DCG Elementary Libraries

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Spine Label Poetry! Celebrating National Poetry Month

Our 4th graders were given the challenge to compose poems using only the titles of books. To me, using literature as the inspiration is such a great idea. Three great things came from this: the enthusiasm from the kids, fun poems, and kids discovered books they normally may not have picked up. Check out a few here!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Visualization with Poetry

Students in kindergartner recently practiced visualization as part of a poetry unit. As they listened to the Jack Prelutsky poem "Green Giant," they imagined what their green giant would look like. After talking about the poem's details, students drew their own green giants. Thanks to the creator of the blog "One Extra Degree" for the wonderful idea!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Voicethread Book Talks

Fifth graders at DCE recently wrote book reviews and recorded their work onto Voicethread. Click on the links below to listen to their reviews. Enjoy!

Day 1 (5P & 5E) Reviews: http://voicethread.com/share/2670599/

Day 3 (5C & 5V) Reviews: http://voicethread.com/share/2670768/

Day 5 (5R & 5G) Reviews: http://voicethread.com/share/2670803/

Monday, March 12, 2012

"Grape" Books!

DC Elementary students in Grades K - 2 recently shared their favorite books in a "grape" display for classmates, staff, and parents to enjoy. Popular favorites included Iowa Goldfinch titles Dewey, The Circus Ship, Let's Do Nothing, and Not a Stick. Also popular were Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the Magic Tree House books.

Winning Titles for Goldfinch Award and the Iowa Children's Choice Awards

Students in Grades K - 2 recently voted to select an Iowa Goldfinch Award winner. By a large margin, Dewey: There's a Cat in the Library by Bret Witter and Vicki Myron was the winner.

Students in Grades 3 - 5 vote to select the winner of the Iowa Children's Choice Award, which was Smile, a graphic novel, by Raina Telgemeier.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Spring Book Fair is Here!

The Spring Book Fair will be held in the elementary libraries in the week of parent-teacher conferences. Please stop by to check out what's new from Scholastic, to browse the selection of gifts, and to see what adult selections they offer.

Friday, February 3, 2012

It's Not a Stick!

K-2 DCG students read Not a Stick! by Antoinette Portis. It is one of our Goldfish-nominated books for 2011-2012.

We really wanted students to see that the book is all about celebrating kids' imagination. In the book a pig finds a stick. It is quickly followed by an uncreative, literal voice telling the pig to be careful with that stick. The pig spends the book showing the voice all of the different things he imagines the stick to be.

The original sheet

After reading this fun book, the kids had a chance to use their imaginations and show us that "It's Not a Stick"....it's a ____________ by creating their own pictures. You can access the handout HERE.

Check out some of their artwork below!