Dot Day 2014 a celebration of creativity. It's Monday What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR

It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN

Dot Day Celebration

We started Dot Day a little early this year, in fact, we started two weeks before Dot Day. I read The Dot to all classes and collaborated with our new art teacher. One of my favorite parts about Dot Day this year was using The Dot Song.


Make Your Mark bookmarks: Download here

We also learned about the art of pointillism and obliteration art. A virtual trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art allowed us to take a "closer look" at the works of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. The link shown above is a DOTS DOTS DOTS sing along.


A book of looking at art
through the eyes of children and Dots!

Spot the dog and a dot headed Ms. Murphy greet families to Open House night and invite them to create family dots. Thanks to Barnes and Noble for lending us Spot the dog for the evening.







Spot was the highlight of the evening. Families were excited to snap a candid photo of their children having a great time. Spot was quite the celebrity under a lightning storm of camera flashes.

I found several items that would work well for creating dot shapes.

 4, 5 and 6th graders worked together in groups to create these welcome dots to 

greet families to Open House night.

Kinder kiddos made these window art dots. Here are a few samples.

 

I collaborated with our art teacher and she focused on her lessons on ancient civilizations and cave paintings. These are samples of foil etchings her students created. She also let 2nd graders crawl under their desks to get a feel for cave art.

Upper grades created original art that they cut into quarters and exchanged with other grade levels. Don't they look great?

We didn't forget our old friend Bot. Our Boy + Bot book by Ame Dyckman has stayed checked out every since school started but we still wanted to "Give Bot the Chicken Pox" dots again. It gave me a good time to talk to kids about a time when children used to catch chicken pox and how today's children will not have to experience chicken pox.



Well, you might have guessed by now but I haven't done a great deal of reading this week other than Dot Day reading and a lot of research on education topics.

I look forward to setting aside some time for Young Adult fiction for an upcoming Twitter chat and for our first annual Teen Book Fest by the Bay. Yesh, it's tough to stay on top of emergent reading through Young Adult reading. I read all levels since I work with kids from age 3 to university students. I find all level books fascinating.

  

It's Monday, What are you reading? September 15, 2014

It's Monday! What are you Reading is a meme began by Sheila at Book Journeys as a way to share what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and what is in store for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading. I first learned about it from Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki of Unleashing Readers and have become a regular linked up blog. Thanks #PLN

We are really focusing on book care in our library lessons because I  am seeing some signs of book neglect just two weeks into book circulation. I really like using What Happened to Marion's Book because kids can relate to Marion's neglectful book care habits and can offer wise suggestions for how to better handle books while reading.





Prekinder three year old students have begun to settle down into a daily school routine and no longer spend half the day crying for mommies. They are learning how to share, take turns, and listen to their teachers. It was time to introduce No, David! by David Shannon. They laughed and laughed and especially laughed at naked butt David running down the street.

 In continuing our reading and creating of dots for Dot Day, I read Press Here by Herve Tullet and made a humungous  mistake by uttering the phrase "Viola! each time the dots changed. It was actually quite funny. Little 4 year olds would shout Viola for every little thing that happened and later in the school hallways when I would walk by "Viola!" I can just picture how they went home and tortured their parents over and over with Viola!

Another favorite book for Dot Day is Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. The endpapers are similar to Press Here in that they are covered in dots. In the story, kitten notices a little bowl of milk up in the sky (the moon) and tried many attempts to get to that tasty looking milk. Finally after landing into a pond she sadly heads home sad and soaking wet to discover a bowl of milk on the porch waiting for her. It is so sweet.

14 Cows for America is one of my favorite books in our school library. I read it to library classes on Patriot Day/Sept. 11th day. Paired with glowing earth toned illustrations is a story of compassion and friendship between two countries brought together from the pain and sadness experienced on September 11, 2001.  (author Carmen Agra Deedy)

This was a 2010 Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee and here is my Bluebonnet Book Club lesson.  

I am still reading Rebel McKenzie by Candice Ranson for my Bluebonnet Book Club and so far I really like it.