The Many Phases of Research - Part 2!

Four very proud illustrators!

Back in December I wrote about a moon research project that my first graders were working on.  (You can click here to see that post!)  Well, we took a hiatus from that project while my student teacher, Miss Anderson, planned her own activities to share with the students during her time at Ashaway.  Miss Anderson has now moved on to an exciting new adventure, but before she left we put together the students' work into a PowerPoint presentation I could share with them this week!

A hard copy of their presentations will be bound into a book to be enjoyed in the library, but during class the students were able to see their illustrations projected onto the SmartBoard. 

Click here to view the presentation made by Mrs. Breault's class!

Click here to view the presentation made by Miss Mooney's class!

Communities Project

My third grade students have been working on a special project to learn about the four different types of communities: cities, suburbs, towns and farming towns.  All of them were assigned to one of these four groups.  To begin, we watched a video about communities and discussed the attributes of each one.  As part of this exploration I created a SmartBoard sorting activity.


To help the students visualize how the locations of each type of community are related to each other, I had four students stand various distances apart.  "Suburb" was right next to "city", "town" was next to "suburb" but farther away from "city", and "rural" was sent to the the far side of the room!  :)

The students explored what made their group's community the same or different from the other kinds.  After many meetings taking notes, each student wrote about one characteristic of their group's community and found a picture online that helped to illustrate this information.  Finally, we imported their pictures into a PhotoStory and the students recorded their voices to narrate the pictures.

The students enjoyed recording their voices into the computer with the special headphone microphone!

Miss Anderson did an enormous amount of work on this project while she was here!

The whole third grade came down to the library this morning to enjoy watching the four different PhotoStory presentations.  I'm happy to report that their teachers were impressed!  :)

Hello from Miss Anderson!

Hi friends! My name is Miss Anderson and I have the pleasure of student teaching with Mrs. Mann this winter! I am from upstate NY, currently getting my Masters in Library Science from URI. I have had so much fun getting to know the students and teachers at Ashaway School,  and I am so excited to continue teaching and learning here!

Miss Anderson with one of her favorite authors, Sarah Dessen!

With the Kindergartners, I have started a Gingerbread Man unit along with their classroom teachers. The first week we read a traditional retelling by Eric Kimmel. The second week, we read The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst.

We talked about the problem and solution in the story and then drew pictures depicting it!

 

 

We will be reading more fun retellings of the Gingerbread Man story in the next coming weeks, including an ebook and the Jan Brett favorite, Gingerbread Baby.

With the 1st grade, I've been reading Eric Carle books and doing some creative activities. The first week we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and students wrote about the main idea and two key details. Then, in writing with their classroom teachers, they retold the story, making sure the events were in order.

We've also read The Very Busy Spider and A House for Hermit Crab so far. After reading A House for Hermit Crab, students drew their own hermit crab shell based on the illustration from the story.

The classes blew me away with their amazing, detailed pictures. Here are a few:

Friends had so much fun drawing their shells! We love Eric Carle! 

In the coming weeks, I will be continuing to have fun with the K and 1st grades, along with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th!  Come stop by the library to say hi! 

~Miss Anderson

First to Finish!

Back in September I wrote about my challenge to the fourth graders to read at least five of the Rhode Island Children's Book Award nominees.  (Click here to see the post!)  This week, not one but two of them finished reading all fifteen books that I bought for our library!  That means they will both be presented with a "Champion Reader" medal at the Rooster Games in the spring!

Mia and Nathan have been engaged in a friendly competition to see who would finish first.  As it happens, it was a tie!  That's because Mrs. Young was reading the book Wonder aloud to their reading class, and that was the last book for the both of them.  Don't you love a happy ending?  :)

Nathan and Mia point to their rows on the poster, which are completely filled with stars!

The Many "Phases" of Research!

Our first graders have been learning about the steps we follow when doing research.  We started off by reading Eric Carle's Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me.  The story is about a little girl who wants to play with the moon.  Her father climbs a long, long ladder into the sky and then waits for the moon to become small enough to take with him back to Earth.  Our first graders have been learning about the difference between fiction and nonfiction, and they were quick to point out that a ladder couldn't really reach the moon, and the moon would never really get small enough for a man to carry it in his hands.  They did wonder why the moon appears to change shape in the sky, though, and thus began our research project!

The books we used to find information!

We spent part of one library class beginning a "KWL" chart.  In the first column we recorded what they already Know about the moon, and in the second column we wrote What they wanted to learn.  The third column, what they Learned, would be filled in over the course of the next few weeks.  I began modelling for them how to locate the "treasure words", or useful information, and they followed my example on their own note sheets. 

Students discuss what to record in their notes

Both classes are now working on their final project: a book illustrated by the students using MicroSoft Paint!  I demonstrated the basic tools using the SmartBoard, and then the students took turns on the computers.  Thanks to the support of some fabulous fourth grade volunteers, the first graders had lots of help as they explored the program.  They loved "painting" on the screen, and I can't wait to see their excitement when we share their work on the SmartBoard in January!

Thank you, fourth grade helpers!!!

Teacher-Librarians: Rising to the Challenge!

Chariho librarians Mrs. Mann (Ashaway Elementary School),
Mrs. Ward (Richmond Elementary School),
Mrs. Steever (Chariho Middle School),
and our friend Ms. Hayes (Frenchtown Elementary School)













This week I attended the American Association of School Librarians national conference in Hartford, Connecticut.  The theme of the event was "Rising to the Challenge", and the accompanying images of hot air balloons were everywhere.  It struck me how apt this metaphor was.  While the person in the basket has a degree of control over where the balloon travels, the pilot is still required to take into account the force and direction of the winds!  We all need to create a vision for where we'd like our libraries to go while taking into consideration all the outside influences that affect our trajectories.  With our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground, we eagerly explored a myriad of ways to take our students to where we believe they need to go.

Our students are growing up in a world where information can be accessed from devices as nearby as a back pocket.  But merely having access to resources is not the same as possessing the critical thinking skills necessary to select the most useful, reliable and accurate information available.  (And, of course, we strive to ensure that our students have access to a library that provides much more than what can be found for free!)  Students also need to be taught how to be responsible digital citizens in an age where connectivity offers as much opportunity to grow as it does to harm.

A beautiful Friday night in Hartford

I am so excited to bring back what I learned to share with the teachers and students back at school!  I attended sessions that introduced me to new science books (and activities for using them in the classroom), websites that support the Common Core standards, and lessons for fostering media savvy students.  Throughout the conference there was an emphasis on not only guiding students through the research process but also on what needs to happen next.  As one presenter put it, "You have them pick the apples, but you need to teach them how to make the pie!"  I discovered some novel strategies for motivating students to incorporate new knowledge into their writing.  Other projects encourage them to support an opinion with evidence while considering the audience that will be addressed.  One example I was particularly excited by was having the students create a "trailer" to promote a book he or she really enjoyed using the web site Animoto.  I've already signed up for a free educator's account and I'm looking forward to experimenting with it!

Of course, we teacher-librarians aren't only interested in shaping conscientious members of a global community.  We are just as passionate about celebrating and promoting the joys of reading!  The conference featured an incredible number of authors and illustrators who were on hand to present at various sessions as well as to sign copies of their books.  In many cases, vendors were giving away copies of the books, and the lines of people waiting to receive one for their libraries were very, very long.  It was so much fun hanging out with my colleagues, though, that the time really did seem to fly by!

I met and received signed books from Michael Dahl (the Library of Doom series), Adam Gidwitz (the Dark and Grimm series) and Matt Holm (the Babymouse and Squish series)!  I was also looking forward to meeting Jenny Holm, who is the sister of Matt Holm and co-creator of the Squish and Babymouse books, but she wasn't there.  Matt added some graffiti to their sign that helped to explain her absence:

We hope you're feeling better, Jenny!

I was also extremely excited to meet the charming and hilarious Jon Scieszka.  (It rhymes with Fresca, although when I overheard someone ask him how to pronounce his name he replied, "Jon".)  He's best known for his books Math Curse and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, but he is also the founder of Guys Read, a web-based literacy program for boys.  I was disappointed (but not terribly surprised) that none of his books were available by the time I got to his table, but he was happy to chat and offered to sign the back of my conference badge.  It was great fun joking around with him.

The conference was both exhausting and energizing!  Thanks so much to all the people who made this incredible event possible, as well as to the vendors who provided free (signed!) books for our library: Perma-Bound Books and Capstone Publishers.

Books, Buddies and Belly Laughs!

Miss Hurley was thrilled to meet Avi and get a book signed by him!

Look who else I found!

More Ashaway friends!

Meagan Lenihan at the Lincoln School in Providence organizes an absolutely incredible event that I look forward to every year.  Once again, this year's Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors was an absolute blast!  I ran into many friends and colleagues who were also enjoying the day, and everyone was in a great mood.  The schedule was packed and once again the day seemed to pass by in a blink!





As always, the presentations by the featured authors were informative and entertaining.  It's so fascinating to hear the stories behind the stories!  Gregory Mone, author of the story Fish, told about his inspiration for creating this tale of pirates and hidden treasure.  It began with him creating a treasure map as a game for his nephews:

Mr. Mone also revealed that, in addition to his stories, he also writes nonfiction articles for the magazine "Popular Science".  He explained how important it is to learn as much as you can about a subject before writing about it, and then he shared an article with us about people who construct drivable furniture.  (Yes, you read that right: as in, furniture you can drive!)  Click here to see the piece he wrote about the world's fastest piece of furniture titled A Nitrous-Injected Dining Room Table!  The crowd was truly impressed by the vehicle's unusual exhaust system: "A six-foot plume of white smoke comes out of the chicken's backside"!  (Mr. Mone kept referring to all the very interesting people he's met during the course of his work for the magazine, but I can assure you that he is just as interesting!)

Jarrett Krosoczka, creator of the Lunch Lady graphic novel series and many picture books, showed us pictures of a book he had written as a boy (complete with title page and copyright date!) and described the long path he followed to become a published author. He described submitting his first story idea to twenty different publishers and then asked us how many did we think showed interest?  When someone guessed that the answer was "one" he replied, "Fewer than that!"  Time after time after time his proposed ideas were turned down, but he refused to give up.  Fans of his work are very grateful for that!

Adam Gidwitz is an amazing storyteller who told the original Grimm version of Cinderella, and it certainly was grim!  He recounted the story with an air of Can you believe this?? that was as hilarious as the story was shocking.  He had the full attention of every single person in the room, and we alternately cringed in our chairs and burst into laughter.  He did demonstrate an acceptable pose to be taken during the course of the story -- fingers in ears, head in lap -- but I didn't see a single person take him up on it.  Even amongst the youngest in the room; no one wanted to miss a moment.  (I was so engrossed that I didn't even take any pictures!!!)  You can enjoy his unique style by picking up his books: A Tale Dark and Grimm, In a Glass Grimly, and The Grimm Conclusion.  

The day concluded with a delightfully unusual presentation by Daniel Handler, a.k.a. "Lemony Snicket's representative".  This man went to great lengths to assure us that he was not in fact the actual author of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  

Daniel Handler used a rubber stamp in each book before signing it to indicate that he was acting as Lemony Snicket's "official representative".

A series of hilarious events: This agenda appeared on the screen at the beginning of his presentation.  It was followed faithfully as the following video snippets will attest!

Video clip below: 

"Very Handsome Man Reads Apology From Lemony Snicket"

Video clips below: 

selections from "Safety Warnings"

Video clip below: 

"Lemony Snicket Excuses Himself and Runs Screaming From the Room"

It was a truly wonderful day filled with books, buddies and belly laughs!  Thanks again to Meagan Lenihan at the Lincoln School for organizing this fantastic event!!