It was another fun week in our library. I am winding down our Caldecott unit – finished it this week with most of the classes.
With my kinder classes we watched Aaron Becker’s trailer of Journey We then worked our way through the picture book, stopping to discuss what was happening on each page. For their activity, I gave them each a blank sheet of paper and encouraged them to draw where they would go if they had a magic crayon. If you are not familiar with Journey, I have a review of it on my Kit Lit blog.
In first grade we watched the video of The Red Book on You Tube since it is such a small book. We then went through the book together, discussing what was happening on the pages. We then completed the “Wordless Book Story Chart” worksheet together. The worksheet can be found on the Library Sparks web site. This was a bit of a stretch for the first graders, but we completed it together so most of them were able to do the work.
The second graders lesson was all picture book introduction and discussion, along with a coloring page. We looked at three books by Peter Spier – Noah’s Ark, The Book of Jonah, and The Star Spangled Banner. Sometimes it is fun to spend the whole library time just looking at books.
Third through fifth grade had the same lesson this week, with different read alouds. My Friend Rabbit was the Caldecott read aloud for the third graders. With the fourth grade we looked at Sam and Dave Dig a Hole. The kids loved this book and the fact that they could see so much that the characters of the story could not see. With the fifth graders I introduced the book with, “This is one of my favorites.” Immediately I heard, “Mrs. M you say that a lot.” I do, I have many favorites and I love to share them with my students. The favorite this time was The Adventures of Beekle. With all three groups, I divided them into groups of 2 or 3. We’ve been doing the Caldecott’s for about a month now, so they are (or should be) familiar with the criteria and evaluating books based on that criteria. I had a stack of Caldecott medal and honor books stacked on each table. Each student was given a copy of my Caldecott Criteria Questions worksheet, which is available for signing up for my mailing list. Each student got to choose a book to evaluate. While they worked together on the evaluations, each student was required to turn a worksheet which evaluated the book he/she chose for the assignment. This really was a good exercise in critical thinking. I tell the students, that sometimes the committee doesn’t really think like children and their choices aren’t always ones kids think are the best so it is okay to disagree.
I had several extra classes this week. The eighth grade history class came in the beginning of the week to research Civil War battles. Their assignment was to create a poster. On Friday, we displayed all the posters in the library and the class came to view the posters and answer questions about them.
The tenth grade history teacher does three projects a year. This was the start of their final project and it covered the 1400’s to World War II. She has a list of types of projects and they can only do each type once over the course of the year. She also has a list of topics for them to choose from. The students use the internet for the most part although a few do use World Book Encyclopedia Online and every once in a while I may interest someone in a book.
The seventh grade Bible teacher has been teaching the students Bible study skills. One of the tools she is teaching them about are Bible Commentaries. She brought the class one day to show them the Commentaries we have available in the reference section. While here the worked on the Studying the Bible worksheet, using the resources on the shelves as well as the computers for online resources.
The fifth grade is continuing with their Internet Mysteries unit. 
This week they worked finished their proposals and started on their projects. We created a Google Doc which contains a list of the acceptable projects as well as the web sites they are allowed to use.
Materials Available from Amazon
Journey (Aaron Becker’s Wordless Trilogy)
The Red Book (Caldecott Honor Book)
Noah’s Ark
The Book of Jonah
The Star-Spangled Banner (Reading Rainbow Books)
My Friend Rabbit: A Picture Book
Sam and Dave Dig a Hole (Irma S and James H Black Award for Excellence in Children’s Literature (Awards))
The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend
Don’t forget you can get my Caldecott Criteria Questions worksheet by signing up for my mailing list.
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