Titles with Trailers Tuesdays: Magyk in the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage

At all times during the past school year, books in the Septimus Heap series were checked out. The first in that series, Magyk, is the featured book for today's Titles with Trailers Tuesday.

This is the book description from our catalog: "Ten-year-olds Septimus Heap, the seventh son of the seventh son, and Jenna, the little girl Septimus's father found abandoned in the snow the night Septimus was born are taken away and are threatened by the evil wizard DomDaniel, who intends to finish off the entire royal line."

The series of seven books is just the beginning of the magical and adventurous worlds that author Angie Sage created. If you like this series, be sure to pick up the newest book in her new series, Path Finder in the Todhunter series. You can read about all of her books at her official website.

Check out the trailer for Magyk:

And if you like the first book, be sure to read the rest of the series!

Titles with Trailers Tuesdays: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

Today's featured book and trailer are from an author you may not recognize, but you've definitely seen--and perhaps read--some of his other things. Chris Grabenstein often works with author James Patterson, including on the I, Funny series as well as the Treasure Hunters series. This Tuesday, though, we take a look at his latest: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.

In this novel, we meet 12 twelve-year-old middle school students who all have one goal: to escape from a mysteriously clever library designed by a gaming millionaire. Like the author's website says, the book is a definite nod to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but fans of The Gollywhopper Games will also see some similarities.

Want to know more? Check out the trailer below:

Titles with Trailers Tuesdays: The Boundless by Kenneth Oppel

Now that school is out for the summer, we can all head to our public libraries to participate in their summer reading programs! Both the Dallas Center Roy R. Estle Public Library and Grimes Public Library are participating in the Every Hero Has a Story summer reading program. On Tuesdays, we'll feature a book along with its trailer to encourage summer reading. Today's first ever Title with Trailer Tuesday features Kenneth Oppel's newest book The Boundless.

The Boundless is a miles-long train on its first trip, a cross-country event to bring its creator, who has since passed, to his final resting place. On board is Will Everett, the son of the man now in charge. Will comes to have a key in his possession, and this makes him a target for others who want what the key can unlock. To protect himself, Will joins the circus also on the train and puts his trust in the ringmaster Mr. Dorian and the escape artist Maren, a girl his own age. Can he trust them, or are they also interested in the key he carries?

Researching & Storytelling with 1st Graders

One of the skills we work on in first grade is reading nonfiction and taking notes about that reading. Using animals as our topics, students accessed PebbleGO using a QR code to make the process smoother.

Once at PebbleGO, students learned how to search for their animals and read about them using the different tabs across the tops of the pages. These tabs corresponded directly with the handout they used to take notes about their animals.

You can access the notes page HERE.

Once students had gathered the facts related to their animals, they used the app Toontastic to create and illustrate a story that featured their animals.

Intentionally we selected animals that were featured in both PebbleGO and Toontastic so students could easily create their stories. The app explains how to use and complete a story arc--even including mood when students are able to add music to their work. 

Students were able to select a setting and characters to tell their stories and work up to a climax, all the while recording their own voices to tell their stories.

State Award Winners Announced

The Iowa Association of School Librarians met earlier this week and announced the winners of the Iowa book awards. Students across Iowa voted in March, including the elementary schools in DCG. Each building had winners, and today we learned which books were state-wide winners.

At Dallas Center Elementary, students in kindergarten through second grade chose Scaredy Squirrel has a Birthday Party, while students at South Prairie Elementary voted for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.

We learned today, though, that with over 25,000 votes cast statewide, the winner of the Iowa Goldfinch Award--with 3,554 votes--was Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds.

Students in Grades 3 - 5 voted on the Iowa Children's Choice Award. To be eligible to cast a vote, students must have read at least two books from the nominations list. At Dallas Center Elementary, Athlete vs. Mathlete was the building winner, and at North Ridge, The Ghost of Graylock was the top vote-getter.

And how spot-on were our building winner? Our North Ridge students voted in line with thousands of other students, who also chose Dan Poblocki's book The Ghost of Graylock as the overall winner for the year.

Books for next year's lists have already been announced; see below for the posters and links to them to get a head start on reading. 

CLICK HERE to access the poster online.

CLICK HERE to access this poster online.

4th & 5th Grade Online Research and Presentation

Over the course of the last several cycles, 4th and 5th graders at Dallas Center Elementary have been completing an online research project in specific steps:

Step 1: Determine a topic
Students chose research topics of their choice with the only condition being that the topic be searchable in two of four different places--Wonderopolis.org, Britannica Online, TrueFLIX, and MackinVIA.

Step 2: Collect information

Once students' topics were decided upon, they began collecting information from both of their research sites. Students focused on any pictures and titles or headings, main ideas and details, and related vocabulary when taking notes. 

Step 3: Transfer notes 

Because the students' final project would be an electronic presentation, they created screenshots that compiled their hand-written notes into their choice of apps: Popplet, Skitch, EduCreations, or Write About.

Step 4: Create video presentation

The final step in this app smash research project was to create a video using the screenshots that included information from their note taking. Students used the app PuppetEDU to insert their images, add music, and possible narrate their work.

Some of the students' work appears below. Just click on the link in the caption below each picture to see the video in full.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wugi9htz80pkwkm/21Video.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5hls5lp8hw20iq/19-Video.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/53y24d6m3fwji06/Video.15.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/290yj2v5rlelrr3/LVideo.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kkxgdnhimbi7pdn/4Video.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/69psvda111132bs/Video-C.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fx5rfopr06kn4gd/Video%2023.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/auq4hsrvkfou05i/Video-6.MOV?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rraedi3cyf86u10/VideoI.MOV?dl=0

Me. . . Jane Lesson Ideas

The last Iowa Goldfinch-nominated book that we looked at was Me. . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell.

To go along with this book, we paired a Reading Rainbow video that features Jane Goodall as an adult speaking about her experience with the chimpanzees in the African jungle.   

Another great book that pairs well with this lesson is The Watcher: Jane Goodall's Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winters.

One of the activities we did with the students was to complete a handout asking students to identify an event that inspired Jane Goodall to become a scientist. The books and the video both lend themselves well to this. There are also some wonderful supplemental activities from Hachette Book Group, including a word search and coloring page.