Kindergarten - 1st Grade
Since many of the classes and schools have been focusing on Fairy Tales and retellings, we've continued our work with fairy tale books in the younger grades. We've focused a lot of our discussions on what the essential components or ingredients of each fairy tale are (for example, the essential components of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" are that someone sneaks into someone else's house and tries all their stuff!). Then, we've started talking about ways that some authors change some of the ingredients to make a new, fractured fairy tale! A new favorite story we've read has been The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka.| Click here to find this title in the Stevens Library collection! |
With the 1st Graders, we've talked about those ingredients and used a graphic organizer to try and start using fairy tale ingredients to write their own fairytales - so far, it's going really well!
In some classes, we've also talked about Story Elements - what makes up the parts of a story? We read a story and map out the setting, characters, problem and solution. Understanding the components of a story is the first step towards being able to construct a new story!
We've also begun using the chromebooks a bit more in the last half of the year with the second grade classes, with many teachers requesting either practice logging in or coding, or researching using the databases.
We've also continued exploring our Google software programs, with many classes either creating brochures using Google Docs or creating presentations using Google Slides.
Not to get too tech-heavy, we've also tried to incorporate a few read-alouds in there, and will be focusing a lot of our work on poetry in April to tie-in to National Poetry Month.
In some classes, we've also talked about Story Elements - what makes up the parts of a story? We read a story and map out the setting, characters, problem and solution. Understanding the components of a story is the first step towards being able to construct a new story!
2nd Grade
Our second graders have been working on finding Nonfiction Books in the Library using a fun scavenger hunt designed to help familiarize them with the information presented in our Online Catalog. Occasionally, we've been able to tie-in the books they're looking for with the subjects they're working on in class; other times, it's a general scavenger hunt for books about every second graders favorite thing: ANIMALS!We've also begun using the chromebooks a bit more in the last half of the year with the second grade classes, with many teachers requesting either practice logging in or coding, or researching using the databases.
3rd Grade
Third graders got a taste of what April will be all about: poetry! We've been reading Hoops by Robert Burleigh, Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems by Marilyn Singer, and a few selections from the Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry. After we talk about how poetry can be about anything that makes you feel, we got a chance to write a few of my personal favorite kind of poems - HAIKU! Some of the poems have been really wonderful - and hopefully will inspire some future poets to enter into our Poetry Contest happening this April!4th-5th Grade
Our older grades have continued to use our online resources to help discover new information to help with research projects. Many classes are working on persuasive writing, so we talked about how using Kids InfoBits and the magazine and newspaper results will help them find opinion pieces to help them persuade one way or the other about a particular topic.We've also continued exploring our Google software programs, with many classes either creating brochures using Google Docs or creating presentations using Google Slides.
Not to get too tech-heavy, we've also tried to incorporate a few read-alouds in there, and will be focusing a lot of our work on poetry in April to tie-in to National Poetry Month.
