Coach Sloth is visiting South Prairie

Coach Ryan Sloth will be at South Prairie Elementary in Grimes on Friday May 11^th. He is helping to kick off our reading celebration. He is a children’s book author, actor, and athlete; he currently works with the Barnstormers and writes children’s books. 

He has written two books that kids have been reading in the library. Kids can purchase a book from Coach Sloth, and he will bring them and autograph them for kids during his visit. 

     

His website is here: http://www.coachsloth.com/

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!

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!

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/

"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.

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.