Genre Challenge: April

Congratulations to Mrs. Shaw's class for reading the most Poetry books in April!  This is her class's FIRST win of the year!!  The class will receive a popcorn party in May!  The final genre of the year is traditional literature (fairy tales, folk tales, etc.) including classic novels (Ramona, Little House on the Prairie, Boxcar Children, Cam Jansen, etc.). 

All results:

3M - 4 (-)

3R - 2 (-)

3S - 12 (-)

4C - 0 (-)

4H - 2 (=)

5G - 0 (-)

5P - 0(-)

6H - 0 (=)

6S - 0 (=)

Graphic Novels Have Moved!

Oh No!  Our Graphic Novels are missing from the 741.5's!  

They have been relocated next to the magazines!  We hope this helps students find what they're looking for!

© Mrs. Newgard, 2013

Weekly Update - April 24

Kindergarten: We're starting to learn about circle stories.  We read Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins and The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman.  Circle stories start and end in the same place, we'll be learning about more of these stories in the weeks to come!

First Grade: We're continuing with poetry.  This week we typed our acrostic poems and created a word cloud.  They look good and we're proud of what we accomplished!

Second Grade: The shape poems we created last week were typed into a website and printed in the shape they chose!  They turned out fantastic and very creative!

Third Grade: In collaboration with the classroom project, we printed pictures of our animals from Encyclopedia Britannica!  Some were even able to find videos and continue learning about their animal.

Fourth Grade:  We're DONE with the bibliographies!!!  It was an important project, but we're glad it is over!!

Fifth Grade: We continued working with our "Who I Am" poems, and will finish those next library time.

Sixth Grade: We completed watching our commercials and we're getting ready to start on poetry!

Weekly Update - April 16

April is National Poetry Month and to celebrate, I choose poetry projects for the grade levels to participate in.  Here's what we're up to!

Kindergarten: We read Old McDonald Had a Farm and compared it to Ms. MacDonald Had a Class.  We had extra time to listen to the poem book Chicky, Chicky, Chook Chook.

First Grade:  We created Acrostic Poems using our first name.  They turned out great and the students did a nice job!

Second Grade: We are creating and typing shape poems using nature themed shapes.  Some of the shapes tie into the classroom study of weather.

Third Grade:  Jack Prelutsky is our author focus and we created our own version of his poem Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens.  They are humorous!

Fourth Grade: Our bibliographies are taking us longer then expected, but we're still plugging away on them!

Fifth Grade: We started creating biography I Am poems.  We used two music songs as inspiration, "Who I Am" by Jessica Andrews and "Where I Come From" by Alan Jackson.  We'll spend a few class periods on this project.

Sixth Grade: We finished our Dewey commercials!  They are great and some are VERY creative!

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

I don't always post as many book reviews as I could, but today I couldn't contain my excitement!  I started and finished The One and Only Ivan today by Katherine Applegate.  This was the Newbery Winner for 2013!  I found it to be FABULOUS!

The story centers around a gorilla, Ivan, who lives at the Big Top Shopping Mall.  He lives with his friend, Stella, an elephant, and Bob, a dog.  They live in glass "domains" (cages) where visitors come to see Stella and Ivan.  One day, Ruby, a baby elephant joins their group and changes things up.  Ivan's favorite activities are eating and creating art.  He started creating art with crayons that Julia (the custodian's daughter) shares with him.  After Mack, the mall owner, finds out Ivan can create art, he sells Ivan's pieces for $20.  Ivan loves to create art and it's through his drawings that he finds happiness.

This book is written from Ivan's point of view and a great read for people who love animals.  Ms. Applegate does a fantastic job of getting the reader inside the head of a gorilla.  I found myself rooting for the animals and sharing their emotions.  It is one of the best books I've read in a awhile and completely deserving of the gold medal it received!

Weekly Update - April 8

Kindergarten: We are continuing to work on bookmaking and were able to create our OWN books!  We made stapled books and even cut off the edges like we saw in the video last time.  Ask us to share ours with you!

Kindergarten books - © Mrs. Newgard, 2013

Kindergarten books - © Mrs. Newgard, 2013

First Grade:  Ms. Shook's class finished their animal reports while Mrs. Bobeldyk and Mrs. Watters' classes created class books called It's Not a ...  We finished our library time by reading poetry in preparation for creating our own!

Second Grade: We completed our work with the online catalog, talked about locating books and then started discussing poetry.

Third Grade:  We finished our biography posters today.  They look great and contain a lot of text features!

Fourth Grade: We created bibliographies today based on the information gathered from our last few weeks of work.

Fifth Grade: We presented our projects and they looked great!  The students worked very hard!  It's a big sigh of relief to be done!

Sixth Grade: Continuing to work on their Dewey commercials is the focus in library.  There are some very creative commercials being put together!