April Activities

The Kindergarteners have been doing an author study.  The author is Mo Willems.  They learned where his books are located in the library and we read Pigeon books, Elephant and Piggie books, and of course Leonardo the Terrible Monster.  To become illustrators takes practice, so they tried their hands at drawing Leonardo or one of his "scary" friends!  They used the  DrawingPad app on the iPads.

First the 2nd graders listened to  Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type, by Doreen Cronin.  Then they chose a farm animal to pretend to be and wrote their own letters to Farmer Brown.  They are upgrading their word processing skills to correctly write a letter, capitalize words, add clip art and print.

March Activities

4th graders have been busy learning how to use iMovie iTrailers on the iPad using the library/computer lab ideas.

 

First graders talked about and read many Dr. Seuss books.  They used their skill in MS-Word to create a list of nonsense rhyming words from an actual word.  They had fun and practiced their word processing skills too.  After creating their document, they printed and drew a fun picture to go along with the Dr. Seusslike sentence using Dr. Seusslike words.

The Grade 2 students worked in groups and continued on their Google Earth quest and explored space, mars and other countries.  Group work is important and they did a great job solving problems and learning to work together.  Also in groups the students used the app "Bluster" on the iPads to practice rhyming words, prefixes, and synonyms. 

Grade 3 researched on the Internet and in the library for information on their habitat project.  They also learned more about how to use the catalog to search for a book.  If you would like to search for a book, please click on the following link, click on Center School and click on the tab that says CATALOG.  The catalog is always available.  Have fun, and have your student show you how to get to the Destiny Quest (hint: click on Destiny Quest on the left hand side of the screen once you see the catalog search line).
http://library.longmeadow.k12.ma.us

Grade 5 tried a new program, MS-Excel and created a quick graph with animal lifespan data.  They had fun learning how to manipulate data in the cells, creating the graph and then changing the graph with clipart and color.

And of course, students are still enjoying the library and the books!

February Activities

Congratulations to the Caldecott winning book "This is Not My Hat" written and illustrated by Jon Klassen

 and the Newbery winning book "The One and Only Ivan" written by Katherine Applegate.

  If you would like to find out the names of the 2013 honor books please visit the following websites:
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberymedal and http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecottmedal

The 4th graders were studying the Water Cycle in their classrooms, so in the lab they created the Water Cycle in the iPad app "Inspirations".

The Kindergarteners were busy listening to Curious George books, visiting the Curious George website, and giving the stuffed library Curious George many hugs and pats on the head all for Valentine's day.  The 1st graders were also reading about Curious George books and used the iPad apps Doodle Buddy, Scribble or Drawing Pad.

3rd graders are being introduced to the Dewey Decimal System and filled in maps of the library.  We are trying to decipher the information that the catalog gives us when we look up a book.  On the map they had to locate and write down the appropriate words: ex. CP means the Christina Prankus Collection, E means the Easy Fiction section, F means the Fiction section, PB means Paperback, Ref means Reference, any numbers mean the Non-fiction section, etc.

The 5th graders are also studying the Dewey Decimal system and are learning all about the 10 categories.  After completing a packet on the Dewey Decimal system, the 5th graders created a fun Wordle about Dewey and his 10 categories.

The 2nd graders finished looking at Google Earth with their groups, learning how to add place marks on a certain spot around the world and visiting the moon, mars and stars.

January Activities
(all pictures from www.google.com)

January is a great month for books! On January 28th, the Association for Library Service to Children (part of the ALA) announces all the book awards!  We have been reading and talking about the Caldecott Award, the Newbery and the Coretta Scott King Awards (there are many more).

3rd - 5th are finishing up their typing and had fun with the orange keyboard covers and the software that we used.  Great job! The following is an iTrailer of the lab and some typers!

We are now learning about the Dewey Decimal System.  The following is an iTrailer of the Dewey Decimal System and some of the 5th graders exploring.

The 2nd graders are trying out Google Earth on the iPads.  Their first exploration was to find their own houses using their addresses.  Next will be to find other places, such as the 7 continents and countries that share our borders.  Fun, fun, fun...

The K - 1st graders are using app's on the iPads and exploring Caldecott medal books. The following is an iTrailer of successful iPad use in the lab.

December activities:
December is a great time to read many books with snowmen, gingerbread men and holiday themes.  The Kindergarten and 1st graders love to listen to a book and then try their hands at illustrations that could go along with each book.  In 1st grade, we used the iPads and Doodle Buddy to illustrate a snowman after we read the story, The Biggest, Best Snowman, by Margery Cuyler.  We are also learning what the words title, author, illustrator, title page, cover, spine, spine labels, and copyright date (the year the book was born!).  Great job 1st graders.

The 2nd graders are continuing to hear a story read to them from our 2nd grade "series" list.  The first was Horrible Harry at Halloween, by Suzy Kline.  We created two Excel spreadsheets, one with our guesses for what Harry would be for Halloween and a pie graph for who liked the book, who thought it was just o.k. and who did not like it.

The 2nd graders are also using the app Bluster on the iPads to practice rhyming words, prefixes or synonyms.  They are able to work alone or with a partner.  Fun way to practice!

The 3rd, 4th and 5th graders are all typing.  The 4th and 5th graders are covering their keyboards with orange SpeedSkin keyboard covers giving them an extra challenge.

The 4th graders are also listening to The Not So Jolly Roger by Jon Scieszka and from that story we will be starting a research project using the Big 6 on something interesting from the book; Blackbeard, pirate ships, time travel, magic, etc.

Caldecott and Newbery medals come out in January, so we also will be reading and discussing the Caldecott and Newbery medal winners and what those awards mean.

image from google.com