Well, Book Fair is over for the Fall and I've had a day to recover! Onward and forward, right? This week, I don't get to see my kiddos because they're going to our new STEM Lab called the "Innovation Lab" and working on projects there. So, 3 weeks out of the nine weeks, it happens, and it happens during Library Resource. However, our TAG teacher who also runs the Innovation Lab does not need my help. She does an awesome job with students and I feel like I sit there and babysit. My first attempt at having a "flexible" schedule those weeks flopped. No one signed up to come to the library. Maybe it was the sample lesson plans I sent out? I admit now, looking at them, they were a bit ambitious (having a "Mali Marketplace" for our 3rd graders, for example), but I was trying to get our teachers excited about using the library, me, the space, the resources.....and nada. No one signed up. However, this last time, I was talking to a Kindergarten teacher whose class had missed our Digital Citizenship lesson I co-taught with our ITRT. We decided to make it up during this coming Innovation Week.
That's when it hit me! Inviting teachers to sign up and basically hinting at an extra resource/planning time. I handle classes on a daily basis with no extra teacher (just like they do). Also, my K and 1 teachers were saying how disappointed the kids were that they weren't in library and checking out books (not to mention a few parents complained!). Bingo! My K and 1 teachers are awesome and I have 6 out of the 11 (so far) signed up for this coming week and I'm teaching maps (pirate maps!) with first grade and math patterns with Kindergarten. Both are concepts they've been working on in class, so it's not an introduction but rather an extension with a bonus of checking out books! Win-win, right?
It also made me feel good that the teachers told me the kids missed coming to library and would be super excited about this coming week!
So, tomorrow starts my first K group so I've been working on what to do with patterns. I'm using this nonfiction book to review patterns:
Then, I'm going to use the fantastic pictures in these books to have students point out patterns:
Finally, we're going to end with one of my dad's favorite read-alouds (the grandkids love his monkey impression!):
We have other pattern books in the library which are so fantastic - well, they're already checked out! I immediately thought of Caps for Sale with patterns because a) I remember his caps having to be in a certain order and b) a sequel is coming out and is on preorder!!! So exciting!
So, I spent this afternoon getting inspired and creative with caps and monkeys and came up with activities to use based on monkeys and caps! I'm going to set up several stations for students to choose and complete:
a) using pattern blocks to create repeating patterns
b) sorting fall themed erasers and then creating patterns with them
c) color and cut out monkey patterns then gluing them to the vine page
d) create a pattern by coloring caps on a page
The last two can be found in my pack {here} at TPT or {here} at TN. Stay tuned and I'll post the pirate map activities for the firsties this week!
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