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!

1-Thing Wednesday: Google Classroom in the Library

This year our Dallas Center Elementary students in Grades 3 - 5 started using Chromebooks in a 2:1 environment (2 students for every 1 device), and with the increased access came the use of Google Classroom in the library.

A few of the DC Elementary Library Google Classrooms 

Every Grade 3 - 5 classroom had its own library Google Classroom where students could access everything from our library main page to that day's digital activity. Below are just some of the examples of how we used Google Classroom:

• accessing and viewing book trailers related to state award books
• accessing, completing, and turning in reading comprehension activities
• using our library Symbaloo to find websites and databases for research
• viewing teacher instructions or lessons

The ease with which students could access that day's work--and return to it as they liked--made all the difference. Assignments that covered several days of library classes became easier to manage, and students could easily see what resources to use to complete different tasks.

3rd grade mythology work and resources pushed out via Google Classroom.

Now that students in Grades 3 - 5 have used Google Classroom for a year, they likely will be able to return to school with a better understanding of how we'll use it in the library. What a great tool to manage classes, share resources and assignments, allow for technology integration, and engage students!

Online Research Using Google Classroom

Again this year, 4th and 5th graders at Dallas Center Elementary worked on a research and presentation project. It was a multiple-step project lasting several weeks, but students' presentations are now complete and they're working on reflections related to the projects.

Step 1: Choose a Topic
Students looked at four of our AEA databases and two websites for a topic to research. The only requirement? Students' topics must be in two of the six options. Students accessed sites from our library Symbaloo and completed a ticket out including the topic and location of their articles.

Step 2: Note Taking

After determining a topic, students accessed a note taking page in Google Classroom and recorded their work to come back to later. The note taking page related directly to students' non-fiction reading in their own classrooms, asking them to write about their new learning, inferences, questions/wonderings, and text features.

Step 3: Presenting the Information

Once students gathered their information, the next step was to organize all of it into a Google Presentation. Requirements included adding at least one image, so this led to a conversation about citing sources and using the EasyBib add-on in Google Drive. As a part of their presentations, students created a works cited slide that also included the citation information from the databases and websites they accessed for information.

Animals were popular topics, especially ocean and rainforest animals; however, other topics such as national parks and monuments, forces and motion and magnetism, and sports were popular as well. Below are a few slides from different presentations. 

Step 4: Reflection

On our final day of the project, students viewed at least three presentations and completed a reflection page inside Google Classroom. 

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue--Our Revised 3rd Grade Myths & Legends Unit

Such great times in 3rd grade recently! Each spring in library classes we work with our 3rd grade teachers to address the reading standards regarding myths and legends. (That's our "something borrowed," as these aren't mentioned specifically in AASL library standards.) We began our work with Greek mythology, gaining background knowledge from Britannica Online articles related to different gods and goddesses.

Students used this handout in Google Classroom to record their work. We were looking for how the humans interacted with the gods and/or how the gods treated one another.

You can access the handout HERE.

We then read and shared different star stories using the TrueFLIX book Constellations, including the story about the constellation Scorpius.

A favorite assignment among third graders, designing their own constellation and creating the story behind it was next--our "something old." In this two-day activity, students plan their stories and stage a picture for their final projects. Students brainstorm possible constellations and stories using the handout below.

You can access the handout HERE.

Check out some of the students' work on their constellations and stories:

And now for our "something new"--a visit to Scholastic's website called Myths from Around the World. Again using Google Classroom, students accessed the site and read myths and legends of their choosing from a wide variety of cultures.

After reading myths and legends of their choice, students then accessed a world map on Google Maps--the "something new." Their work came full circle as we returned to our original conversation about the purpose of myths--to explain something in nature, to teach a lesson, or to celebrate a hero's story. On the map, students were to place a pin on the country from their reading and identify the purpose of the myth. You can see their work below:

ICCA Pre-reading Activities

With our Iowa Children's Choice Award read alouds coming up, students in 3rd - 5th grade accessed some background knowledge related to the books. All information was accessible to them in Google Classroom, where students read or watched summaries, author interviews, and related connections.

THIRD GRADE
This group of students will be working with Lauren Tarshis's book I Survived the Great Chicago Fire, 1871.

Along with the book trailer, third graders also watched a video that explained some of the lessons learned from the Great Chicago Fire. 

From the author's website, students also read material related to Tarshis's research process and the I Survived series itself. 

You can access the full document HERE.

FOURTH GRADE
These students will be reading and listening to the book Dash by Kirby Larson.

In addition to watching the book trailer and reading a short summary and character description, students learned a little about what life may have been like in a Japanese internment camp from the perspective of someone who was there. Densho, an organization that works to tell the story of Japanese-Americans' internment during World War II, includes archived video that students accessed.

FIFTH GRADE

The book Loot by Jude Watson is the book that 5th graders will listen and respond to during this unit.

Students watched a book trailer and another short video with the author talking about her book. Also, because the story includes cursed gemstones, 5th graders learned a little about the Hope Diamond and what some people believe to be the curse upon it from a Learn360 video.

Now that students have gained some background knowledge related to their books, we're ready to start reading and talking about them. More Google Classroom activities and hands-on activities to follow!