evenings of conferences on Tues. Nov. 1 and Thurs. Nov. 3.

At Dallas Center Elementary, students have two contests in which they can participate during Book Fair week. When students visit the book fair during their library classes, they can guess the number of goldfish in the bowl. 

The student who comes closest to the actual number will win $10 in Scholastic Dollars to spend during the book fair, and the students whose guesses come in second and third place will each win a poster from the book fair.

Also at Dallas Center Elementary, students' classes are competing in a coin war to raise money for Scholastic's charity called All for Books, a group that donates books and resources to foundations that support children's literacy efforts. The All for Books contest will start Tues. Oct. 25 and wrap up on Tues. Nov. 1.

So gather all of those coins, mateys, and participate with your classmates. A popcorn party in the library awaits for the winning class!

Can't make it to the book fair? No worries! You can also shop our online book fair. Purchases will be sent to the school and delivered to your student. The Dallas Center Elementary online fair can be found by CLICKING HERE.

We hope to see you soon at conferences, and be sure to stop by your student's library to browse and shop the book fair!

Dot Day Celebrations, 2016

Today is International Dot Day, and we've been celebrating all week long! Some of our South Prairie students participated in Google Hangouts with students at Dallas Center Elementary, sharing the alouds Mix It Up and The Adventures of Beekle the Unimaginary Friend.

After reading Mix It Up, Dallas Center Elementary students also read The Dot and "made their marks" with the app QuiverVision and the Dot Day coloring page.

To access the PDF, click here.

Students colored their dots, and with the app were able to see their dots become three dimensional. The app also creates images using their dots.

After reading about Beekle, our new partner classes--Mrs. Washington's 2nd graders and Mrs. Grant's 5th graders--created their own new unimaginary friends to share through the mail, and both groups are eager to read and work together again in future Google Hangouts!

Other first grade classes celebrated Dot Day by pairing Press Here with The Dot and then making their marks creating their own dot books.

Dallas Center Elementary fifth graders also celebrated Dot Day and made their marks digitally. After reading The Dot, students searched for dots all around the library, taking pictures of their finds. 

Then, using the app PicCollage, students created collages featuring all of their library dots. 

So much fun celebrating Dot Day again--be sure to look at our SnapChat and Instagram accounts (DCGLibraries) to see more pictures!