Aaron Reynolds Author Visit

We had a wonderful visit with Aaron Reynolds on Tuesday night. He shared his story on how he started out not liking to read books to becoming a children's author. Afterwards he shared his newest story Creepy Carrots. When he was finished reading he shared how a book goes from being written by the author to becoming a book purchased by us. He used three audience participants to act this out including a student from Ide in second grade!

Miss Maier and Mrs. Schlagbaum got to meet Aaron before the author visit at Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast on Saturday. He sat and ate breakfast at our table and signed a copy of our books for the library. Aaron also talked about how he turned his creepy ideas into a creepy story about carrots!

Week of February 18th

Kindergarten
Kindergarten only had book checkout this week due to the day off on Monday. We will be voting for our favorite Monarch book next week.

First Grade
The students were introduced to a book called Chicks and Salsa by Aaron Reynolds. They listened to the story read on the show Between the Lions (PBS) in which the lions discuss the book as well as read it. Afterwards we sequenced the story while playing a game of “I have Who Has Chicks and Salsa.” After finishing the game students had a chance to find an appropriate book of their choosing in the library with some assistance. 

Second Grade

In Second grade this week we read the story Creepy Carrots by Aaron Reynolds. This is one of Aaron Reynolds newest books. A tale not too creepy, but just a little mysterious. Students loved the twist ending in which the carrots had a plan all along to get the greedy rabbit, Jasper, to stop eating them. Afterwards the students responded to the story by drawing on a class mural.

February 4th-8th 2013

Kindergarten

Kindergarten students enjoyed the book Any & Grasshopper by Luli Gray and illustrated by Guluiano Ferri from our nominated Monarch Award book list. This story was a tale about friendship and kindness as we get closer to Valentine's Day. While reading we discussed how Ant and Grasshopper were treating each other. By the end of the story Ant has changed for the better and we discussed how we can be nicer to our friends and our family.

First Grade

First grade students heard the story The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow by Andy Griffiths. This book is segmented into 10 short stories that rhyme and have rhythm. While there is no plot to the book the structure of the story is what we looked at. The book is set up like a comic so after reading we moved to the computer lab. In there we made our own comics with silly people and dialogue.

Second Grade

In second grade the students are focusing on biographies so after reading the story Art & Max by David Weisner we watched a short video on how David comes up with his story lines as well as illustrations. He describes the different media he uses to make his pictures and his thought process throughout. After the video we applied what we learned about the author/illustrator to create an illustration of our own. David started the story with Bears as the main character, but developed them after many trials into lizards. As a class we started with a human outline and morphed it into a new creature or character. We worked as a team to create the different creatures. We were allowed to add anything we wanted, we just could not erase something someone else had drawn. Take a look at our results below.

Schultz's Class

Onorato's Class

Zurales' Class

Walega's Class

Oliver's Class

We are buggy for books!

We continue to read the nominated Monarch Award books this month.

Kindergarten

Kindergarten read the story Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin. Pete visits many of the same places we go to during the school day, but he does it while singing his song. As we read we sang along with Pete. You may have heard us singing when we got home too. It was a very catchy song.

Here is a link to the song if you missed it from the publisher Harper Collins Children's books.

First Grade

In first grade we read the book Even Monsters Need Haircuts by Matthew McElligott.  Afterwards we watched an interview with the author and then listed to directions on creating our own monsters. We all heard the same directions, but our creations came out different depending on what we add to the directions. Such as the monster had one head, but the shape of the head is not given. All of our monster drawings were very creative. At centers we had the chance to give directions to a friend and see the results of our drawings.

Second Grade

The second graders learned about the life of Roberto Clemente in the story Clemente by Willie Perdomo. In this story a young boy gives details on why his parents named him after the great baseball player Roberto Clemente. After listening to the author read the story we looked at a timeline of Roberto's life. While his life had a sad ending we learned about the impact he had on the lives of baseball players, fans, and people's everyday lives. Then we all had a chance to create a baseball card with the facts we learned.

Front of baseball card for Roberto Clemente.

Back of baseball card for Roberto Clemente.