Day 17: Robots are taking over the library!

Picture Book Month Day 17 theme: Robots

Find out more about Picture Book Month here

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Boy and Bot are alike in many ways. 

But when Bot accidently gets switched off, Boy thinks Bot is sick and tucks him in to rest.

When Bot is suddenly switched back on and discovers Boy asleep, he thinks Boy is malfunctioning. A clever inventor comes to everyone's rescue and helps solve the little misunderstanding.

Ame Dyckman is one of the nicest authors and people I have met on Twitter. She is a big supporter of libraries and librarians. We love her. VIsit her website here. 

We love Bot so much that we decided to include him in our Dot Day Celebration this year. 

I set up a Dot Day Celebration library center with paper circles, crayons, markers, and bits of yarn, stickers, and anything else I could find and the kids used the supplies to express their creativity on a dot. I saw some remarkably creative dots. We have many clever kids in our school. 

Let's Give Bot the Chicken Pox!
Step 1: Read Boy + Bot.

Step 2: Let kids decorate and cut out dots to put on Bot.

Step 3: Give Bot the Chicken Pox with dots.

Step 4: Have fun

Spiders, Flies, and Bears Oh My! IMWAYR August 12, 2013

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 at Teach Mentor Texts. 

The School bell is about to ring. Just a couple of more weeks to tweak lesson plans and prepare for the approaching horde.

What did I read this week?
My focus this week was on reading science topic books and deciding on meaningful activities to go with them. These are great read alouds for Kinder-2nd and can be paired with dozens of great learning activities.

New succulents just added my library's Green Thumbs Science Center.
In the white pots are colored succulents.  behind them are cactus fingers. Kids are allowed to break off sections and take home to transplant. I have even had moms come in requesting these amazing little thorn-less cacti. I am training a few to make a crown shape. 
Great link: NASA's Climate Kids

Learning about Libraries
Here are two good choices for introducing libraries to children. Lola at the Library is a good pick for preschoolers explaining what happens in a library. Tomas and the Library Lady is a classic for older students. It is a particularly useful book for English language learners. My copy is in a bi-lingual format.

I love Bear lessons. They tie in so easily with many lesson objectives and there are hundreds of bear books available. Some of my favorites are the Bear books of Karma Wilson. Here is a blog post on The Beauty of Bears.

Paired Shares:  Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson and Germs by Ross Collins

When my students walk through the library doors I shake each student's hand. They begin to giggle when they realize I have given them glitter germs! I overreact with a lot of coughing and sneezing until I get everyone settled in on the story-time carpet and launch into a lesson on How to Wash Your Hands. This includes students singing the Happy Birthday song or the ABC song which allows me enough time to properly model washing my hands. Each student is then given a baby wipe to wipe their hands free of glitter.

Bear Feels Sick Glitter Germs teaching activity

Bear Lesson Resources: 

Bear in a cave Coloring Page from Coloring-Pictures.net

Pictures of bacteria (yuckie)

 Bear Activities from Karma Wilson website



Bear Finger-play (author unknown)

Here Is a Cave

Here is a cave.
(Bend fingers on one hand.)
Inside is a bear.
(Put thumb inside fingers.)
Now he comes out
To get some fresh air.
(Pop out thumb.)

He stays out all summer
In sunshine and heat.
He hunts in the forest
For berries to eat.
(Move thumb in a circle.)

When snow starts to fall,
He hurries inside
His warm little cave
And there he will hide.
(Put thumb inside fingers.)

Snow covers the cave
Like a fluffy white rug.
Inside the bear sleeps
All cozy and snug.
(Place one hand over the other.)

I can "bearly"wait to use these wonderful books this year. 

Now, I would love to know what you are reading and using in your classrooms and libraries.

It's Monday, What Are You Reading? August 5, 2013 Emergent Readers, Bookmarks, and Doll Bones

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 at Teach Mentor Texts. 

This week I focused on preparing a special book shelf for Kinder and First graders.
I read several of the books that best fit the reading level of an emergent reader,  Kinder, or beginning year for first grade. Here are some books at the 0.2-1.0 reading levels

It was also time for my annual re-read of Tiny Goes to the Library. I like to read this to 

Pre-kindergarten children coming into the library for the first time. It is simple and they love Tiny. 

They will soon discovered his big friend Clifford in a few weeks. 

 It's hard to see but this is what is on the sign. It is the basis of our cultural literacy. We are a product of what we read and internalize. We are the adventurer seeking our fortune or a prisoner held in a high tower. Books shape our thinking of who we are and whom we wish to become. 


This turned out nice, I have been re-purposing old falling apart pages of books and turning them into bookmarks and signs.

#VirtualBookClub

Doll Bones

 I am re-reading Holly Black's Doll Bones just in time for our #virtualbookclub chat on Monday, August 5th at 8 CST/ 9CST. We hope you will join us. This is unfortunately at the same time as the #TLelem chat about sharing Back to School ideas. (Teacher-Librarian elementary chat)

Doll Bones is one of the most discussion rich novels that I have read in a long time. It is like an onion with its many layers and meanings. The story revolves around three middle school students Zach, Alice, and Poppy who have been playing imaginary games full of treacherous mermaids, pirates, and great adventures. As adolescence comes knocking, the trio must now face life's great adventure and it's not an easy journey. One day Zach suddenly stops playing the game and refuses to explain why. It seems like all their great adventures are over until a ghost girl comes calling.

Doll Bones has just the right element of creepy horror without the violence or gruesomeness.

I discovered two different versions of Doll Bones a USA and a UK version.

Which do you prefer?

If you are joining #virtualbookclub, using a service like Twubs or Tweetchat will make your chat experience easier to follow. Here is a video that might help.

NEXT UP on August 19th 8 CST/9EST The Wig in the Window
Recently, I was thrilled to arrive home to find this wonderful package on my porch for the upcoming The Wig in the Window mystery novel #virtualbookclub chat. Thanks  Kristen Kittscher
Kristen also donated an autographed copy for my upcoming district librarian meeting. What a sweetheart. Authors are the best! 

 

For Book Links and a Discussion Guide go HERE

Are you interested in trying out other Twitter chats? Here is a terrific compilation of chats by #hashtags and days of the week. Twitter Chat Google Doc (Compiled by @thomascmurray & @cevans509)

With school drawing so near, I feel rushed to read so many titles. What a blessing to be stressed out about good books. So, what are you reading?

D.E.A.R. Day, Shadows, and Using Your Imagination

On April 12, 2013 readers of all ages took a few minutes to Drop Everything And Read. To learn more about D.E.A.R. Day click HERE

We had a fun time in the Library. Before DEAR Day, I had re-purposed some large printer boxes that I recently found discarded in the hallway How could anyone not see their potential? I wrapped them in green butcher paper and stacked them up knowing they could be used for a multitude of displays. This week DEAR Day,  next week Poem in Your Pocket Day.



















                   Here is how they look next to a book shelf.

When students arrived for their library class, books were quickly checked in and a new set checked out, then students had an opportunity to "Make Your Best Fruity Guess" at the Estimation Station, a library center. I had loaded our good old Teddy Bear jar up with 176 rubber fruit pieces and two kids came close with estimations of 180 fruit pieces. We always end up with a tie so I made sure to have two prize packages ready.

The prize package was a Joke Book double pack. This was to make a point because a teacher has been telling her students that reading a Joke Book is not really reading. Of course it is! Joke books provide an opportunity for shared social reading opportunities. Joke books are best read with a friend or classmate and help form a community of readers through shared experiences.

Occasionally, a kid will think back to a joke and say "hey, remember that joke about...." and everyone laughs. Which reminds me of a very funny video created by the authors of Guys Read: Funny Business.  It is a pieced together retelling of "The Joke" and well worth watching.

After recording their estimations, we did the real DEAR thing. We stopped and had 15 minutes of silent sustained reading. I decided to read the 2013-2014 Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri. Visit my Bluebonnet Book Club wiki for teaching resources: Ghetto Cowboy. This is a terrific book and I love the background research that I have been doing since I began reading it.

Our last DEAR event was to create DEAR bookmark that reflected a favorite character, book, or that demonstrated why reading is enjoyable. Kids did a terrific job. One of my favorites created by Madison was a bookmark that also was a mini-book. Leslie gave me my favorite quote for the day: Love, peace, and books. I wish I could show their projects but I used my phone camera and can't find images now.

For the three year olds. We read books about shadows in support of their Prekinder guidelines and then played shadow games. I made up a little poem while brushing my teeth this week so I shared that with them too.

I have a little shadow
That always stays with me.
Sometimes my shadow gets so big
as tall as tall can be.
Sometimes my shadow is so small
that I can hardly see.
I have a little shadow
a friend that sticks with me.





Next, I read "Have Fun, Molly Lou Melon" and talked about how much fun it is to use your imagination. Then I put on a Robot Head that my daughter had made out of a discarded diaper box and pretended to be a robot. This got a lot of giggles. Now all book lovers know that the perfect book that goes with a robot costume is Ame Dyckman's Boy + Bot.

It was a pretty terrific DEAR Day.