Genre Challenge - October

Congratulations to Mrs. Michael's class for reading the most Mystery books in October!!  Apparently, 60 is the magic number as that's how many points Ms. Rindels' class had last month to win also!  Mrs. Michael's class will receive a popcorn party in library sometime in November!

November's genre is Informational (Nonfiction) books.

All results (and whether the class increased or decreased between September and October):

3M - 60 (+)

3R - 30 (-)

3S - 48 (+)

4C - 25 (+)

4H - 0 (-)

5G - 8 (-)

5P - 0 (-)

6H - 0 (-)

6S - 0 (-)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Mrs. Newgard and Mrs. Loder!

Mrs. Loder and Mrs. Newgard

inspired by: If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff

Thank You Target!

Target gave our school a $500 grant to use at First Books.  We were able to purchase MANY new books for the library.

All of the books we purchased with the grant.

As a bonus, employees came to our school and read or played games with our students.  Everyone had a great time!

Our local Target employees who came to visit!

Thank you Target for supporting our school and getting great books into the hands of our students!

Library Update

Kindergarten: Each class has earned The Shelf Elf Award by using quiet feet, quiet voices, a shelf marker, and putting books back the right way!  We're having a few problems finding safe places for our books and many are coming back damaged.  Please review this with your Kindergarten student so the library books are available for all students.  As Kindergarteners we have started looking at Halloween books and focusing on the different ways we can read stories.  We can read the words, read the pictures, retell the story, or read with someone!

First Grade: We continue looking for text-to-text connections as well as mapping out a story.  This week we read Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini.  It's a great story with a character we will see again next cycle.

Second Grade:  As we continue our work with nonfiction we started working on notetaking.  This cycle we read What is Halloween by Elaine Landau and took notes as a large group.  Next week we will read a book on pumpkins and take our own notes!

Third Grade: 3S worked on summarizing, 3R finished email etiquette and 3M didn't have a lesson this week due to Museum School.  These students are all battling hard for the Genre Challenge this month! 

Fourth Grade: We used Animoto to create a short video about their Wax Museum person.  The students really enjoy working with this program and are very excited for their Wax Museum presentation next week.

Fifth & Sixth Grade: As we continue to work on Digital Citizenship we continued working with an online program through CommonSense Media.  This week our focus was giving creative credit.  We need to remember that someone created each picture, song, or media we see online and we need to respect their work and their right to make a living.  Some classes used their library time to catch up on the past three lessons also.

Library Update

Kindergarten:  We continued to check out from the shelves.  We are still trying to earn The Shelf Elf Award by using quiet feet, quiet voices, a shelf marker, and putting books back the right way. At the start of each class time, we share the book we recently returned to show we're reading at home!  We also started to learn about fiction and nonfiction books using books featuring bears.

First Grade: As we complete our fractured fairy tales unit we read The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Wolf Who Cried Boy.  We compared and contrasted the two.  This correlates with text-to-text connections which are being taught in the classroom.  We also discussed fairy tales and what makes a fairy tale and where we find them in the library.

Second Grade:  Text features and nonfiction books are still our focus.  We spent time focusing on Table of Contents and Index this week.  We talked about how each are organized and how they help us find what we are looking for.

Third Grade: We continue to look at email and etiquette.  As this is most students' first experience with email we focus on everything they write being public and permanent.

Fourth Grade: As these students work on their Wax Museum project in their classroom we learned a new online program called Animoto.  Each student will use this tool to create a short video about their Wax Museum choice.

Fifth & Sixth Grade: As we continue to work on Digital Citizenship we continued working with an online program through CommonSense Media.  This week our focus was communication, focusing on cell phones and how they can be distracting.  We also talked a little about cell phone etiquette.

Library Update

Kindergarten:  We moved up to checking out from the shelves!  We are trying to earn The Shelf Elf Award by using quiet feet, quiet voices, a shelf marker, and putting books back the right way.  Each student brought home a sheet where we colored the books that were the correct way.  We're also reminding students that they can choose books to read the words, read the pictures, or retell a story.  At the start of each class time, we share the book we recently returned to show we're reading at home!

First Grade: As we continue with our fractured fairy tales unit we read Jack and the Beanstalk and Kate and the Beanstalk.  We compared and contrasted the two.  This correlates with text-to-text connections which are being taught in the classroom..

Second Grade:  Text features are still our focus.  We're looking at which features are seen most  often and what they do to help us in reading.

Third Grade: We are continuing with Gmail this week.  Our focus is on sending nice emails, email etiquette  and just practicing accessing our account.

Fourth Grade: This week we are continuing to work with technology and our biography reports.  We worked with Google Drive (the new GoogleDocs) and created folders for our Wax Museum project.

Fifth & Sixth Grade: As we continue to work on Digital Citizenship we continued working with an online program through CommonSense Media.  This week our focus was cyberbulling.  If you have a 5th or 6th grade student, ask him or her about an upstander, and what that person does in a bullying situation.

Genre Challenge - September

Congratulations to Ms. Rindels class for reading the most Fantasy books in September!!  This was the first month of the genre challenge.  It was QUITE the competition between classes and the best participation we have ever had!  Nice job!  Their class will receive a popcorn party in library sometime in October!
October's genre is Mystery/Suspense/Horror.
All results:
3M - 51
3R - 60
3S - 25
4C - 0
4H - 2
5G - 10
5P - 35
6H - 2
6S - 4