4th Grade Book Recommendations

We are wrapping up the school year, and it is time to start collecting library books for the annual inventory. It is always a sad time for me when I have to close the library, but the library has to be prepared for summer. The students always ask me what they will do if I'm closed. The 4th grade teacher and I put our heads together and came up with the idea that the students should make recommendations to each other for their summer reading.

The padlet was created for the students to add their book recommendations, and I have been blown away with how many students have added their favorite books. This link will be available to the students all summer. Students will be able to look for a book recommendation as well as add new books that they recommend.

It makes me so happy to see the students excited about books and recommending to each other. They come to me often when they need something to read, but having your peer recommend a book can be more meaningful.

Mo Willems - An Author Study with Kindergarten

Do your students love Piggy and Elephant as much as my students do? Every year, the first few weeks of school, my kinders and firsties ask, "Where are the Piggy and Elephant books?"  Not only do my students love these books, but I am a huge fan of Mo Willems and his writing. I love the way he uses illustrations to show the characters feelings and emotions. He is a GENIUS when it comes to writing for children. 

I decided this year to go ahead and teach a unit over Mo Willems book to my kinder students, so next year they would be more familiar with all of his books, not just sweet, funny Piggy and Elephant. 

We started off with DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! It had the kids rolling with laughter! After reading, we discussed all the different emotions that pigeon felt during the story when he couldn't drive the bus. 

  

The next week, we read DON'T LET THE PIGEON STAY UP LATE! The students noticed right away that the bus driver was now in his pajamas! After reading, we compared this story and last week's story. Then we went to the tables and students came up with 4 reasons to give their parents why they should be allowed to stay up late. Their answers were hilarious! One student said he should stay up late because he wanted to eat hot dogs. 

The following week we moved on to the Elephant & Piggie series and started with ELEPHANTS CANNOT DANCE! I love Mo Willems's message in this book, that we should never say we can't, but should always try. After reading, we played the Elephant & Piggie Dance Game and the students learned some new dance moves. 

The next week I introduced the students to my favorite, KNUFFLE BUNNY! Do you say it nuffle or k-nuffle? Trixie has an argument with another little girl in the KNUFFLE BUNNY, TOO about the pronunciation of the bunny's name. While reading KNUFFLE BUNNY, the students spied the pigeon on a couple of pages, then we discussed times we had lost something that was important to us. 

The final week of the unit, I read a Mo Willems biography to the students. They drew a picture of Mo Willems and added a fact or two that they learned about him. Most of them drew him in a tshirt with the pigeon on the front. 

Since this unit, the kinder students have all wanted to check out and read the other Mo Willems books. They have stayed checked out since! 

LITTLE CAT'S LUCK by Marion Dane Bauer

Little Cat's Luck by Marion Dane Bauer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book has a charming cover which appealed to me from the beginning. I love free verse novels, so I was excited to read this book, and it did not disappoint.

Patches, the little cat, is mesmerized by a falling golden leaf, and she falls out of the window. Wondering off following the leaf, Patches loses her home and has trouble finding her way back. On a mission to find the perfect special place, Patches meets an unlikely friend. Gus is the meanest dog in town, but why is he so mean?

Kids, 2nd - 4th grade, will love this free verse novel, especially if they are fans of animals. I am pleased that this on our Texas Bluebonnet list this year.

Some other reviewers complained that the human characters did not have their cat spayed or microchipped. Remember, this book is written for elementary age children that will fall in love with the animal characters. This is a must for every elementary school library.

View all my reviews

Everybody on the Move

 April flew by, and it is going to be May next week! That means summer is sneaking up on us. Who else is ready??!!

April was a busy month in the library, as it should be since it's School Library Month. Second graders came in for research using our online encyclopedia for their Texas Performance Standards Project (TPSP). Since we are an academy with GT and Academically Advanced students, we use the TPSP to differentiate for our GT students. This gives them an opportunity to go through the inquiry process and create a professional quality project or task.

Second grade students are tasked with exploring daily activities and their impacts on physical fitness, and use what they have found to create a physical fitness plan, an original game or sport, an invention that creates a new piece of physical fitness equipment, or a new mode of personal transportation that increases the user’s physical activity on a daily basis.

So where does the library and online encyclopedia come in for that? The students had to come up with the questions they needed to know in order to complete their task. I taught them how to use search words to find the answers to their questions. Students also had books available to them, and we discussed using the table of contents, as well as the index, to help us find the information quickly.

These 2nd graders are designing new equipment to be used by gymnasts.

Students search for figurative language in poetry
while the timer ticks in the background. 

The third grade teachers approached me and asked me to help them with figurative language. It was perfect timing, because I had just come across these super cute figurative language mini-posters I planned on using for National Poetry Month. The teachers and I decided we would make the activity stations where the students had to get up and move. They asked me to focus on 5 types of figurative language: metaphors, simile, personification, onomatopoeia, and hyperbole. The students were getting confused with metaphors and similes. 

The great thing about collaborating with the librarian, is we have the books and supplies all ready when you bring the class in, which saves you time! I had the mini-posters set up at the tables, and since we were short on time, I had poems marked in the books that had the specific figurative language the students would be looking for. The most fun part was the timer I put on the screen. When the timer, or rocket, went off, the students had to move to the next station. At each station they read the type, definition, and example, then start searching and recording what they found. It was lots of fun.

Sometimes, the library turns into a volunteer tea room. :) We had a lovely breakfast and tea for our wonderful volunteers! These parents and grandparents are amazing, and bring so much to our school. 

April was also School Librarian's Day, and I got so many hugs, treats,  and sweet cards from the amazing students! I am so blessed to work here! 

On another note, do you see those mismatched tables in the background? Well, soon I will have all matching chairs and tables!! I met with our furniture rep this past week, and together we picked out my furniture that should arrive within the month. This library is going to look amazing!!

Seuss Week Recap

I'm pretty sure that I was insane when I decided to host my book fair the same week of Read Across America and the same week that our school held Family Literacy Night that, you guessed it, I was in charge of planning. Needless to say, I survived and that is behind us. Anyway, even though I barely survived, the week was a huge success!! By the way, during this week we also had a fire drill, tornado drill, and lock down drill. CRAZY!!!

Read Across America and Dr. Seuss Day is one of my all time favorite weeks of the school year, second only to Spring Break!! We started the week off with Green Eggs and Ham day with everyone dressing in green. The cafeteria staff even got in on the fun and served green eggs and ham for breakfast. We also had hat day, mustache day, and college shirt day. One day was all focused on ONE FISH, TWO FISH, RED FISH, BLUE FISH. Again, the cafeteria staff got in on the fun and served colored goldfish to the students, and gifted a copy of the book to the library.

For fun, we held a Battle of the Books, Dr. Seuss style. We started off with 16 books, 8 classics and 8 beginner books. The first 3 rounds were held during Read Across America week, but we are now down to 2 books! THE LORAX and GREEN EGGS AND HAM. Tomorrow is the last day to vote, so we will soon find out the winner.

The book fair was a huge hit, our students always get SUPER excited about the book fair. We reached our goal and sold over 1,300 books! We also held a coin drive to buy books for the teachers' classroom libraries. I made it into a contest between the houses and told students that the house that raised the most money would have the library decorated in their colors. AMABLE was the winner, and today I purchased a ton of green decorations to go in the library tomorrow. 

I was amazed at the amount of money our students and parents donated to our coin drive. It was enough for me to purchase every teacher 3 or more books for the classroom library. 

Literacy night was a big success! Families came out and enjoyed numerous activities, including story time with Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2. There was a bookmark making station, as well as a hat creation station. QR codes with Seuss books were scattered around the building, and a DR. Seuss trivia. 

Making Inferences with FREEDOM SUMMER

Wiles, Deborah. FREEDOM SUMMER. illustrated by Jerome
Lagarrigue. Aladdin. 2005. 

Last week, one of the 3rd grade teachers and I were discussing picture books dealing with Civil Rights, segregation,  and the Jim Crow Laws. I asked her what skill they needed more practice on, and when she said 'inferences', I immediately knew to get the book FREEDOM SUMMER by Deborah Wiles.

Flex Schedule is so funny, once one teacher comes to me with an idea, a lot of the teachers want in on the lesson too. So, I ended up teaching this lesson with all 3rd and 4th grade classes.

With 3rd grade, I started out reviewing inferences, and how we use the author's clues and our schema together to make an inference. The author does not always tell the reader everything, the reader has to dig deeper into the text to infer what is happening. This makes it more fun for the reader!! While reading the story, I stopped at certain parts of the story, and students told me their schema, then made an inference. While I read, the teacher filled out the anchor chart with the students' responses.

After reading the story, pairs took a Chromebook to a table, and opened up the padlet I created before class. Pairs discussed what they thought the theme of the story was using our inferences as a basis.

4th grade teachers wanted to focus more on theme, character change, and emotions. One of the 4th grade teachers came up with a note-taking sheet students filled out while I read the book. The plan was to have the students answer the questions making a video using the app, RECAP. However, it wasn't working that day, so students made their notes in preparation to make their video.

If you have not read FREEDOM SUMMER to your students, I highly recommend it! I read the book 8 times last week, and still teared up at the end each time. One class clapped at the end of the story, it was very moving, and it created GREAT conversation with the students. Especially our GT and academically advanced students that we have here.

All these lessons in the library made for a super busy week, but it was worth every busy minute!

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