Winter Fun with First Grade

If you live in Southeastern Wisconsin you are well aware that we have had a long, tough winter.  The first graders and I decided to embrace it and celebrate winter in Wisconsin!  We have been doing all sorts of activities about snow and winter for the past few weeks.  One of my favorite books about winter is The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation has a fabulous website.  On the site is an animated version of the story and lots of games.  The first graders really enjoyed the story and playing the games.

There is another great site I discovered, Snow Days.  With a few clicks of the mouse, students are able to create a snowflake and then share it for everyone to see.  The first graders were so excited to see the snowflake they created floating down the screen and then see all of their classmate's snowflakes as well!

Most recently we read two more great books for this time of year, Snowmen at Night and Snowmen all Year by Caralyn Buehner.



In the fall the first graders made an online book based on the story, For Just One Day.  While planning with first grade teachers Mrs. Trost and Mrs. Coss, we decided we would like the first graders to do another book together.  This time we would challenge them to write a longer story.  Each student wrote a story called Snowmen at School.  They used their Google account, Kerpoof for the illustrations and I used FlipSnack Edu to put them all together into an online book.  Click below to read their stories!

Mrs. Trost's Class

Mrs. Coss' Class

Now that we are done with our winter activities, Spring can come anytime now!

World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge: Week 2

The World Read Aloud Challenge for week two was to answer the following questions myself and then ask the same five questions to a student. I asked David, a 4th grader to help me out. He did a great job!
Question One:  I think everyone in the world should read…

Me: Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  I can't think of another book that does such a great job of encouraging kindness.  It is a beautiful story that everyone should read; especially children.

David: Charlotte's Web because it is a classic and E.B. White is a great author.

Question Two:  If I could listen to anyone in the world read aloud to me it would be…

Me:  Mo Willems.  I would love to see Mo Willems and hear him read his books.  He is my favorite author for young children.  I've heard him read aloud a little bit online and I always want to her more.

David: Bob Uecker because he has a really good announcing voice and it would sound cool for him to read aloud to me.

Question Three:  When I read aloud, my favorite character to impersonate is…

Me:  the Pigeon from Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  The Pigeon is so fun!

David: Percy Jackson because he is brave and takes chances to save his friends.

Question Four:  The genre or author that takes up the most room on my bookshelf (or e-reader) is…

Me:  Adriana Trigiani.  She is my favorite adult author to read.  I also have a lot of children's books on my bookshelf.  I love to read them and I have two kids at home that love to read them, too.

David: Rick Riordan; he has written some of my favorite books I've ever read.

Question Five:  My favorite part about reading aloud or being read to is...

Me: the children's reactions to the stories they are hearing.  There is nothing better than a group of children loving a story they are hearing.

David: hearing the end of the book because you've been waiting to hear how it ends.

Kindergarten's Version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

My favorite author to share with Kindergarten is Mo Willems.  We read lots of his books and explore his websites,  Pigeon Presents and Go Mo.  Besides hearing favorites like The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, Elephant and Piggie and That is Not a Good Idea, students also get to hear from Mo himself from his many video clips.  We also read Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed and learned all about those strange little animals, naked mole rats.

 We love all of Mo's books, but the favorite character is always the Pigeon.  We wanted to honor the Pigeon with our own version of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  We also wanted the kidergartners to do some digital writing.   During their writer's workshop, students filled in this sentence: Don't let the ________ drive the _____________.







We then used one of their favorite online tools, Kerpoof, to illustrate their page.  Using FlipSnack Edu, I put all of their pages together to create an online book for each class.  Take a look and enjoy!

Mrs. Hansen's Class

Mrs. Gross' Class

World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge: Week One

World Read Aloud Day is March 5th.  Magee participated a couple of years ago and I hope we can do it again this year.  I read about the World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) Blogging Challenge from one of my favorite blogs to follow, Van Meter Library Voice.  Each week there is a blogging challenge related to reading aloud.  As a library media specialist and book lover, I accepted the challenge!

Here is week one's challenge: What is your earliest or fondest memory in which someone read aloud to you?

I have memories of my mom reading to me when I was younger. The memory that really sticks out to me is my older cousin, Sue reading to me and my sister when she was babysitting us. My sister and I had a large collection of the Berestain Bears books. I loved those books! Sue would start out by reading us one of those books and then my sister and I would bug her until she read us a couple more. Now those books were not very short, but Sue would not complain about reading them. I think she liked it as much as we did!

This year I hope to have Magee participate in WRAD. Two years ago we had all staff members (custodian, school secretary, gym, music and art teachers included) read to kids and do an art project based on ideas from the WRAD website. There are many activities and resources on that site. I plan to work with Magee's reading specialist to come up with a fun activity to celebrate reading aloud!

Reader's Theater...Digitally: Part Two

In an earlier post I explained how our 5th graders were making digital stories for their kindergarten buddies.  Last week the students finished their projects and will be sharing them with their buddies tomorrow.  They worked hard to get them done.  After practicing their reader's theater scripts and finding copyright free images online they got the iPods and used the iMovie app to put together their digital story.  Students used the Google Drive app to access the images they found the week before.

After loading all the pictures for the story, students then recorded themselves performing their script.  Next they worked on adding titles, sound effects and credits.  They then uploaded the finished movie to their Google Drive, shared it and emailed me the link.

 I linked all of their stories to the 5th grade classroom Google site.The finished projects turned out great!  I'm sure their buddies are going to love them.  Click below to see their stories.

5th Grade Digital Stories

Going Places Safely

At Magee we use the Common Sense Media (CSM) scope and sequence to help teach internet safety, information literacy, privacy and creative credit and copyright.  The lessons are so easy to use.  I sometimes use them as they are and sometimes I just pull out pieces that apply to a project we are doing.  This week I used the Going Places Safely lesson with our first graders.  It compares going on a class field trip with  going online.  Field trips are something our first graders are quite familiar with.  After talking about field trips we've been on and rules we follow while on a field trip, we shared all the fun things we like to do online. We then learned the three rules for being safe online:

1.  Always ask a parent or teacher before going online.
2.  Only talk to people you know.
3.  Stick to places that are just right for you.

It was then time to visit two great sites for kids: The San Diego Zoo and Destination Modern Art .  First graders just finished studying Australia and there is a great section on Australian animals at the San Diego Zoo site.

Students filled out a handout sharing their favorite place they visited.  The handout included the three rules for being safe online.

Students were engaged on both the sites.  There was plenty to do and learn on both.

Reader's Theater... Digitally!

A special program that Magee 5th graders and kindergarteners get to experience every year is "Buddies".  One or two 5th graders are paired up with a kindergartner all year.  They get together once a week to do all sorts of fun and educational  activities.  It's something all Magee students look forward to: being a big buddy in 5th grade.  Mrs. Behnke, a 5th grade teacher at Magee, teaches reading and writing to all of the 5th graders.  She, along with her teaching partner, Mr. Suhr, wanted the 5th graders to do something special for their buddies.  Mrs. Behnke also wanted her students to work on reading fluency.  That's when she thought of Reader's Theater!  We put the students into groups and had them pick a script.  We talked to them about practicing and that they have to read the script many times to become fluent.  We also had them work on using lots of expression and changing their voice for the characters they are reading.  After all, their audience is five and six year olds!

I wanted the students to have more experience with some digital tools, so we decided to have them turn their reader's theater script into a digital story for their buddy.  After some practice with the script, they started to look for copyright free images they could use in their story.  They are saving them to their Google Drive so they can access them from the Google Drive app on the iPods that we will start using next week.  It was a great start and I can't wait to see what next week brings!