Back to School

Wow! It has been quite a while since I last blogged. It was a busy second half of the school year- I had a baby! 👶 My goal is to post monthly this year. 😊

Last year, many books sat in boxes because we had some difficulty getting the correct number of shelves in the library. I am SO excited to say the rest of the shelves have arrived and ALL of the books are out of boxes and ready to be read! 📚

I have been busy working in the library this summer. There is lots of new signage that I'm really excited about. 🙌 Check it out:

Tables now have colorful supply caddies and numbers on the tables rather than table tents.

All of the device and library expectations are updated and posted where students (and myself) can easily refer to them!

Sections are now identified with large lettering. This will help students find what they are looking for! There will be nonfiction signage- it just isn't up yet!

Another project this summer was the table arrangement. The library acquired 3 more tables, so that meant I had a lot of shifting to do! This year the library will have 6 big table groups rather than 8 small table groups. I think students will enjoy this because they'll have more space to work and more friends to work with! I'm excited to see their reactions to the new set up. Excuse the mess 😬

Mock Caldecott Unit

Second grade students at South Prairie have recently named Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima as the Mock Caldecott winner in the building.

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 a favorite of Mrs. Sedrel's, the 2015 Caldecott Medal winner, Beekle by Dan Santat.

Students worked in table groups to evaluate 28 books using the sheet below: 

Based on scores, students narrowed choices to these top four titles:

To evaluate the finalists, students used the same scoring sheet- except they did this part individually. Students independently watched a video of each book being read while they completed the scoring sheet. 

After students finished scoring the final four books, Not Quite Narwhal was crowned the winner for South Prairie's 2018-2019 Mock Caldecott Award!