Press Here!

One of our Iowa Goldfinch Books for the year is Herve Tullet's Press Here.

To celebrate this book, and to get our students to think about the "characters" in the book, we handed out yellow, blue, and red dots so they could act out their characters' parts in the story.

During the read aloud, students rubbed--gently!--their dots, tapped them, and shook & leaned with them. Such fun--and we even read the book twice just like the dots suggest. :)

We also shared the Press Here app with students and some of the 15 different games you can play using it.

Among our students' favorite games were Memory, Inside Goal, and Drawing. Of course, we ended our time with Fireworks so we all could "ooohh!" and "aaahh!" over the app and the book!

Finally, students were able to make their own Press Here books using very basic supplies:

As the authors and illustrators of their own stories, students created wonderful examples of where their imaginations can take them!

Constellation Star Stories

To piggyback the 3rd grade teachers' work with the stars and planets, we work on a constellation unit that focuses on the stories behind them. We began with a great Vimeo that introduces students to some of the more popular constellations and their stories.

 
Greek Mythology: Constellation Myths from Brenda Wooding on Vimeo.

Students had a predicting activity that accompanied this video:

With a few stories under their belts, students then brainstormed their own constellation stories and the constellations themselves. Using the iPads, students took pictures of their "constellations," and they will  outline their constellation shapes with stars and write their stories soon!

Stay tuned. . . students' constellations and star stories will be featured in a "night sky" that includes the work from our Iowa Goldfinch book Blackout. 

Happy (Chinese) New Year!

In a wonderful coincidence, we read Iowa Goldfinch Book nominee The Runaway Wok, by Ying Chang Compestine and Sebastia Serra on the day of the Chinese New Year.

An online search for related activities yielded a fun game for our students to enjoy after listening to and discussing the story. Many students were eager to point out that the main character acts like Jack from Jack & the Beanstalk when he doesn't come home from the market with rice but instead trades for a "useless" wok. Another student mentioned that the wok acted like Robin Hood--they both took things from the rich and gave them to people who were poor. Great connections, for sure!

This Chinese New Year game is a freebie from Sandy Cangelosi's blog Sweet Integrations. You can access the game documents when you CLICK HERE.

Easy-to-follow directions are included, as are all of the pieces necessary to play. After a quick lesson in how to play the game, students started the dice rolling and the fun ensued!

You Wouldn't Want to Be…Research Projects

Fourth and fifth grade students have recently begun work on a long-term research project that begins with the book series You Wouldn't Want to Be. . . 

Our first day of work focused on reinforcing the 5W's lesson students had in their grade-level classrooms. Their task? Read only the introduction page of their book and complete a 5W's index card.

As a ticket out--and as a way to encourage students to browse further in the books--groups wrote about a Handy Hint found in their books. They were encouraged to find a Handy Hint that they thought was especially funny, grotesque, interesting, informative, etc. These tickets out then became part of a library display. Check out the progression of the board!

Next steps in the process include looking at the books' text features and completing a note-taking page. We'll also be talking about main ideas and related search terms before heading to Wonderopolis to find out more! Stay tuned!

More 5th Grade WIN Group Book Trailers

With the success of a recent WIN Group Animoto book trailer, the next group of students also completed book trailers for three more books: Deep, Dark, and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn, Wild Life by Cynthia DeFelice, and The Candymakers by Wendy Mass.

Check it out!

Responding to the ICCA Read-Alouds with iPads

Now that we've finished reading the three ICCA books to 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, it was time for a wrap-up activity. Drawing upon last year's response questions, students worked in pairs on iPads to create a Popplet or Skitch project with answers to two of the questions.

Students had several options when completing this work: choice of the two apps to use, choice of the two questions to answer, and choice of partner with whom to work. What was required of all was a project that included their answers to the questions.

Third grade students read Ghost Dog Secrets by Peg Kehret. Below are pictures of students in action and some of their completed work.

In fourth grade, students listened to and wrote about Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power by David Pogue. Students were excited to work around the room and at tables to complete their projects.

All eight sections of 5th grade also wrapped up their time with Lisa McCann's The Unwanteds by completing the same kind of project. Pictures and projects abound!

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Iowa Goldfinch Lesson Two, Technology Version

With our chicks running wild in our libraries and hallways, the Dallas Center Elementary 2nd graders tried a different approach with the second lesson with the Iowa Goldfinch books. These groups also read Chicks Run Wild by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen and The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson.

Instead of creating their own chicks, though, these groups used two apps--Farmyard and StoryMe--to create their own new versions of a barnyard story of animals and the food they like to eat. You can get both apps free at the AppStore.

First, students created two pictures in Farmyard: one picture included whatever animals they'd like, and the second picture needed to include the food these same animals love to eat.

Here's an example of a picture from Farmyard before it was placed into StoryMe:

Next, students used StoryMe to put their pictures into a 2-panel layout, and they wrote a caption and a speech bubble to tell viewers about their animals and the foods those animals loved to eat. Students could then take screen shots of their work to be saved on the camera roll.

Stay tuned! More Iowa Goldfinch books and projects coming up!