P. Zonka and Pysanky Eggs with Kindergarten

Paschkis, Julie. P. Zonka Lays an
Egg. Peachtree, 2015.

P. Zonka is a hen who spends her days daydreaming and admiring nature around her. With all the beauty around her, she has never taken the time to lay an egg. The other hens think that P. Zonka is just plain lazy. Finally, P. Zonka decides to give this egg laying a try. To everyone's amazement, her eggs are dazzling!

With Easter coming just around the corner, this book is a perfect read aloud. The illustrations are beautiful, and the rooster, Gloria, makes for a hilarious addition to the story. The kids love it when the reader makes the loud "Cock-a-doodle-doo" sound. 

Psyanky 

After reading the story, I tell the students about the Ukranian tradition of making psyanky, which is a Ukranian Easter Egg. The decorations are always elaborate on, and often depict different aspects of nature. In P. Zonka's egg, you can see the red tulips, yellow sunshine, sky dark blue at midnight, and the green grass that she admired so often. 

Then, students were able to decorate their own eggs. Some students used patterns and geometric shapes, while others used P. Zonka's ideas and drew their favorite flowers and things in nature. 

This student drew here friends and the sun. 

You can find more activities, as well as this one, in this event kit by the publisher.  This download also has a description of psyanky.

Notetaking with 4th Grade

4th grade has a major biography project coming up. Their wax museum research starts soon, so the 4th grade teacher asked if I would help her go over notetaking skills.  I always love the wax museum, it is one of my favorite projects of the year. Students choose a famous Texas, past or present, to research. They can find out anything they want about the person, but on Wax Museum Day they dress up as the person and give a speech. They even pause/freeze in between just like at the wax museum. It is so much fun!

Anyway, they are currently working on a Civil Rights Movement unit in Social Studies, so the teacher and I decided to use that as a practice. This week we started on just notetaking. 

I made this buncee to have on the screen to review, and also as a visual to help them remember while taking notes. I chose an article from Newsela about a Civil Rights Activists named Medgar Evers. Most of the students had not heard of him, so it was an interesting read.

Each student received the article and a note card. Since this was practice, I wanted them to focus on a certain question instead of everything about his life. I told them the question, then they looked for keywords. Then created a heading and a bullet point list on their notecard.

Learning is fun in the library. 

Imaginary Pets with Kindergarten

Lehrhaupt, Adam. I WILL NOT EAT YOU.
illustrated by Scott Magoon. Simon & Schuster. 2017.

One of my favorite days of the week is the day that Kindergarten comes to the library. They are so fun and they really are drawn into the books. Today, I read I WILL NOT EAT YOU by Adam Lehrhaupt. This is an amazing read aloud story, so if you don't have it in your library, get it soon!

We started off making a prediction of what the animal is in the cave that we see on the front cover. Most of the kindergarteners thought it was a bear, but we don't find out until the middle of the book.

We find out on the first page that the animal in the cave's name is Theodore. Different animals come to his cave and make sounds at him. The students enjoy making the sounds along with me. The first animal is a little bird, so the kids get to tweet tweet. I think their favorite was the lion. They let out a loud roar for me!

Finally, a litte boy dressed as a knight on a stick horse comes to Theodore's cave. Theodore thinks of eating the little boy, but after the boy pokes him and runs around, the boy begins to laugh. Well you know laughter is contagious, so Theodore also begins to laugh. Instead of eating the boy he plays with the boy.

That brought us to our second skill, fantasy versus realistic. The kids decided that Theodore, being a dragon, was a figment of the little boys imagination. I asked them what made them think this, and it was because the boy was dressed as a knight, so he needed a dragon to fight.

Each kindergartener then drew the animal they would have as their imaginary play pet. I had a few dragons, lots of unicorns, a narwhal, an elephant, and a few lions.

This girl has a pegasus as her imaginary pet. 

This young lady wants Gerald to play with.

Lots of the girls drew unicorns. I love the rainbow this girl added. 

REFUGEE by Alan Gratz

Gratz, Alan. REFUGEE. Scholastic, 2017. 

Summary

Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are all 3 young people that must escape terrible circumstances in their home countries. 

Josef is a Jewish boy in 1930s Nazi Germany. 

Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. 

Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. 

All three must escape with their families in search of refuge. Each face unimaginable trials and dangers on their journey, but all have the hope of tomorrow. And even though the three young refugess are from different countries and decades, their stories are connected in a surprising way.

My Review 

Alan Gratz does an amazing job of building the three characters throughout the story. The cliff-hanger endings of each chapter keep the reader interested, and makes the book hard to put down. The only characters that could have used more depth is in Isabel's story. The number of people on the boat, and we don't ever really get to know any of them. I would have liked to know more about Lito. 

The stories are historically acurate, and Gratz gives an author's note at the end going deeper into the historical facts. He does admit to using artistic licensing to make parts of the story flow better. 

I can't say enough about how emotional and powerful the stories are in this book. The importance of family is an important theme throughout the book, as well as over coming hardships. I highly recommend this book for middle school students and up. Every adult should read this book! 

Bluebonnet Book 

After reading this book, I am having a hard time understanding why this was placed on the Bluebonnet List. For those of you that don't know, the Bluebonnet List is a list of 20 books recommended for 3rd - 6th graders in Texas. Students that read 5 or more books are typically rewarded by their school librarian and get the chance to vote on the winning book. 

While this book is amazing and I think everyone should read it, the book is definitely for grades 6 and up. Possbily 5th graders that are emotionally mature. As school librarians, it is our job to ensure that the materials in our library are age appropriate and appropriate for the emotional development of our students. This book is highly intense with violent scenes that are absolutely not age appropriate for 3rd graders. 

I urge every Texas librarian to read this book, and before recommending this to your students, know your students emotional maturity level. Yes, this is factual information and events that are really happening in our world. However, many of our younger students are not ready for this level of violence and intense scenes.

**According to professional book reviews, this book is appropriate for grades 7 and up. 

Stations and Google Hangouts

Someone once told me that a flexible schedule wouldn't work on their campus because they wouldn't be busy enough. Their principal wanted to see them busy, so a flexible schedule would not work.  

Well, let me tell you, a flexible schedule does not mean not busy! I am busier now than I was when I started at this campus and we were on a fixed schedule. Our library stays very busy with all sorts of activities. And I love every busy moment!

Figurative Language Stations

The third grade teacher approached me last week and asked about doing an activity in the library with figurative language. They had been learning it in class, but needed some extra practice. So, she taught the skill and reviewed in the classroom, and I set up stations for the students in the library.

Each station focused on a certain type of figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and onomatopoeia. At each station I placed a photograph with examples of figurative language. Students were tasked with matching the figurative lanugage with the photograph, then writing their own. For example, at the hyperbole station, they had to locate the sentence that contained a hyperbole describing the photograph.

Each station also contained a paragraph that students read and located the types of figurative language. There was a lot of great conversation at the stations. I especially loved that some of the students felt safe enough at the end to ask the teacher and me to go over some of the stations again. 

Two of the stations were a little different than the rest. At the Onomotopeia station, students had book to look through and find examples. Then, they added to a graffiti poster examples of onomotopeias with pictures. Someone drew a stormtrooper with the words "pew pew" beside it. It was greatness!! 

I added a station for comparing similes and metaphors. At this station, students had to look at sentences and really analyze them by telling what two things were being compared, if it was a simile or metaphor, and why. 

Guest Meteorologist

One of our fourth grade teachers connected with a meteorologist, Tim Brice, in El Paso that works with NOAA. The fourth grade classes had just completed their unit on Weather Changes. All fourth grade classes came to the library to listen to the meteorologist speak. He showed them types of weather maps, satellite images, and their workstations. My favorite image he showed us was a slow motion video of lightning. I never realized lightning was so beautiful! 

After his presentation, students were able to ask questions. It was an amazing experience to be able to connect and interact with another professional through Google Hangouts. 

Family Literacy Night

Our campus hosts an annual Family Literacy Night that falls around Dr. Seuss's birthday, so what better theme to use the Dr. Seuss's books!

In the past, I would host the book fair on this night for parents to shop. While I made good sales on this night, it was too much to plan the evening, plan Read Across America Week, and have book fair. After breaking out into hives last year, I decided book fair could be another week.

Our families always have a great time at our reading night. The favorite activity is the trivia scavenger hunt. I hang up cards that have paragraphs from a Seuss biography. Each family gets a page with questions that can be answered by looking for the information on the cards. Some of the answers can also be found on the Seuss biography website.

Hat Making Station

What better way to celebrate Dr. Suess than to make our own tall, striped hats.  Kids could use crayons, markers, washi tape, dot markers, and stamps to make their own hat creation. They enjoyed wearing them the rest of the evening and showing off their creations.

Bookmark Creation Station

My favorite station is where families can create their own bookmarks.  At the station are blank bookmarks to start the creation. Washi tape, crayons, stickers, and markers are provided at the station for use. We also set out popular Dr. Seuss quotes that can be copied onto the bookmarks.

I love to see all of the unique creations that students come up with.

Comprehension Cootie Catchers

This is a favorite station with the older elementary students, and parents love that they are taking home comprehension questions for their kids. At this station, students make a cootie catcher, also known as fortune tellers. We have ones with comprehensions questions for nonficion text and another for fiction text. Inside the cootie catcher, or fortune teller, are questions that parents can ask their child after reading a book. This is a fun way for the whole family to be involved in reading.

Story Times

You can't have Family Literacy Night without story time!! Our principal read OH THE THINKS YOU CAN THINK and I read GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

Boggle 

This is another fun station for the older students, and it is a great challenge for our academically gifted students. If you've never played Boggle with your students, you need to try it out next week! When I was a classroom teacher, I had a different Boggle board in a Daily 5 station every month.

Boggle is a word game that has 16 random letters in columns and rows. The object is to find as many words as you can in the grid. You can move in any direction, but letters must be touching in a chain.

Relay Races Cat in the Hat style 

In previous years we had Seuss Bingo, but I thought we would change it up a little and have relay races. Since our theme was Dr. Seuss, we decided to go relay races Cat in the Hat style.  We had several challenges. 

• How high can you stack the cups. 
• Skip backwards while saying the ABCs backwards. 
• Juggle 3 or more items at a time. 
• Balance an object on a spoon while hopping. 

Green Eggs and Ham Hunt

This one is a hit with the younger students. We write sets of rhyming words on green easter eggs and place them all around a classroom. The object is to find pairs of rhyming words, then pick out of a prize box.

Tongue Twisters

I got the idea of this station while reading FOX IN SOCKS to a class one day. We printed out tongue twisters onto strips of paper. Families took turns trying to say the tongue twisters as fast as they could without messing up. This helps with fluency. Then, they could write their own tongue twisters on the blank strips of paper.

Photo Booth

This was a hit! I bought these fun photo props at Party City!

Read Across America

This is one of my favorite weeks of the whole school year! This week celebrates the love of reading, and it really motivates the kids to read. Even those that love to read anyway get excited to celebrate Dr. Seuss. The older kids don't really read the Dr. Seuss books anymore, but they love this week when they get to be silly and enjoy the amazing rhymes.

Dress Days

Each day of the week, we focus on a different Dr. Seuss book. The staff and students dress up different ways each day.

• Monday - wear orange or a mustache for THE LORAX 
• Tuesday - wear stripes like the cat's hat or wear a hat for CAT IN THE HAT
• Wednesday - wear crazy socs for FOX IN SOCKS
• Thursday - wear read and/or blue for ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH
• Friday - wear green for GREEN EGGS AND HAM 

Guest Readers 

The purpose of this week is to place a focus on reading. While I do that all year long, I really try to pump this week up with extra motivation. We had some fabulous guest readers this year, and the students absolutely loved the opportunities. They always hear their teachers or me reading, but this week they were able to see that other adults enjoy reading also. 

The superintendent read ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH to a first grade class.

Our district library director brought Patsy Swine and read with our kindergarten class.

Our area director read to a first grade class, WHAT PET SHOULD WE GET?

Our principal reads THE LORAX to 2nd grade classes. 

Our assistant principal reads GREEN EGGS AND HAM to kindergarten.

Read-A-Thon

To celebrate Read Across America, we have an annual Read-A-Thon. Our goal this year is to read 33,000 minutes and to raise $1,000 to purchase new books for our library. 

If you follow my blog and enjoy reading about our library, consider donating to our Read-A-Thon and support our reading journey! 

Breakout

The most fun was putting together the BreakoutEDU games for 4th grade and 2nd grade classes. I found a Seuss themed Breakout, where Thing 1 and Thing 2 get upset and lock away the cat's hat. One of our 4th grade classes solved it in under 10 minutes! I kid you not!!! 

The clues were scattered around the library, thanks to Thing 1 and Thing 2! They hid the keys underneath a stuffed Cat in the Hat, and even hid the secret blacklight flashlight in the locked box. So the students had to find the key in order to find one of the clues that was written in invisible ink.  Other clues were hidden inside the book, CAT IN THE HAT. While other clues had to be researched using PebbleGo or the online encyclopedia. 

2nd graders broke out, found the hat, and a few surprises in the box.