Fairy Tale STEM Work

With a generous grant from our PTO this fall, we purchased many new library center and lesson materials, including these STEM Fairy Tale sets from Lakeshore Learning. (You can find them here.)

Three familiar fairy tales are included in the set: The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Three Little Pigs, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Each kit has a story recap to read with students, planning/creating/testing task cards, building materials, and story figures. 

After retelling the fairy tales together as a group, we focused on the task cards for each tale. Students were eager to build; however, without a plan, groups were without direction. The task cards helped provide direction.

Task cards from The Three Billy Goats Gruff kit

Students worked from paper copies of the task cards, and then the building began! Check out some of their successful work!

Our Own "Magic" Chalk

Springtime here in Iowa can be more rainy days than sunny, so when the sun *finally* came out today, the kindergarteners celebrated by reading Chalk by Bill Thomson.


Since the weather cooperated with sunny skies today, we took our work outside--we had our own bag of "magic" chalk! Students drew what they hoped would come to life with their pieces of chalk. We had many long neck dinosaurs (no scary T-rex dinos for us!), some unicorns, a hamster, and many more!

What books are you reading to celebrate the springtime? 

Celebrating Earth Day

Friday was Earth Day, and Dallas Center Elementary first graders celebrated in unusual style with a Google Hangout with Miss Jordan, an animal expert and educator with Animal Kingdom Florida!

Students have recently begun animal research using articles from PebbleGO, and our conversation with Miss Jordan gave students a unique opportunity to ask about their own research topics as well as any other animal about which they were curious! We also learned about Miss Jordan's day as she educates visitors to the park about the animals there. Even though Miss Jordan had our questions in advance--and answered many of them for us!--students were very eager to ask more questions during our Hangout.

Students' projects are still in process, but Miss Jordan let us know she'd love to see their work when they finish! So stay tuned--student work will follow!

State Award Winning Books

Every year students across Iowa participate in a democratic process of our own as we read and then vote on our state award books. The Iowa Goldfinch Award is given to a book that's suitable for students in grades K - 3 while the Iowa Children's Choice Award focuses on books for students in grades 3 - 6. Students are to read--or have read to them--at least two of the nominated books to be eligible to vote. Here were this year's nominees:

Since the fall, students have been reading and listening to many of the books, and the voted in their respective buildings in March. At Dallas Center Elementary, the K - 2 students voted for Ball by Mary Sullivan to be the Goldfinch winner, and students at South Prairie voted for Memoirs of a Hamster by Devin Scillian.

The DC Elementary students in grades 3 - 5 students voted for Duke by Kirby Larson to be the Children’s Choice while North Ridge students chose Dog Diaries: Ginger by Kate Kilmo as their winner.

State winners were announced in early April at a statewide librarian conference. The Goldfinch Award winner for the state was The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt; the Iowa Children’s Choice winner was Duke by Kirby Larson.

Taking a Look at Greek Mythology

Third graders at Dallas Center Elementary have been working with their reading partners to learn more about different gods, goddesses, creatures, and other characters from Greek mythology. Reading articles from Britannica Online, students' first task was to learn about their topic and take notes, including information related to their new learning, inferences, and questions.

You can access the handout HERE.

Students also watched three stories from Greek mythology using Learn360: Daedalus & Icarus, Pandora's Box, and Jason & the Golden Fleece. Conversations related to the videos related to the way humans and gods/goddesses interact and why or how one group becomes upset or pleased with the others' actions.

Students' final project combined their learning of gods and goddesses along with their recent work with constellations. Working in groups, students brainstormed characters and items to include in an original myth that tells the story of a constellation they created.

You can access the handout HERE.

Here are some examples of students' constellation stories:

It's Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

At South Prairie Elementary today, teachers and students celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday with "Dress Like a Book Character" Day! Check out librarian Ms. Trent and instructional coach Mrs. White below:

Looks like they nailed it! How did your students celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday and Read Across America?

Goldfinch Book Pairing

All of our K - 2 students participate in voting for the Iowa Goldfinch Award in March, so we take time at the start of the new year to read aloud as many nominees as we can. A recent pairing of nominees was The Story of Fish & Snail by Deborah Freedman with Should I Share My Ice Cream? by Mo Willems.

Both books feature friends who tell the story, and both feature decision making. Elephant and Piggie are long-time favorites of our students, and they were excited to meet Fish and Snail once we shared that the pairs are similar. 

After reading The Story of Fish & Snail, we talked about bravery and moments when we have been brave ourselves. Using the hashtag #BeBrave, students shared personal stories of bravey, which then became part of a display.

This display also included a word cloud generated from student responses to the question, "Where can someone show their bravery?" 

Second graders took to Padlet to record their thinking about times in their own lives when they've shown bravery.

Our work wasn't exclusively about bravery; we also approached Should I Share My Ice Cream? from that approach that everyone has a favorite flavor, so students designed their own ice cream scoops so we could put our "ice cream cones" in a display as well.

Stay tuned for more Iowa Goldfinch Award book pairings and examples of student work!

A Quick Follow-Up:

Usually, we post our blog updates on Twitter and link the new post to the tweet so others can see what's happening in our libraries. After doing so for this post, author Deborah Freedman replied to us!